Should Have Been Her Child
Should Have Been Her Child
Stella Bagwell
FIVE YEARS TOO LATE….She should have been mine, Victoria Ketchum thought as she cradled Jess Hasting's daughter. Instead, Victoria had turned from Jess, and he'd married another. Now a widowed single father, the lean, rugged deputy sheriff could still make her passion rise–but the bitterness of their breakup kept them apart.Until now.Now Jess saw Victoria strictly as his daughter's doctor. And Victoria needed Jess's lawman skills when a body was found on her family's ranch. Yet, working together to care for his sick little girl, and to investigate the murder, made them remember just how good it had been between them.And how good it could still be…
“Something happens to a man when he’s rejected by the woman he loves,”
Jess said. “It makes him keep wondering why.”
Victoria turned to him and drew in a ragged breath that seared her lungs. “We both know you never loved me, Jess. So don’t try to act like the injured soul.”
A tense moment passed. “You don’t know anything about me,” he said softly. “You never did.”
She swallowed, struggling to push down the tears that continued to scald her throat. “I know enough. I know that if you’d really wanted me, you wouldn’t have let me go. You wouldn’t have walked away. And you wouldn’t have waited four years to come back.”
“Maybe I was waiting for you to come to me.”
Dear Reader,
As you take a break from raking those autumn leaves, you’ll want to check out our latest Silhouette Special Edition novels! This month, we’re thrilled to feature Stella Bagwell’s Should Have Been Her Child (#1570), the first book in her new miniseries, MEN OF THE WEST. Stella writes that this series is full of “rough, tough cowboys, the strong bond of sibling love and the wide-open skies of the west. Mix those elements with a dash of intrigue, mayhem and a whole lot of romance and you get the Ketchum family!” And we can’t wait to read their stories!
Next, Christine Rimmer brings us The Marriage Medallion (#1567), the third book in her VIKING BRIDES series, which is all about matrimonial destiny and solving secrets of the past. In Jodi O’Donnell’s The Rancher’s Daughter (#1568), part of popular series MONTANA MAVERICKS: THE KINGSLEYS, two unlikely soul mates are trapped in a cave…and find a way to stay warm. Practice Makes Pregnant (#1569) by Lois Faye Dyer, the fourth book in the MANHATTAN MULTIPLES series, tells the story of a night of passion and a very unexpected development between a handsome attorney and a bashful assistant. Will their marriage of convenience turn to everlasting love?
Patricia Kay will hook readers into an intricate family dynamic and heart-thumping romance in Secrets of a Small Town (#1571). And Karen Sandler’s Counting on a Cowboy (#1572) is an engaging tale about a good-hearted teacher who finds love with a rancher and his young daughter. You won’t want to miss this touching story!
Stay warm in this crisp weather with six complex and satisfying romances. And be sure to return next month for more emotional storytelling from Silhouette Special Edition!
Happy reading!
Gail Chasan
Senior Editor
Should Have Been Her Child
Stella Bagwell
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my editor, Mary-Theresa Hussey,
an angel who keeps me on the right course.
And to all the editors I work with at Silhouette.
I love you all.
STELLA BAGWELL
Recently, Stella and her husband of thirty years moved from the hills of Oklahoma to Seadrift, Texas, a sleepy little fishing town located on the coastal bend. Stella says it is a lovely place to let her imagination soar and to put the stories in her head down on paper. She and her husband have one son, Jason, who lives and teaches high school math in nearby Port Lavaca.
Dear Reader,
This new miniseries—MEN OF THE WEST—is something I’ve wanted to write for a long time, but other stories kept popping up for my immediate attention. Now, as I approach my fiftieth book for Silhouette, I’m finally getting to write about the Ketchum family and all of their friends. What a joy! There’s nothing sexier than a man in a pair of cowboy boots and hat. And when he’s a lawman, too, well, he’s pretty nigh irresistible to me.
There is an old saying that everything changes. But thankfully, in my case, I can say that isn’t entirely true. Well, okay, I’ve aged a little. Yet as an author, the excitement and love I have for writing romance is still just as great as it was eighteen years ago when I sold my first story to Silhouette.
Being part of the Silhouette family has been a wonderful honor for me and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the editors I’ve worked with down through the years. You’ve made my job a pure pleasure! And last, but certainly not least, I’d like to thank you, all my loyal readers for buying my books. Without you, this job of mine wouldn’t mean anything and I sincerely hope that I’ve given you as much pleasure reading my stories as I’ve gotten from creating them. And it’s my fervent wish that you’re as eager to read my next fifty books as I am to write them!
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!
God bless,
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter One
“Victoria, something has happened out at the T Bar K!”
The woman with dark hair sitting behind the large desk didn’t bother lifting her head from the notes she was studying. “Something is always happening at the ranch. If he’s bleeding, put him in exam room one. If he thinks something might be broken, take him on down to X-ray and I’ll be there in just a moment.”
“No, Victoria. There’s not an injured cowboy in the waiting room. It’s something else.”
Dr. Victoria Ketchum glanced up from the file on her desk to see her nurse’s face peering around the edge of the office door.
Nevada Ortiz was usually unflappable. Even when patients were bleeding all over the floor or passing out in the waiting room. But right now the young woman’s creamed-coffee complexion was downright pasty.
“What do you mean? Has some of my family called the clinic?”
Nevada quickly stepped inside the small office and approached Victoria’s desk. “No. One of the patients was listening to his scanner and overheard the sheriff’s department dispatching some men out there.”
Like Nevada, Victoria had never been one to panic. Doctors simply couldn’t allow themselves the luxury of losing their cool under fire. Now years of training and self-discipline surfaced to keep her pulse at an even pace and her thoughts focused toward a logical explanation.
“It isn’t like you to listen to patients’ gossip, Nevada.”
The young nurse gave her boss a rueful smile. “You’re right. If I stopped to listen to all the gossip that goes through this clinic I’d never get any work done. But I think this time there’s something to it. You…haven’t heard from the ranch in the past hour or so?”
Victoria shook her dark head. “No. And I’d be the first one my brother Ross would call if there’d been a severe accident or an injury. So that tells me no one has been injured.” She closed the manila folder and rose from her chair. “Is Mr. Valdez still in exam room two?”
Nevada stepped back as her boss quickly moved from behind the massive oak desk. “Yes. But, Victoria, aren’t you going to at least make a quick call to the ranch?” she asked with amazement. “If the law is headed out there…something must be happening.”
Victoria’s soft lips tilted into an indulgent smile for her nurse and friend. “They probably found the stud that’s been missing for the past couple of weeks. And if that’s the case, everyone on the ranch will have reason to celebrate tonight.” She motioned for Nevada to join her as she headed out of the room. “Quit worrying and follow me. If I’m not mistaken, I still have three more patients to see before quitting time. We have work to do.”
For the next hour, Victoria put any thoughts of the T Bar K out of her mind as she listened to aches and complaints and wrote down orders and prescriptions. Even though she was a Ketchum and still lived on the ranch, she was a doctor first and foremost and her patients’ welfare was something she always put before herself.
But later that evening, after she’d left the clinic and headed her vehicle north out of Aztec, a strange sense of dread gnawed at the pit of her stomach. In all likelihood, the law had gone to the T Bar K to talk to her brother about the missing stallion. She couldn’t imagine them going to the ranch for any other reason. Yet something like that wouldn’t be considered an emergency requiring radio dispatch, she silently reasoned.
Don’t borrow trouble, she scolded herself as she forced her fingers to relax on the steering wheel. For all she knew her nosy patient might have gotten his information mixed up. And anyway, even if men from the sheriff’s department had visited the ranch, that didn’t mean Jess had been one of them.
No, Jess Hastings, the undersheriff of San Juan County, probably had much more important things on his docket than to travel out to the home of an old flame.
Old flame. Dear Lord, how could she think of herself in those terms, she wondered. Jess has been out of her life for four years or more now. She was nothing to him. And obviously never had been.
After traveling several miles, she turned off the highway and onto a graveled road leading east into the high desert mountains.
May had brought much warmer weather to northern New Mexico. The snows in the higher elevations had started to melt, flooding the streams and rivers below. The Animas River, which cut through a section of the T Bar K, lay to the left of the winding dirt road. Now and then Victoria caught sight of the rushing rapids as her vehicle began the climb that would eventually take her to the ranch house.
When she finally entered the main gate leading up to the rambling log structure, the spring sun had already slid behind the mountains. Dusky purple shadows shrouded the house, which was perched on a ledge high enough to give a partial view of the valley floor below. Ketchum land. Farther than the eye could see.
But at the moment, Victoria wasn’t seeing anything except the two utility vehicles with official markings of the San Juan County sheriff’s department parked a few feet from the rail fence running in front of the house.
So Nevada’s warning had been right, she thought, as she deliberately drove around to the back entrance of the house. Something had happened. She could only pray it wasn’t something bad. The Ketchum family had already had their share of bad this past year. What with Tucker dying, a drought putting a heavy financial strain on the ranch and then the stud’s disappearance, she could hardly imagine getting more wretched news.
As always, the long kitchen was warm and filled with the spicy scents of waiting supper. At the huge gas range, the cook, Marina, glanced over her shoulder as Victoria’s footsteps tapped across the tiled floor.
“Better not go to living room, chica. There’s a powwow goin’ on,” the older woman warned.
Biting back a sigh, Victoria reached up and slipped the clasp from her hair to allow the thick black chocolate waves to tumble down around her shoulders. As she massaged her scalp, she reached for a glass in the cupboard.
“I saw the vehicles parked out front. What sort of powwow is going on? Has the stallion been found?”
Marina’s chuckles were mocking as she pushed a wooden spoon through a pot of bubbling cheese sauce. “Somethin’ has been found. But it no horse, chica.”
Victoria paused anxiously as she pushed the glass under the tap. “What? How long has the law been here anyway?”
Marina put down her spoon and looked at Victoria. The Mexican woman had worked for the ranch longer than Victoria could remember. She was always jolly, gentle and compassionate. And now that Tucker and Amelia were gone, she was the last of the old ones. Though she wasn’t an educated woman, and spoke only broken English, Victoria respected her wisdom just the same.
“Three hours, maybe. I was about—”
Marina’s words stopped abruptly as the sound of someone entering the kitchen caught the attention of both women.
Victoria glanced around the cook’s shoulder and immediately went stone still at the sight of Jess Hastings sauntering into the room. Even though he was dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt, the gun strapped to his hip and the badge on his chest told her he was on duty.
The moment he spotted her his mouth tightened, his eyes narrowed. Yet even from a distance she could see the span of four years hadn’t changed him all that much. He was still long, lean and sinfully male. And suddenly her heart was racing like a wild animal caught in a deadly trap.
Thankfully, Marina wasn’t as affected by the man. With one hand on her ample hip, she turned to face him. “You lost?”
Ignoring the cook’s sarcasm, he inclined his head toward Victoria.
“I’d like to speak with Ms. Ketchum. Alone.”
Dear Lord, how many times had she tried to forget that voice? The way it roughened with passion or softened like velvet. There was just a hint of a drawl in it now, reminding Victoria he’d been living near El Paso for the past four years.
She took a step toward him and forced herself to speak. “Marina is busy with supper. We can talk in the study.”
He nodded and she walked briskly past him, out of the kitchen and down a long, dim hallway which led to the east wing of the house.
Even without the sound of his boots making contact with the polished pine floor, Victoria would have known he was following. She could feel his presence behind her. Big, masculine, menacing.
Once inside the study, she switched on a table lamp, took a deep breath, then turned to face him.
“What’s this all about?” she asked without preamble.
His lips twisted and once again her gaze zeroed in on achingly familiar features. The square jaw, jutted chin and eyes as gray as an angry thundercloud. He was not a handsome man. He was simply all male. Rough. Tough. And oh, so irresistible. She’d never wanted any man the way she’d wanted this one. And since him, she hadn’t wanted any.
“I should have known there would be no ‘hello, Jess,’ or ‘how are you doing, Jess?’”
The directness of his stare dared her to look away from him. Victoria’s chin lifted ever so slightly at the challenge.
“I didn’t expect you to want a greeting from me,” she said.
He moved toward her and didn’t stop until there was only the width of his hand separating the two of them. “I expect common courtesy from everyone. Including you Ketchum.”
Her blood was pumping through her veins at such a high rate she actually felt light-headed. It was all she could do to stop herself from grabbing the front of his starched shirt just to keep herself from swaying.
“I didn’t hear you asking about my well-being,” she retorted.
His eyes took their slow, easy time slipping over her long dark hair, soft white skin, blue-green eyes and full red lips. She was as gorgeous as he remembered. Maybe even more so, if that was possible.
For four years he’d tried to forget the image of this woman. How she’d felt in his arms and in his bed. For a while he’d believed that given time he’d be able to exorcise her from his mind. And there were days when he did manage to shake her memory for a few hours. Then she was always back, haunting his past, spoiling his future.
“Hello, Victoria. How are you?”
The softly spoken question was not what she’d been expecting. Even as her senses scattered, she struggled not to let him see what she was thinking. Feeling. Seeing him again shouldn’t be doing this to her. But damn it, Jess Hastings was the one and only thing that could unsettle her.
“If you really want to know, I was fine until I heard that lawmen had invaded the T Bar K.”
One corner of his mouth tilted upward into a semblance of a smile. “I wouldn’t call it an invasion. There’s only two of us here. Myself and Deputy Redwing.”
She desperately needed to turn and walk away. To put a few feet between them so that she could breathe without drawing in his seductive scent, so that she could look at anything other than his chiseled lips and damning eyes. But where she was concerned, Jess had always been a magnet. She couldn’t move away. Not just yet.
“So you’re the undersheriff now,” she said softly. “What happened to your job with the border patrol?”
The grooves bracketing his lips deepened with a tight grimace. “I resigned. For personal reasons.”
Even though Victoria was in an occupation that exposed her to many people and even more gossip, she’d never heard anyone say why Jess Hastings had returned to San Juan County four months ago. And she’d not been brave enough to ask. But now the question was on the tip of her tongue, making her bite down to keep the words from passing her lips.
“How’s your medical practice?” he asked.
“Very busy.”
Her short answer told him she didn’t want to discuss her life with him. Which didn’t surprise Jess. She’d stopped wanting to share anything with him a long time ago.
“I guess you’re wanting to know what I’m doing here?”
She nodded once. “It would help.”
To her surprise, he took hold of her upper arm and led her to a nearby leather couch. Before she sank onto one of the cushions she was struck with the fact of how mushy her knees had grown and how her arm burned where he touched her.
Easing down beside her, Jess pulled off his Stetson and combed his fingers through his short, sandy hair.
“I suppose you know the ranch hands have been out searching for Ross’s stallion,” he began.
“Yes. But Marina informed me that he hasn’t been found.”
Jess stroked his fingers along one side of his jaw as he studied her waiting eyes.
“No. The men found something else,” he said grimly. “A body.”
She wanted to gasp, but the air was suddenly trapped in her lungs. She shook her head, then shook it again. “Did you say a body?”
He continued to search her face. “That’s right. Partially decomposed. But enough to tell us it was human and we think male.”
“Oh dear Lord,” she whispered. “Who—”
“I’ve been questioning your family and some of the hands on the ranch,” he answered her unfinished question. “No one seems to have any idea of who this person might have been or why he was on the T Bar K. I was hoping you might be able to tell me something.”
Incredulous, her gaze latched on to his. “Me? How could I know anything?”
One sandy brow lifted sardonically. “You live here, too.”
“Yes, but I don’t know—” She stopped, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. “This body—are you—do you think there was foul play involved or someone just came along and died of natural causes or an accident?”
His thumb and forefinger slid along the brim of his hat, flattening any bumps or dips from the expensive felt. She tried not to notice his big hands or remember the pleasure they used to give her.
“You’re a doctor. You know it takes time to determine those sorts of things.”
She drew in a needy breath, then slowly released it. “Yes. But—there might have been clues—”
His smile was slow and a bit too indulgent for Victoria’s liking. But then, she didn’t want Jess Hastings to smile at her in any way or for any reason. He was a silver-tongued wolf who’d gobbled up her heart, then spit out the pieces.
“Those are to be shared with the sheriff’s department,” he said shortly. “Not the Ketchum family.”
She wanted to stand and walk away from him, but she was afraid her legs wouldn’t hold her, so she stayed where she was and tried to hold her temper in check. Crossing words with Jess would get her nowhere.
“Well, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can tell you.”
“You might be surprised about that,” he said quietly.
She tried not to shiver as a strange chill traveled down her spine. “You can’t think I would know anything about this person.”
His expression didn’t change. “Oh, I don’t know. I have a habit of thinking things I shouldn’t. Has anyone made you angry in the past few months? So angry that you wanted to kill him?”
She stared at him in stunned fascination. “You’re kidding.”
His gray eyes didn’t blink. “Finding a body is nothing to kid about.”
And she could see that he was serious. Fear, then anger poured though her body, making her go cold, then hot. “You just told me you didn’t know if foul play was involved or not. So why do you want to know if anyone has angered me to the extent of committing murder?”
He smiled, but there was no humor behind the curve of his lips. “You always were a little too sharp for me. Weren’t you, Tori?”
“Don’t call me that!” she whispered icily. He was the only person who’d ever called her by that nickname and as far as she was concerned he’d lost his right to be that intimate with her. “And as for your question, no one has angered me in the past months. But a few years ago—I could have killed you. Given the chance,” she added.
Jess was a man known for keeping his head. It was one of the reasons he’d excelled at his job. A man with a cool head didn’t miss anything going on around him. He could reason, stay aware and stay alive. But there had always been something about Victoria that heated his blood. And it wasn’t just the lush, feminine shape of her. One glance, one word from her had the power to ignite an explosion in him. And she’d just set him off.
He said, “I guess Ketchum blood must be stronger than that Hippocratic oath you took.”
She was shocked to see her fingers had clenched, forming fists at her sides. She forced her hands to relax and her lungs to breathe. “What is that supposed to mean?”
His gray eyes slipped downward to where her breasts pushed against pale blue cashmere. The fabric was as soft as her skin and a knot twisted in his gut at the memory of her full breasts cupped in his hands, the rosy brown nipples begging to be kissed.
He looked at the floor, then back up to her face. “The oath is to save lives, not take them. But—where I’m concerned you only see me through Ketchum eyes.”
“My family never disliked you.”
He let out a harsh laugh, then rose to his feet and crossed the room to where a low fire crackled and spit in a native rock fireplace. “Tucker couldn’t stand the thought of you being anywhere near me.”
She wanted to point out that his comments had nothing to do with his visit to the T Bar K this evening, but she didn’t. For the past four months, since she’d heard Jess had come back to San Juan county, she’d known a time would come when she would have to face him again, to discover for herself if he held any bitterness about the past. She didn’t have to wonder anymore.
“My father didn’t try to prevent me from seeing you.”
His head turned away from the fire to stab her with a hot glare. “Not in words. No, the old man was too sly for that. He knew just how to get to you. And he did.”
Her jaw clenched. “I thought four years would have made you see how wrong you were. But it’s obvious you’re still just as blind and bullheaded as you ever were!”
“You’re the blind one, Victoria. You were then. And you are now.”
If he’d spoken the words in anger she would have understood them. But there had been no animosity in his voice. Just a quiet sort of warning.
Before she realized what she was doing, she left the couch and went to stand in front of him. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
He took a deep breath, then reached for a small framed photo on the fireplace mantel. It was a snapshot of Tucker and Amelia in their younger days, back when their four children had been small and the oldest, Hugh, had still been alive.
“Everybody but you knows Tucker Ketchum was a shady character—”
“You don’t—”
“That’s one of the reasons why this ranch is so big and profitable. And I’m afraid it’s a likely reason a body was discovered facedown in an arroyo on the T Bar K.”
She pushed at the heavy wave of nearly black hair dipping over her eye. “You’re despicable! You’re not fit to be this county’s undersheriff.”
“Why? Because I didn’t hang around and let the old man corrupt me, too?”
Raw fury brought her hand up and swinging at his face. He caught her wrist easily and jerked her up against him.
“This whole thing is making you happy, isn’t it?” She flung the question at him. “You’ve just been waiting for some reason to spite my family. And now you have it in the form of a dead body!”
His arm slipped around her back to still her squirms. “Nothing about this is making me happy, Victoria.” His eyes suddenly focused on her lips and then his head bent. “Especially not this.”
A kiss was the last thing she’d expected from the man and for a moment she was frozen with shock at the feel of his hard lips spreading over hers. Then her hands lifted to his broad shoulders and pushed. The feeble gesture of disapproval caused his lips to ease a fraction away from hers. But his hold on her back tightened, making her breasts flatten against him, her hips arch into his.
“Jess—”
If she had whispered his name in protest, he would have released her. But there had only been hunger in the sound of her voice and his desire fed on it like flames to the wind.
Time ceased to exist as his lips searched the sweetness of her mouth, his hands roamed the warmth of her back, then tangled in the thick waves of her hair.
Long before he lifted his head, she was clutching folds of his shirt, struggling to keep her knees from buckling. Her breathing was ragged, her heart racing like a wild horse on a lightning-struck mesa. No one but Jess could make her feel so helpless, so alive. So much a woman.
Dear Lord, nothing had changed, she thought desperately. Four long, lonely years had done nothing to erase this man from her heart.
“Is this how you question your female suspects nowadays?” she finally managed to ask.
Slowly, he moved his arm from around her back and she quickly put several inches between the two of them.
“That wasn’t a question, Tori. That was a statement.”
She swallowed as she pressed the back of her hand against her burning lips. “The statement being?”
He smiled, but once again there was no warmth or sincerity behind the expression.
“That I’m in charge of things now. And the fact that you’re a Ketchum means nothing where the law is concerned.”
Pain splintered in the middle of her chest, but she somehow met his gaze in spite of it.
“Is that how you kissed me? As a lawman? Or the Jess I used to know?”
For long moments his gray eyes simply roamed her flushed face. Then his lips parted, but before he could reply, a knock interrupted him.
Glancing over her shoulder, Victoria saw a young Native American man dressed similarly to Jess standing in the open doorway of the study. Victoria noticed that his dark, curious glance missed nothing as he took in the sight of her and Jess standing close together on the hearth.
“Sorry to interrupt, Jess. I thought you’d want to know the head wrangler has arrived back on the ranch. He’s waiting in the bunkhouse.”
The head wrangler for the T Bar K was Linc Ketchum, Victoria’s cousin. Like the rest of her family, she seriously doubted he would have any answers for the lawmen.
“I’ll be right there, Redwing,” Jess told him.
Nodding, the deputy slipped from view. Beside her, Jess made a move to leave the room. Before he could walk away, she reached out and caught his arm.
One brow arched with mocking inquisition as he paused and glanced down at her.
“Jess, what does this all mean?”
The quiet desperation in her voice was a spur in his ribs, both painful and irritating. “We’ll just have to see, now won’t we, Tori?”
Chilled by his sarcasm, she dropped her hand from his arm. “You’re not the same man I used to know, Jess.”
His lips thinned, his nostrils flared as the track of his gray eyes burned her face. “No. I’ll never be that man again.”
Chapter Two
The night air had grown chilly and mosquitoes were making a feast of her bared forearms, but Victoria was loath to move from her spot on the patio to return inside the house.
Jess and his deputy had left the ranch more than two hours ago, yet the place was still buzzing—she was still buzzing. And she didn’t like it.
She hadn’t thought that seeing Jess again would have left her this shaken. And she tried to tell herself it was the circumstances of his appearance that were the real reason she was so disturbed. After all, it wasn’t every day a body was discovered on her family’s land, without any sort of explanation as to why or how it had gotten there.
“Victoria? I wondered where you’d gotten to.”
From her chair, she glanced over her shoulder at her brother Ross, then back out to the dark, pine-covered mountain rising like a sentinel over the T Bar K ranch house.
“For the past hour I’ve been trying to muster up enough energy to leave this chair,” she told him.
His hand came down on her shoulder and gently squeezed. “You hardly ate any supper. Are you feeling all right?”
She tried to laugh, but the sound held little cheer. “Remember, I’m the doctor, Ross. I’m supposed to ask that question.”
He eased his long frame down in the woven lawn chair sitting at an angle to hers. “That’s the trouble with you, Victoria. You’re always taking care of others rather than yourself.”
At thirty-five, and five years older than Victoria, Ross was the younger Ketchum son. Since their brother Hugh had been killed in an accident with a bull six years ago, Ross had taken total reins of managing the T Bar K. Along with being business savvy, Ross was as handsome as sin and some said as tough as their late father, Tucker. But to Victoria he was always gentle, her rock when no one else was there for her.
Casting him a wan smile, she said, “I’m all right, Ross. It’s just been a…long day.”
He sighed. “A hell of a long day,” he agreed.
“Were you able to contact Seth?”
“No. He’s out. On a case, more than likely.”
Their older brother Seth had moved away from the ranch many years ago to become a Texas Ranger. If a problem did arise over the discovered body, Seth would know how to handle it. Victoria could only hope their older brother wouldn’t have to be bothered.
“It’s just as well. There’s really not a problem. And I don’t foresee one.”
“How do you figure?” Ross asked.
She rubbed the mosquito bites on the back of her arm. “Obviously this man wandered onto Ketchum land and died of natural causes or suffered a fall for one reason or another. There’s nothing sinister about that.”
Ross thoughtfully stroked his chin. “I’m surprised you used that word. Jess didn’t imply there was anything sinister going on.”
Her mind whirled as she regarded her brother’s rugged face. “That’s not the impression he gave me.”
Ross’s brows lifted. “Maybe you misread the man.”
“The only time I misread Jess Hastings was four years ago. When he left San Juan County.”
But tonight Victoria had read him loud and clear. Especially his kiss. He was out to hurt her, any way he could. And the idea left a terrible ache in her heart.
“Hell, Victoria,” her brother gently scolded, “I thought you’d gotten Jess Hastings out of your system a long time ago.”
She rose to her feet with plans to go back inside. “I have. I just haven’t forgotten the hard lesson he taught me.”
He studied her for long moments. “I hope you had the good sense not to anger the man, Victoria. He’s in a position to help us or hurt us. I wouldn’t want it to be the latter.”
It didn’t dawn on Ross that Jess had already hurt her more than anything or anyone ever could. But then Ross didn’t know the whole story behind her and Jess. No one did. And as far as she was concerned, no one ever would.
“If Jess decides to pursue this thing in a negative way, there’s nothing I can do to stop him,” she said, then hurried inside the house before her brother could say more.
The baby-fine curls surrounded the child’s head like a red-gold halo. Long curling lashes of the same color lay against cheeks flushed from the warmth of the nearby fireplace.
Jess’s daughter had been asleep in his arms for some time now, but still he lingered in the rocker, savoring the feel of her warm weight resting against his chest. She was the only thing he’d done right in his life. The only thing he really lived for. Her and his grandparents.
“Is Katrina asleep? I’ve got your supper heated in the microwave.”
Jess looked up from his daughter’s face to see Alice, his grandmother, standing a few steps away in the dimly lit living room. She was a tall, rawboned woman, her skin brown and wrinkled by hard work and nearly seventy years of harsh, New Mexico climate. Her hands were big and tough, her hair gray and wiry. But her heart was as gentle as a Chinook wind that melted the winter snows.
When Jess’s father had died at an early age from pneumonia complicated by alcoholism, he’d left behind a five-year-old son and a wife who’d never really wanted a husband and child in the first place. As soon as Jim Hastings had been planted in the ground, his wife had left for greener pastures.
Thankfully, Alice and William had been there to take in their grandson and raise him as their own child. Ma and Pa, as Jess called them, were the only real parents he’d ever known. And now they were helping him raise his own daughter. But they were getting too old to see after a rambunctious two-and-a-half-year-old toddler, even if Jess did take her into a day care near Cedar Hill for most of the day.
“Yeah, she’s asleep. I’ve just been holding her. Thinking how much she’s grown since the two of us came home to the ranch.”
Alice smiled with affection as she took in the sight of her grandson and great-granddaughter. “She’s really starting to string her words together now. But Pa had to scold her for saying a curse word today.”
Jess chuckled. “Now I wonder where she might have heard such a thing?” he asked as he carefully rose from the rocker with the toddler still cradled in his arms.
“Pa said it was from me,” Alice said. “But we both know I’ve never said a bad word in my life.”
“Only if you were by yourself or with someone else,” Jess joked.
Alice’s laughter followed him as he carried his daughter down a narrow hallway and into a small bedroom situated next to his.
After placing her in a white, wooden crib, he made certain she was covered against the night chill, then headed back through the old house to the kitchen.
Even though the hour was late and Will had gone to bed two hours earlier, his grandmother was there waiting for him.
“You didn’t have to wait for me, Ma. I can fend for myself,” he assured her. But already she’d placed his plate of food on the table, along with silverware and a tall glass of iced tea.
Waving away his words, she sank down in the chair next to him and pushed a hand through her gray hair.
“I’ll go to bed in a minute. I wanted to ask you what happened today out at the T Bar K.”
Shaking black pepper over the food, Jess paused to look at her. “News sure does travel fast for us to be living fifteen miles from town. It’s not like you to be gossiping on the telephone.”
“Who has time for the damn telephone? I went into Aztec for a few things at the grocery. Ed mentioned it when I checked out.”
Jess shoveled a bite of black beans into his mouth. “What makes you think I know anything about it?”
She made a face at him. “You’re the undersheriff,” she said proudly. “If anything of importance happens around here, you’re gonna know it.”
With a wry shake of his head, Jess said, “A body was discovered on T Bar K range.”
“I’ve heard that much.”
He chewed a forkful of rice spiced with chili peppers. “There’s not much more to tell. We’ll have to wait and see what the coroner uncovers.”
Alice sighed. “I guess…what I was really wondering was…if you saw Victoria while you were at the ranch.”
He glanced up to see his grandmother regarding him with quiet concern. Since he’d returned from Texas, she’d not brought up the subject of Victoria. Not that there was anything to bring up. That part of his life had been over for years now. He’d already married and lost a wife since Victoria had turned her back on him.
“Why would you want to know that?” he hedged.
Impatient now, she asked, “Well, did you?”
His gaze slipped back to his plate. “Yeah. I questioned her.”
Surprise crossed her wrinkled face. “Questioned her? Why?”
“Ma,” he said tiredly, “it’s my job.”
Moments passed as Jess continued to eat.
Finally, Alice asked, “So was she…glad to see you?”
Jess gripped his fork as he thought about the impulsive kiss he’d exchanged with Victoria. For a few seconds her lips had said she was glad to have him close again. But her words had conveyed something altogether different. And Jess wasn’t ever going to repeat the mistake of allowing her body to rule his thinking.
“No person is ever glad to see a lawman, Ma. Unless they’re in trouble and need help.”
Rising from her chair, Alice crossed to a large gas range and turned the flame under a red granite coffeepot.
“Did you ever stop to think Victoria fits that bill?”
He snorted. “Victoria is a Ketchum. They have money and power. And now that she’s a practicing physician, she has even more money to buy herself out of anything.”
Alice shot him a disgusted look as she pulled a mug down from a pine cupboard. “I’m not talking about trouble with the law, Jess.”
His fork paused in midair as he glanced at his grandmother. “What are you talking about, Ma?”
She poured the coffee, then placed it next to his right hand. “I think you need to figure that out for yourself.”
Jess realized there wasn’t any point asking her what she meant by that comment. She was already on her way out of the kitchen. And even if she hadn’t been headed to bed, she wouldn’t have explained. She’d always liked to let him stew in his own juices.
Well, it won’t work this time, Ma, Jess said to himself. Victoria Ketchum was a bad memory from his past. And if she was in any sort of trouble, she’d have to look elsewhere for help. He wasn’t about to become involved with the woman again. And from her reaction to him earlier this evening, she wasn’t about to let him.
He finished his meal and the last of his coffee. After rinsing the dishes, he walked down to the barn. On the south side of the building two horses milled about in separate lots. Normally at this time of year the horses were loose and running the range, feasting on new spring grasses. Pa had kept the horses penned for more than a week now, waiting for Jess to find time to help him with roundup.
At seventy-one, Will was still spry and healthy and a better cowhand than most men thirty years younger. Jess didn’t want to think about the time his grandfather would no longer be able to pitch hay, build fences or brand cattle. As for riding a horse, the old man would be happy to die in the saddle.
Jess checked the watering troughs and feed buckets hanging on the rail fence even though he knew Will had already seen to the horses’ needs. He was simply making the rounds, satisfying the lawman inside of him that all was well.
In the morning, he would tell Pa to give him two or three more days and then he’d help him hit the brush. Since there was only the two of them, it would take at least three days of hard riding to scour the mountains and arroyos around the ranch for stray Hastings cattle.
They didn’t have a bunkhouse full of cowboys to do the work for them. But even if he had those resources, Will wouldn’t want it that way. Like Jess, the old man was a proud loner. He didn’t want anyone doing his job for him. Yet he welcomed Jess’s companionship and helping hand, because Jess was family. And someday all of this would be his grandson’s.
For the past four years Jess’s help in keeping the Hastings ranch going had been in the form of money. A part of the salary he’d earned with the border patrol. And if Katrina’s mother hadn’t been killed in a car accident, he supposed he would have still been in El Paso.
Sighing wearily, he lifted the felt hat from his head and scraped his fingers through thick waves flattened against his skull.
It must be true that all things happened for a reason, he thought, as he walked slowly back toward the small, stucco house. Regina hadn’t been the love of his life. He’d married her believing she would fill the empty hole in him after Victoria had rejected him. But she hadn’t. And he supposed he couldn’t blame her for divorcing him. He hadn’t been able to give her his heart or the richer lifestyle she’d so dreamed about.
Her untimely death had left his little girl without a mother. Yet it had brought him back to New Mexico, to his grandparents and a job that was better suited to him.
Yes, he thought, all things happened for a reason. Some good. Some bad. Now he could only wonder what this trouble at the T Bar K was going to mean. For him. And the Ketchums.
Victoria had reached the end of her rope. Rather than discussing their health problems, three-quarters of her patients preferred to hear the scoop about the body found on the T Bar K. Who was it? What had happened? What was the law doing about it? Was the sheriff’s department calling it a murder?
She couldn’t get any work done, much less find a moment of peace to clear her mind. By six o’clock on the fourth evening after Jess’s visit to the ranch, she was ready to scream.
Her jagged nerves must have shown on her face when Nevada rapped lightly on the open door of her office.
“Knock, knock. Is it safe to come in?”
Victoria frowned at the young nurse. “Since when have you ever worried about entering my office?”
“About two minutes ago. You looked as though you could wring someone’s neck.”
Victoria signed her name to the bottom of the document she’d been reading, then slapped the paper atop a pile she’d been meaning to clear from her desk for two days. “It’s been a difficult day,” she tried to explain.
Nevada eased her hip onto the corner of the desk. “You look exhausted.”
Victoria chuckled. “I’m not twenty-two like you, Nevada. I’m thirty. By six in the evening I look wilted.”
Nevada shook a finger at her. “That’s not your age. That’s from working too hard.”
“I’m not the only one who works hard around here.” She gave the nurse a grateful smile. “Has Lois already gone home?”
Nevada nodded. “The receptionist is gone, the front door is locked and the lights are out. You should be leaving, too.”
Victoria rose from the leather chair and began to gather several medical reports she planned to read tonight.
Nevada kept her seat, seemingly not in any hurry to leave Victoria. It wasn’t like the young woman, Victoria decided. Normally, she was always in a rush to get home or run some sort of errand, not to mention call one of her countless boyfriends.
“Uh—did you find something bad on Mrs. Barton’s test results?”
Victoria gave her friend and co-worker a reassuring smile. “No. Mrs. Barton is going to be fine. The tests show her heart is strong and healthy. She strained a muscle in her chest while playing baseball with her ten-year-old son. The pain was mimicking angina, that’s all.”
“Oh, that’s good news. I thought—well, you’ve looked a little down these past few days. I was afraid it might have something to do with one of the patients. You treat them all as if they were your family.”
With Victoria’s mother passing, her brother being killed and then her father dying, the past years had seen her once-large family dwindle down to only two brothers. To make up for the void, she supposed she had turned more and more to her patients.
“You worry too much about me, Nevada.”
The younger woman shot Victoria an affectionate grin. “You’re my boss. And friend. I’d rather see you smiling.”
Victoria made a motion that the two of them should leave the small office. After turning off the light, the women walked slowly down a narrow hallway which would lead them to a back exit of the brick building that served as Victoria’s private clinic.
As they walked, Victoria replied, “It’s hard for me to smile when all I hear is questions and speculations about a body being found on the ranch. I’m really getting weary of people asking me about it.”
Shrugging, Nevada reasoned, “It’s big news, Victoria. The whole thing has aroused curiosity in the community. That’s only natural.”
“I understand that much. But it’s impossible to discuss medications, treatments or health problems when my patients want to gossip.”
Nevada had to laugh. “I know what you mean. I can hardly take a blood pressure without people bombarding me with questions. Maybe the authorities will come up with some new information that will quieten down all this talk.”
Victoria nodded hopefully. “What’s needed is a concrete explanation. One that will satisfy all this curiosity and all the townsfolk will turn their attention elsewhere.”
Reaching the back door, the two women paused.
“You’re right about needing an explanation,” Nevada agreed. “But how long do you think it’s going to take the law to figure things out? Sometimes these unknown identity cases take months, even years, before they’re solved.”
Victoria groaned at the thought. Several months of this and she’d pull out her hair. “I can’t stand another week of this uproar, much less months. I’ve got to do something about it.”
Interest peaked Nevada’s dark brows. “Like what?” she asked eagerly.
“Once I leave here, I’m going over to the sheriff’s department,” Victoria stated firmly. “I want answers. Or if not answers, at least some reassurance that the law is moving on this case.”
A wicked grin suddenly appeared on Nevada’s pretty face. “Hmmm. You might meet up with some resistance there,” she said.
Victoria knew the younger woman was talking about Jess. Although she hadn’t known the nurse before the undersheriff had left the area and Victoria behind, Nevada had heard about their relationship. At least, what the general public knew about it and the bits that Victoria had volunteered to her. But she’d not told the other woman everything. No one, not even her family members, knew how much she had loved Jess Hastings or the devastation his leaving had caused her. She’d kept most of it hidden. After all, she was a doctor. She couldn’t be needy herself. She had to take care of the needy.
“I didn’t say I was going over there to see Jess,” Victoria pointed out. “There are other officers in the department, including the sheriff.”
Nevada shook her head. “I heard Sheriff Perez is in Santa Fe on some sort of conference. You won’t be talking to him.”
Victoria refused to be deterred. Tomorrow when her patients started in about John Doe’s body, she was going to have some sort of information to put their curiosity to rest. “Then I’ll see Deputy Redwing,” she told Nevada. “He was at the ranch with Jess, so he’s obviously working the case.”
Nevada’s black eyes suddenly glinted with interest at the mention of the young Native American lawman. “I wouldn’t mind talking to him myself,” she purred.
Groaning, Victoria reached for the door. “I know you’re having fun playing the field now. But eventually your heart is going to be broken and when it is, you’ll be wishing you never heard the word ‘man.’”
Nevada chuckled. “Sometimes a girl has to take a chance, Victoria.”
“Hmm. Well, I’m all finished with taking chances. I’ll leave that up to you, Nevada. But when you find yourself trying to glue the pieces of your heart back together, you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
Minutes later as Victoria headed across town she began to doubt her decision to visit the sheriff’s office. Sticking her nose further into the investigation would probably only make matters worse. From his attitude the other day, Jess would like nothing better than to deal her a pile of misery. More than he already had, she thought grimly.
But this whole matter was interfering with her work. And she wasn’t about to let anything come between her and her patients. Even Jess Hastings.
After parking in the first available space near the sheriff’s office, she pulled off her lab coat, then glanced hurriedly in the rearview mirror. Except for a few loose tendrils, her dark hair was still pulled in a loose knot of curls atop her head.
She smoothed back a stray wisp from her forehead, but stopped short of applying powder or lipstick. If she did happen to run into Jess, she didn’t want him thinking she’d spruced up for his benefit or any of the other law officers.
Inside the building she stopped at the first desk she came to. Seated behind it, a blond, middle-aged woman dressed in a police uniform was talking on the telephone.
Placing her hand over the receiver’s mouthpiece, she questioned Victoria, “Can I help you with something?”
“I’m Victoria Ketchum,” she explained. “I’d like to talk with Deputy Redwing if I could.”
The woman shook her head. “Sorry. The deputy isn’t in right now. Is there someone else—uh, did you say your name was Ketchum?”
Victoria didn’t miss the sudden spark of recognition in the woman’s eyes. “Yes. Dr. Victoria Ketchum. I wanted—”
“I think the lady wants to talk with me.”
Both women turned their heads at the approaching male voice and Victoria’s heart sped into overdrive at the sight of Jess striding her way.
Turning toward him, she said coolly, “I wouldn’t want to take up your time, Officer Hastings.”
The smile on his face matched the frost in her voice. “I’m sure what we have to talk about will only take a few minutes.” He gestured for her to precede him down a short corridor. “Come along to my office.”
She’d rather crawl into a rattlesnake den than join him in the privacy of his office. But with the other woman watching, she could hardly put up a fuss. Especially when she figured that even on a slack day it would be hard for anyone to get a word with Jess without an appointment.
As she walked past him, he told the woman officer, “Don’t disturb me with any calls for the next few minutes, Sharon. I’ll get any messages after I’m finished with Ms. Ketchum.”
Finished with Ms. Ketchum. He was so right, Victoria thought grimly. He’d done that a long time ago. But as she followed him out of the room, she wondered why nothing between the two of them felt finished. Instead, she had the gnawing feeling it was starting all over again.
Chapter Three
Jess’s office was located through a second door on the right of the large hallway. Somewhere, farther in the back of the building, Victoria could hear raised male voices, although she couldn’t decipher the words being said. No doubt the muffled shouts were unhappy complaints from arrestees.
Across the hallway, several officers were grouped around a table littered with coffee and soft drink cups. Deputy Redwing was not among them, so the woman at the front desk must have been telling the truth about the man not being in the building. It would be her unfortunate luck that he was out and Jess was in, she thought dismally.
The room Jess ushered her into was small. Inside the cluttered space was a large desk with a comfortable leather chair, two tall file cabinets and, for visitors, a couple of straight-backed wooden chairs. Beneath a wide window on the south wall, a table held a coffeemaker and all the fixings. Atop one of the file cabinets, a radio was playing at a very low volume. After a moment she realized it was tuned to a local country station.
Closing the door behind him, he said, “Have a seat, Victoria.”
It was more of a command than an invitation. She decided to ignore it and stand.
“I don’t want to—take up that much of your time,” she reasoned.
“You’ve already said that.” While he eased his long frame into the leather chair behind his desk, he gestured for her to do his bidding. “So why don’t you let me be the one to worry about my time?”
She was on his turf now. If she tried to resist him too much, she’d only wind up making a fool out of herself, she decided. And it probably would be better to take Jess sitting down. He’d always had a bad habit of weakening her knees.
“Now,” he said after she’d made herself comfortable on the wooden chair. “What were you wanting to see Deputy Redwing about?”
Victoria forced herself to meet his gaze. And just like three days ago, she felt jolted all the way to her toes. “About the body, of course.”
His gray eyes flicked keenly over her face, then dropped to her thin yellow sweater and on down to where her crossed legs were exposed by the slit in her brown skirt. He was the only man who knew what she looked like beneath her clothing and she could only hope that time had dimmed his memory.
“What about it?” he asked.
She released an impatient breath. “What’s happening in the investigation? Have you found out anything?”
Crossing his arms across his chest, Jess leaned back in the chair and continued to study her for several long seconds. “Funny, you didn’t think there was anything to get in a stew about a few days ago when we found the body. Now you’re wanting answers.”
Her nostrils flared as she tried to hold on to her temper. Back in the days when she and Jess were a couple, she’d not even possessed a temper. But then he’d never done anything to hurt or anger her. That hadn’t happened until he’d gotten the wild idea to tear off to Texas.
“I still don’t think there’s anything…sinister about the man’s death,” she said. “As a matter of fact, I’m not the one wanting the information. It’s my patients.”
One brow arched with sarcasm. “That’s a good one, Victoria. Better than most I hear.”
His mocking attitude caused her lips to purse with disapproval. “It’s true, Jess. I can’t—these past few days in my clinic have been—well, do you know what it’s like trying to tell a man what he should be eating to lower his cholesterol while he’s asking me what the sheriff’s department is doing about the poor fella they found on the T Bar K?”
A bland smile crossed his features. “I’m sure it’s just as frustrating as people coming in here trying to tell me how to do my job.”
“But you have the choice of telling them to leave. I don’t.”
His expression didn’t soften. “You have a mouth. Use it. Explain that the poor fella who died on the T Bar K is none of their business. That should be easy enough.”
She passed a hand over her forehead and realized as she did that her fingers were trembling and beads of sweat had popped out on her skin.
Signs of fatigue, she told herself. Which shouldn’t surprise her. She’d had little rest these past few nights. Sleep had come in fitful snatches while her dreams had been tortured with images of the man sitting across from her. She had to get a grip on herself. She couldn’t go on like this.
“Twenty-five times a day?” she asked dryly, then her eyes narrowed as something he’d just said struck her. “You said the man who died on the T Bar K. Do you know for a fact that he died there? Or was he dumped on the ranch afterwards?”
Her questions caused him to lean forward and prop his elbows atop the desk. Even with several inches separating them, Victoria could feel his presence. Strong. Virile. And unyielding. Those things that had once attracted her to Jess were now the very things that unsettled her the most.
“If the body had been dumped, then there could only be one conclusion. And that would be murder. But, I was merely making conversation, not stating facts.” He continued to regard her with mild suspicion. “Why? Do you know something I don’t?”
She made an impatient gesture with her hand. “I came to you for answers, Jess. Not the other way around.”
“If I remember correctly, you came here to see Deputy Redwing. That’s what I heard you telling Sharon.”
He was playing cat and mouse with her. Teasing her with words and phrases when all along he knew every thought that was flitting through her head. Damn him.
“I did ask to see Deputy Redwing,” she admitted. “I figured he’d be much easier to get answers from than you. And it looks as though I figured right.”
To her amazement, he chuckled. “Don’t bet on it. Daniel is kinda like me. He likes to keep things under his hat. And he’s very stubborn if anyone tries to persuade him otherwise. Including beautiful women.”
That last she desperately tried to ignore, but the foolish, feminine side of her couldn’t help wondering if he really did think of her as beautiful. At one time she’d believed he had. He’d sworn she was everything to him.
The two of them had met by happenchance. She’d been finishing up the last of her internship at a Farmington hospital. During a drive home for the weekend a perfectly good tire had blown and very nearly caused her to wreck the car.
She’d been trying to lift the spare out of the trunk when a police car had pulled up behind her. The officer on duty had been Jess and the sight of his tall, muscular frame and rugged face had instantly bowled her over. While he’d changed the tire, he’d repeatedly called her Ms. Ketchum and she’d continually watched the strong muscles in his arms and shoulders ripple beneath his uniform as he strained to loosen and tighten lug nuts.
It had been Victoria who’d taken the initiative and suggested they should get together later, when he wasn’t posing as a lawman. He’d laughed and told her he wasn’t posing. He was a lawman. And always would be.
After that day, the two of them had become almost inseparable. The attraction between them had been instant and fiery. She’d wanted to spend every spare minute with him and he with her. Suddenly her plans to simply be a small-town doctor had changed to a small-town doctor with a family. As for Jess, he’d sworn she was the only woman he would ever love. The only woman he would ever want to make a life with. And she’d believed him.
Saddened by the precious memories, Victoria rose to her feet. “I’m hardly a femme fatale, Jess. And I can see my coming here was a mistake.”
She took one step toward the door before he was instantly on his feet, blocking her exit. “Why?” he asked, his voice quietly demanding. “Does seeing me again bother you that much?”
Yes, she wanted to scream. Everything about him, from his musky male scent to his rugged features, made her ache with bitter loss.
Her gaze lifted to scan his face. “This conversation is pointless.”
A tiny grin tugged at the corners of his lips. “I don’t know about that,” he drawled. “I’m learning lots of things from this meeting.”
Feeling more than exposed, she folded her arms against her breasts. “Like what?”
Amusement deepened the lines bracketing his mouth. “Like you’re not nearly as indifferent to me as you want to believe.”
The air whooshed from her lungs. “Dream on.”
One step brought him so close that the front of his starched shirt was almost brushing the tips of her breasts. Inside, Victoria trembled like a little lost dogie in a snowdrift.
“I don’t have to dream,” he countered arrogantly. “I kissed you the other day, remember? You didn’t exactly resist.”
Her face flamed as heat rushed from the soles of her feet all the way to her scalp. “That was a purely physical reaction!”
His brows lifted mockingly. “You analyze all your kisses that way, Doc?”
She didn’t have any kisses to analyze. But she wasn’t about to admit such a thing to him. She didn’t want him to learn that after him, she’d forsaken men. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d ruined any chances of her loving another man.
“I didn’t come here to discuss kisses!” she said, her voice rising with each word. “I came here to see if you’d made any progress on finding out the identity of the body!”
Unaffected by her outburst, he said in a voice that could only be described as a purr, “If you ask me, I think the kissing is much more interesting.”
Her teeth ground together as her gaze whipped over his leering face. “Why? I’m sure a man like you has all sorts of women to discuss such frivolous things with.”
His features twisted with even more sarcasm. “Yeah, but me and my…women don’t have a past like you and I do.”
To her horror, tears were suddenly collecting in her throat, sending a fiery ball of pain to the middle of her chest. “Our past—is forgotten,” she said tightly.
The taunting expression on his face suddenly disappeared and before she realized his intentions, his hands were on her shoulders, their warmth radiating up the sides of her neck and down her arms.
“Not for me, Tori.”
“Why?” she whispered huskily. “There can be no good in us remembering.”
His fingers tightened perceptively. “Something happens to a man when he’s rejected by the woman he loves. It flattens his self-worth. It makes him keep wondering why.”
Victoria couldn’t continue to look at him. It hurt too much. Instead, she turned her back to him and drew in a ragged breath that seared her lungs. “We both know you never loved me, Jess. So don’t try to act like the injured soul.”
A tense, pregnant moment passed. Finally he said in a soft, accusing voice, “You don’t know anything about me. I don’t believe you ever did.”
She swallowed, struggling to push down the tears that continued to scald her throat. “I know enough. I know that if you’d really wanted me, you wouldn’t have let me go. You wouldn’t have walked away. And you wouldn’t have waited four years to come back.”
Behind her, Jess closed his eyes while silently cursing himself. He shouldn’t be saying any of this to her. She was right. All that had happened between them was over. Long in the past. Yet in his heart their affair was as fresh as the scent of flowers on her skin.
“Maybe I was waiting on you to come to me,” he countered.
Gasping softly, she whirled to face him. “That’s a lie. If I heard correctly, you got married not long after you went to El Paso.”
Shadows flickered in his gray eyes as he tried to tamp down a barrage of bitter emotions. “After a few months I had to accept you weren’t ever going to change. Or leave your daddy. I had to get on with my life.”
Back then, the news of Jess’s marriage had very nearly destroyed Victoria. Even now the idea crushed her with loss and regret. She’d desperately wanted to marry him, be his wife and make their home on the Hastings ranch. But then he’d gotten the chance to join the border patrol and suddenly it was more important for him to go to Texas than to stay in New Mexico with her.
Looking back on it now, Victoria could see he’d been testing her, forcing her to choose between going with him or staying behind with her father. No woman should be forced to make such a choice, she thought sadly. Either option was going to make her a loser. And it had. She’d not only lost Jess, but now her father was gone from her life, too.
“Is that why you haven’t spoken to me since you’ve come back to San Juan County?” she asked him. “Because your wife would be jealous? Or did you ever tell her about me?”
He stared at her, his brow puckered with a bewildered frown. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard?”
Victoria shook her head as a strange premonition washed over her. “Heard what? That you’re divorced? That doesn’t surprise me. You certainly aren’t behaving as if you’re a married man.”
The frown on his face deepened and she watched him swallow convulsively as he glanced away from her. “My wife and I divorced more than a year ago. But since then Regina was killed.”
Stunned, Victoria stared at him. Why hadn’t Alice or Will told her, she wondered. Had he ordered them not to? “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” she murmured brokenly. “How? When?”
He turned his gaze back to her and Victoria decided his features looked as though they were carved from stone. “Seven months ago. In a car accident. She had our daughter with her at the time. But thank God Katrina wasn’t even scratched.”
His daughter! Jess had a child?
The room around her tilted as shock drained every ounce of color from her face. In a drawn voice, she asked, “You…have a daughter?”
He nodded and, for the first time since she’d seen him again, there was a real smile on his face.
“Yes, I have a daughter. Her name is Katrina,” he answered. “She just turned two-and-a-half.”
Victoria’s gaze fell to the floor as painful emotions slammed at her from all directions. Of course it was a logical thing for him to have a child. He’d been a married man. But in her heart Jess wasn’t supposed to have a daughter or son! Not without her.
“Congratulations,” she said quietly, then glancing back up at him she tried to smile, but she could feel her lips quivering from the effort. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice her jerky smile or the dull pain in her eyes. “You must be very proud.”
Jess stepped behind the desk and picked up a small, wooden framed photograph. “She was a few months younger here,” he said, handing the photo to Victoria. “She’s grown quite a bit since then.”
Victoria studied the little round face topped with a thick thatch of golden-red curls. Baby teeth gleamed behind her impish grin. She resembled Jess in coloring and the shape of her features.
Staring down at the baby girl’s image, Victoria could only wonder how a child of his and hers would have looked. Like this one? Or would it have taken after her with the Ketchum’s dark hair and blue-green eyes? Don’t think about it, she scolded herself. Jess made his choice and it wasn’t making a life with you.
She handed the photo back to him. “She’s very beautiful, Jess.”
With a humble smile, he nodded. “Katrina wasn’t planned. But she’s definitely a blessing.”
Victoria watched him place the photo back on his desktop. “It must be…very hard trying to raise a little girl without a mother.”
“Ma helps. And the women who run the small day care over by Cedar Hill are very good with her. I realize it’s not the same, but—” Once again he came back around the desk to stand in front of her. “Regina never was much of a mother to Katrina anyway. After our divorce I was awarded custody.”
Questions buzzed in Victoria’s head, but she didn’t voice them. To ask any more about his personal life these past four years would be admitting that she was still interested. And she wasn’t! She couldn’t be. Not and keep her senses intact.
“And that’s the way you wanted it? To have total custody?”
He looked puzzled and more than a little offended at her question. “I understand you think of me as a—something lower than pond scum, but I do love my daughter, Victoria. I don’t want anyone raising her but me.”
Frustrated that he’d misunderstood, Victoria shook her head. “I didn’t mean—some men love their children very much but find they can’t cope with raising them alone. Especially babies. I’m honestly glad it’s different for you.”
Deciding she couldn’t take any more talk about Jess’s child, she started toward the door, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll let you get back to work.”
Once again Jess was quick to block her path. Tilting her head back, she looked up at him and was instantly caught off guard by the intimate questions swirling in his gray eyes.
“Why did you come here today, Tori?” he asked softly. “Really?”
Her mouth fell open, then closed as the sound of his voice, the nearness of his body, pulled on her like a sensual rope. It didn’t make sense that she could still want this man, she told herself frantically. He was a heartache just waiting to happen all over again.
“I told you,” she answered. “To talk to Deputy Redwing.”
Mockery twisted his rugged features. “This is the sheriff’s department. My office is here. You didn’t think there was a chance of running into me?”
Lifting her chin, she said, “I knew there was a chance. But you’re not the plague. Even if I do happen to cross your path, I’m not going to catch anything deadly. And anyway, I’m a doctor. I can cure most common afflictions.”
He suddenly chuckled and the warm sound whirled her back to happier times. Back when all Jess had seemed to want was to have her in his arms.
“I’ll remember that. Just in case I come down with one,” he taunted, then almost instantly his expression turned serious. “As for your earlier questions, I don’t have any news on the corpse. It was taken to a state forensics lab in Albuquerque for further investigation.”
She was surprised and grateful that he’d decided to at least tell her this much about the case. “How long do you expect that to take?”
He shrugged. “There’s no way of knowing. It depends on how busy they are down there. And, of course, on the types of tests run. Which, considering the condition of the remains, will probably be several. So I wouldn’t plan on hearing anything for a while.”
She nodded. “Being a doctor, I know how slow-going some tests can be,” she said, then with a sigh, she added, “In the meantime, I can only hope my patients will get all this gossiping out of their system.”
“What are they saying?”
Victoria let out a long sigh. “Nothing in particular. Most of them are asking questions rather than expressing an opinion on the matter. But I will say all of them seem to have faith in you and Sheriff Perez.”
Humor glinted in his eyes. “That’s good to know.”
She regarded him closely as she was struck with more questions. “There hasn’t been anyone able to give you any sort of information or clues? What about missing persons? Did you check with Farmington? Bloomfield? Dulce?”
“Nothing from missing persons fits this case,” he said, then seeing the worry on her face, he asked, “Why are you so concerned about this thing, Victoria? Is there something you haven’t told me?”
Frowning, she stepped around him and this time managed to make it to the door before he could stop her. “I’ve already told you my worries,” she said. “Anything else you’ll have to figure out on your own.”
“I plan to.”
The subtle warning in his voice caused her to pause. She glanced back at him and her heart seemed to wince at the distant look on his face. “What does that mean?” she asked.
“Just what I said. I’m still in the process of questioning the wranglers and cowhands on the T Bar K.”
Frowning, she said, “I thought you’d already done that.”
He sauntered toward her and the unbidden thought struck Victoria that the years he’d been away had hardened him even more. Maybe losing his wife had done that to him, she thought sadly. Heaven knows he must have loved her. A man like Jess didn’t have to marry a woman just to have her.
“The T Bar K is a big ranch,” Jess reasoned. “You Ketchums employ a lot of men. Questioning all of them would take several days, even with Redwing’s help.”
Her fingers curled into loosely formed fists. “You’re not going to let this thing go, are you? You’re going to keep digging until you find something to pin on my family or one of our hands.”
His expression turned to a look of disbelief. “That’s not my intention, Victoria. I’m not—”
“Then why don’t you write the whole thing off as an accident? We both know that’s more than likely what happened. Some transient came along and fell to his death.”
Insulted by her suggestion, he stepped closer, his nostrils flaring as his gray eyes slipped over her flushed face. “I’m not like your old man, Victoria. I don’t make up facts beforehand or try to shade the truth once they’re out.”
She wasn’t going to argue with him about her father. It would be pointless. Most everyone knew Jess hated Tucker. For his wealth and his bulldozing ways of acquiring it, not to mention the gossip of his extramarital affairs. But mostly Jess hated Tucker because the old rancher hadn’t wanted Victoria marrying a common man. And back then Jess had seen himself as common. She wondered if he still did.
As for Tucker, Victoria had always admitted he was far from perfect. But he’d been a loving father to her. Even now with the old man in his grave, she couldn’t forget that.
“I’m not asking you to shade the truth!”
Jess shot her a wry smile. “I don’t have the truth—yet, Victoria. That’s why neither Sheriff Perez or I will rule this case in any way…until it’s solved.”
“And you have a Ketchum behind bars?” she asked tightly.
“Now why would I want that?”
His expression was so stone smooth, it was impossible to tell if his question had been spoken with sarcasm or sincerity. She figured the first.
“You are heading up this investigation, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Then you could influence the outcome.”
One more step brought him close enough to touch her. Victoria forced herself to remain where she was as his fingertips traced a circle on her cheek.
“I won’t play favorites to you Ketchums, Victoria. So don’t ask.”
Anger and pain twisted through her. “I wouldn’t dream of asking you for anything, Jess. I did once, remember? It got me nothing then. It wouldn’t now.”
“Victoria—”
She didn’t give him the chance to say more. Quickly, she jerked the door open and stepped out of the room and out of his sight.
Chapter Four
“Yip! Yip! Yo cattle! Get along and quit dragging your tails!”
As Will called to the seven head of heifers and steers, Jess slapped a stiff lariat against the leg of his leather chap. The popping sound helped to drive the small herd into a makeshift catch pen.
Not seeing much of man since back in the deep of winter, the snaky cattle were wild and reluctant to be cornered. But Will and Jess had set up the portable fencing in a dry wash with steep banks on both sides. Once they’d gotten the animals headed into the gulch they had nowhere to go but forward.
Dust spiraled up from the stirring hooves, clinging red and thick to Jess’s face and black hat. His gray horse was wet with sweat, his head hung low from the long exertion of the day. Jess was feeling the weariness, too, and no doubt his grandfather was getting stiff from long hours in the saddle.
The two of them had been working since sunrise and had already worn out four mounts between them. But northern New Mexico was rough land; ranching this area wasn’t suited for a weak-willed person or animal. The harsh winters could sometimes wipe out half a man’s herd while the steep mountains and rocky arroyos on the Hastings ranch had crippled many a good horse from time to time. But it was home. And Jess was glad to be back. Even if it meant he was closer to Victoria Ketchum.
“That looks like the last of ’em, Pa,” Jess said to his grandfather as he wired the fence panel shut against the nervous cattle.
From his seat in the saddle, Will cast a glance at the setting sun. “Yeah. And not any too soon. It’s gonna be dark before we get back to the ranch.”
“That won’t matter,” Jess assured the old man. “Pokie and Star know the way. The horses could find the ranch even if they were blindfolded.”
“Hell,” Will muttered as he lifted his Stetson and wiped a sleeve across his leathery face, “me and you could find the way even if we was blindfolded. I was thinking about your ma. She’s gonna be worried and thinking we’ve fell into an arroyo like that dead fella on the T Bar K.”
Jess swung himself back into the saddle. “I don’t think Ma needs to be worrying that something like that will happen to us.”
With the cattle safely penned and given access to feed and water, the men turned their mounts toward home while the extra horses automatically trailed behind them.
As they rode up and out of the dry wash, Will said, “You don’t think that dead man just stumbled on a rock and fell, do you?”
For the past week and a half the T Bar K case had been going round and round in Jess’s head. So far, without the coroner’s report, there wasn’t much to go on. Except instinct. And something about the whole thing had been giving Jess a very bad feeling. He didn’t exactly know why. Except that the body had been discovered in an extremely remote area without any access roads.
A transient, as Victoria had suggested, likely wouldn’t have wandered so far off the highway. Even the primitive dirt roads petered out long before the spot where the body had been discovered. Why would a man deliberately leave civilized roads and head into rough land on foot? It didn’t make sense to Jess.
“I don’t know, Pa. Not yet.”
“It’s plain you don’t know, son. I’m askin’ you what you think?”
Jess untied a yellow bandanna from around his neck and wiped the scarf over his sweaty face. It came away as red as the ground they were riding over. “Just between me and you, it looks pretty suspicious.” He glanced at Will. “Why? What have you been thinking about the whole thing?”
Will grunted. “I guess I’ve been thinkin’ about the Ketchums. They’ve had their share of troubles over the years. Just goes to show you money don’t fix everything. I’ll bet Ross would pay a mighty big heap right about now to get all this quieted down.”
Jess shot his grandfather a speculative look. “You think Tucker’s son could be involved somehow?”
“Hell, if Tucker was alive, folks around these parts would already be shouting murder,” Will said with a shrug of his shoulders. “But the younger Ketchum— I ain’t gonna say. I don’t believe he’s as unfeelin’ as the old man. I just think he’d rather not have all this bad talk goin’ on about the T Bar K. Can’t be good for cattle or horse business.”
According to Victoria, it wasn’t good for her medical practice either, Jess thought. Since she’d come to his office nearly a week ago, he’d neither seen nor heard from her. Oddly enough, he’d missed her even more than usual. And he knew it had been a bad mistake to touch her, to kiss her again after all this time. It had only aroused all those memories he’d tried to bury.
“No. It can’t be good for the Ketchums,” Jess agreed. Then, with another thoughtful glance at his grandfather, he asked, “When exactly did Tucker die?”
Will rubbed his whiskered chin as the two men and four horses plodded along in the gloaming, through the blue sage and hunkering stands of twisted juniper.
“Probably more than a year now.”
Jess processed his grandfather’s information. “Do you know of anyone the old man was angry with around that time? Or before that time? Was there anyone in particular he was feuding with?”
Will chuckled. “I doubt there’s ever been a time when Tucker Ketchum wasn’t having it out with someone around these parts. But I can’t think of anyone in particular—” Will gave his grandson a side-long glance. “Jess, you’re forgettin’ the old man was feeble for several months before he died. Spent his days in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank. He couldn’t have knocked anybody in the head.”
Jess snorted. “Tucker was too smart to do any job himself. He would have hired it done,” he said, then his voice softening, he asked, “Was the old man really disabled for so long?”
Will sighed. “Yeah. The old man had all that land and cattle and money, but those things couldn’t cure his heart. Victoria is the one I feel sorry for, though. She stood by her papa ’til the end, doctoring him. She didn’t have a chance to get her own practice goin’ ’til after Tucker died. These past four years haven’t been much of a life for her.”
They hadn’t been much for Jess, either. Not without Victoria by his side. Will knew as much. This was just a subtle reminder from his grandfather that Jess shouldn’t have left New Mexico or Victoria behind.
“She chose it,” Jess clipped, then nudging his spurs into the horse’s sides, he picked up the pace, forcing Will to follow suit.
The moment the two men rode into the ranch yard, Alice ran out of the house, waving her arms to catch the men’s attention. Seeing her, Jess didn’t bother dismounting. Instead, he loped the horse to the yard fence.
“What’s wrong? I told you if the department needed me to call my pager.”
Alice shook her head and by then Jess could see his grandmother was frantic with worry.
“It’s not your work,” she said as Jess quickly slid out of the saddle. “It’s Katrina. She started running a fever this afternoon. I can’t get it down.”
Rather than waste time going around through the gate, Jess vaulted over the yard fence. “Why didn’t you take her into Aztec to the doctor?”
“Because today is Saturday. The medical clinic is closed. And anyway, she wasn’t that bad until this evening. I was about to take her into the hospital emergency room when I saw you two ride up.”
“Where is she?” he asked, already on his way through the front door.
“In her crib,” Alice answered as she trotted frantically to keep up with him. “What—are you going to do?”
Inside the baby’s bedroom a lamp was on, shedding a pool of light over the sleeping child. Jess’s heart clutched with fear as he took in his daughter’s little red face and hot, dry skin.
“I don’t want to take her to the hospital. All of the machines and strange faces would scare her.”
“But Jess, she needs medical attention! I—”
Before his grandmother could finish, Jess was stuffing diapers and extra clothing into a diaper bag. At this moment nothing mattered but his daughter.
“I am going to get her medical attention, Ma. I’m taking her over to the T Bar K. To Victoria.”
Chapter Five
Nearly a half hour later, Jess braked his truck to a stop in front of the Ketchum ranch house. The porch was illuminated with light and, as he killed the motor and reached for Katrina, he could see Victoria stepping through the door.
On his drive over, he’d called on his cell phone to make sure Victoria would be home. Jess hadn’t talked to her, but Marina had assured him she would give her the message. Apparently the cook had come through with her promise.
By the time he stood down on the ground with the baby in his arms, Victoria was standing outside the door of the truck. When he looked at her face, the only thing he saw was concern.
“Did she hurt herself or is she ill?” Victoria quickly asked as she stepped toward father and daughter. “Marina sometimes has trouble with her English. She wasn’t exactly sure what you’d told her over the phone.”
“She’s burning up with fever,” Jess told her.
Victoria didn’t waste time pulling back the blanket Jess had swaddled around the child. Instead, she motioned for him to follow her into the house.
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Stella Bagwell
FIVE YEARS TOO LATE….She should have been mine, Victoria Ketchum thought as she cradled Jess Hasting's daughter. Instead, Victoria had turned from Jess, and he'd married another. Now a widowed single father, the lean, rugged deputy sheriff could still make her passion rise–but the bitterness of their breakup kept them apart.Until now.Now Jess saw Victoria strictly as his daughter's doctor. And Victoria needed Jess's lawman skills when a body was found on her family's ranch. Yet, working together to care for his sick little girl, and to investigate the murder, made them remember just how good it had been between them.And how good it could still be…
“Something happens to a man when he’s rejected by the woman he loves,”
Jess said. “It makes him keep wondering why.”
Victoria turned to him and drew in a ragged breath that seared her lungs. “We both know you never loved me, Jess. So don’t try to act like the injured soul.”
A tense moment passed. “You don’t know anything about me,” he said softly. “You never did.”
She swallowed, struggling to push down the tears that continued to scald her throat. “I know enough. I know that if you’d really wanted me, you wouldn’t have let me go. You wouldn’t have walked away. And you wouldn’t have waited four years to come back.”
“Maybe I was waiting for you to come to me.”
Dear Reader,
As you take a break from raking those autumn leaves, you’ll want to check out our latest Silhouette Special Edition novels! This month, we’re thrilled to feature Stella Bagwell’s Should Have Been Her Child (#1570), the first book in her new miniseries, MEN OF THE WEST. Stella writes that this series is full of “rough, tough cowboys, the strong bond of sibling love and the wide-open skies of the west. Mix those elements with a dash of intrigue, mayhem and a whole lot of romance and you get the Ketchum family!” And we can’t wait to read their stories!
Next, Christine Rimmer brings us The Marriage Medallion (#1567), the third book in her VIKING BRIDES series, which is all about matrimonial destiny and solving secrets of the past. In Jodi O’Donnell’s The Rancher’s Daughter (#1568), part of popular series MONTANA MAVERICKS: THE KINGSLEYS, two unlikely soul mates are trapped in a cave…and find a way to stay warm. Practice Makes Pregnant (#1569) by Lois Faye Dyer, the fourth book in the MANHATTAN MULTIPLES series, tells the story of a night of passion and a very unexpected development between a handsome attorney and a bashful assistant. Will their marriage of convenience turn to everlasting love?
Patricia Kay will hook readers into an intricate family dynamic and heart-thumping romance in Secrets of a Small Town (#1571). And Karen Sandler’s Counting on a Cowboy (#1572) is an engaging tale about a good-hearted teacher who finds love with a rancher and his young daughter. You won’t want to miss this touching story!
Stay warm in this crisp weather with six complex and satisfying romances. And be sure to return next month for more emotional storytelling from Silhouette Special Edition!
Happy reading!
Gail Chasan
Senior Editor
Should Have Been Her Child
Stella Bagwell
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my editor, Mary-Theresa Hussey,
an angel who keeps me on the right course.
And to all the editors I work with at Silhouette.
I love you all.
STELLA BAGWELL
Recently, Stella and her husband of thirty years moved from the hills of Oklahoma to Seadrift, Texas, a sleepy little fishing town located on the coastal bend. Stella says it is a lovely place to let her imagination soar and to put the stories in her head down on paper. She and her husband have one son, Jason, who lives and teaches high school math in nearby Port Lavaca.
Dear Reader,
This new miniseries—MEN OF THE WEST—is something I’ve wanted to write for a long time, but other stories kept popping up for my immediate attention. Now, as I approach my fiftieth book for Silhouette, I’m finally getting to write about the Ketchum family and all of their friends. What a joy! There’s nothing sexier than a man in a pair of cowboy boots and hat. And when he’s a lawman, too, well, he’s pretty nigh irresistible to me.
There is an old saying that everything changes. But thankfully, in my case, I can say that isn’t entirely true. Well, okay, I’ve aged a little. Yet as an author, the excitement and love I have for writing romance is still just as great as it was eighteen years ago when I sold my first story to Silhouette.
Being part of the Silhouette family has been a wonderful honor for me and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the editors I’ve worked with down through the years. You’ve made my job a pure pleasure! And last, but certainly not least, I’d like to thank you, all my loyal readers for buying my books. Without you, this job of mine wouldn’t mean anything and I sincerely hope that I’ve given you as much pleasure reading my stories as I’ve gotten from creating them. And it’s my fervent wish that you’re as eager to read my next fifty books as I am to write them!
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!
God bless,
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter One
“Victoria, something has happened out at the T Bar K!”
The woman with dark hair sitting behind the large desk didn’t bother lifting her head from the notes she was studying. “Something is always happening at the ranch. If he’s bleeding, put him in exam room one. If he thinks something might be broken, take him on down to X-ray and I’ll be there in just a moment.”
“No, Victoria. There’s not an injured cowboy in the waiting room. It’s something else.”
Dr. Victoria Ketchum glanced up from the file on her desk to see her nurse’s face peering around the edge of the office door.
Nevada Ortiz was usually unflappable. Even when patients were bleeding all over the floor or passing out in the waiting room. But right now the young woman’s creamed-coffee complexion was downright pasty.
“What do you mean? Has some of my family called the clinic?”
Nevada quickly stepped inside the small office and approached Victoria’s desk. “No. One of the patients was listening to his scanner and overheard the sheriff’s department dispatching some men out there.”
Like Nevada, Victoria had never been one to panic. Doctors simply couldn’t allow themselves the luxury of losing their cool under fire. Now years of training and self-discipline surfaced to keep her pulse at an even pace and her thoughts focused toward a logical explanation.
“It isn’t like you to listen to patients’ gossip, Nevada.”
The young nurse gave her boss a rueful smile. “You’re right. If I stopped to listen to all the gossip that goes through this clinic I’d never get any work done. But I think this time there’s something to it. You…haven’t heard from the ranch in the past hour or so?”
Victoria shook her dark head. “No. And I’d be the first one my brother Ross would call if there’d been a severe accident or an injury. So that tells me no one has been injured.” She closed the manila folder and rose from her chair. “Is Mr. Valdez still in exam room two?”
Nevada stepped back as her boss quickly moved from behind the massive oak desk. “Yes. But, Victoria, aren’t you going to at least make a quick call to the ranch?” she asked with amazement. “If the law is headed out there…something must be happening.”
Victoria’s soft lips tilted into an indulgent smile for her nurse and friend. “They probably found the stud that’s been missing for the past couple of weeks. And if that’s the case, everyone on the ranch will have reason to celebrate tonight.” She motioned for Nevada to join her as she headed out of the room. “Quit worrying and follow me. If I’m not mistaken, I still have three more patients to see before quitting time. We have work to do.”
For the next hour, Victoria put any thoughts of the T Bar K out of her mind as she listened to aches and complaints and wrote down orders and prescriptions. Even though she was a Ketchum and still lived on the ranch, she was a doctor first and foremost and her patients’ welfare was something she always put before herself.
But later that evening, after she’d left the clinic and headed her vehicle north out of Aztec, a strange sense of dread gnawed at the pit of her stomach. In all likelihood, the law had gone to the T Bar K to talk to her brother about the missing stallion. She couldn’t imagine them going to the ranch for any other reason. Yet something like that wouldn’t be considered an emergency requiring radio dispatch, she silently reasoned.
Don’t borrow trouble, she scolded herself as she forced her fingers to relax on the steering wheel. For all she knew her nosy patient might have gotten his information mixed up. And anyway, even if men from the sheriff’s department had visited the ranch, that didn’t mean Jess had been one of them.
No, Jess Hastings, the undersheriff of San Juan County, probably had much more important things on his docket than to travel out to the home of an old flame.
Old flame. Dear Lord, how could she think of herself in those terms, she wondered. Jess has been out of her life for four years or more now. She was nothing to him. And obviously never had been.
After traveling several miles, she turned off the highway and onto a graveled road leading east into the high desert mountains.
May had brought much warmer weather to northern New Mexico. The snows in the higher elevations had started to melt, flooding the streams and rivers below. The Animas River, which cut through a section of the T Bar K, lay to the left of the winding dirt road. Now and then Victoria caught sight of the rushing rapids as her vehicle began the climb that would eventually take her to the ranch house.
When she finally entered the main gate leading up to the rambling log structure, the spring sun had already slid behind the mountains. Dusky purple shadows shrouded the house, which was perched on a ledge high enough to give a partial view of the valley floor below. Ketchum land. Farther than the eye could see.
But at the moment, Victoria wasn’t seeing anything except the two utility vehicles with official markings of the San Juan County sheriff’s department parked a few feet from the rail fence running in front of the house.
So Nevada’s warning had been right, she thought, as she deliberately drove around to the back entrance of the house. Something had happened. She could only pray it wasn’t something bad. The Ketchum family had already had their share of bad this past year. What with Tucker dying, a drought putting a heavy financial strain on the ranch and then the stud’s disappearance, she could hardly imagine getting more wretched news.
As always, the long kitchen was warm and filled with the spicy scents of waiting supper. At the huge gas range, the cook, Marina, glanced over her shoulder as Victoria’s footsteps tapped across the tiled floor.
“Better not go to living room, chica. There’s a powwow goin’ on,” the older woman warned.
Biting back a sigh, Victoria reached up and slipped the clasp from her hair to allow the thick black chocolate waves to tumble down around her shoulders. As she massaged her scalp, she reached for a glass in the cupboard.
“I saw the vehicles parked out front. What sort of powwow is going on? Has the stallion been found?”
Marina’s chuckles were mocking as she pushed a wooden spoon through a pot of bubbling cheese sauce. “Somethin’ has been found. But it no horse, chica.”
Victoria paused anxiously as she pushed the glass under the tap. “What? How long has the law been here anyway?”
Marina put down her spoon and looked at Victoria. The Mexican woman had worked for the ranch longer than Victoria could remember. She was always jolly, gentle and compassionate. And now that Tucker and Amelia were gone, she was the last of the old ones. Though she wasn’t an educated woman, and spoke only broken English, Victoria respected her wisdom just the same.
“Three hours, maybe. I was about—”
Marina’s words stopped abruptly as the sound of someone entering the kitchen caught the attention of both women.
Victoria glanced around the cook’s shoulder and immediately went stone still at the sight of Jess Hastings sauntering into the room. Even though he was dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt, the gun strapped to his hip and the badge on his chest told her he was on duty.
The moment he spotted her his mouth tightened, his eyes narrowed. Yet even from a distance she could see the span of four years hadn’t changed him all that much. He was still long, lean and sinfully male. And suddenly her heart was racing like a wild animal caught in a deadly trap.
Thankfully, Marina wasn’t as affected by the man. With one hand on her ample hip, she turned to face him. “You lost?”
Ignoring the cook’s sarcasm, he inclined his head toward Victoria.
“I’d like to speak with Ms. Ketchum. Alone.”
Dear Lord, how many times had she tried to forget that voice? The way it roughened with passion or softened like velvet. There was just a hint of a drawl in it now, reminding Victoria he’d been living near El Paso for the past four years.
She took a step toward him and forced herself to speak. “Marina is busy with supper. We can talk in the study.”
He nodded and she walked briskly past him, out of the kitchen and down a long, dim hallway which led to the east wing of the house.
Even without the sound of his boots making contact with the polished pine floor, Victoria would have known he was following. She could feel his presence behind her. Big, masculine, menacing.
Once inside the study, she switched on a table lamp, took a deep breath, then turned to face him.
“What’s this all about?” she asked without preamble.
His lips twisted and once again her gaze zeroed in on achingly familiar features. The square jaw, jutted chin and eyes as gray as an angry thundercloud. He was not a handsome man. He was simply all male. Rough. Tough. And oh, so irresistible. She’d never wanted any man the way she’d wanted this one. And since him, she hadn’t wanted any.
“I should have known there would be no ‘hello, Jess,’ or ‘how are you doing, Jess?’”
The directness of his stare dared her to look away from him. Victoria’s chin lifted ever so slightly at the challenge.
“I didn’t expect you to want a greeting from me,” she said.
He moved toward her and didn’t stop until there was only the width of his hand separating the two of them. “I expect common courtesy from everyone. Including you Ketchum.”
Her blood was pumping through her veins at such a high rate she actually felt light-headed. It was all she could do to stop herself from grabbing the front of his starched shirt just to keep herself from swaying.
“I didn’t hear you asking about my well-being,” she retorted.
His eyes took their slow, easy time slipping over her long dark hair, soft white skin, blue-green eyes and full red lips. She was as gorgeous as he remembered. Maybe even more so, if that was possible.
For four years he’d tried to forget the image of this woman. How she’d felt in his arms and in his bed. For a while he’d believed that given time he’d be able to exorcise her from his mind. And there were days when he did manage to shake her memory for a few hours. Then she was always back, haunting his past, spoiling his future.
“Hello, Victoria. How are you?”
The softly spoken question was not what she’d been expecting. Even as her senses scattered, she struggled not to let him see what she was thinking. Feeling. Seeing him again shouldn’t be doing this to her. But damn it, Jess Hastings was the one and only thing that could unsettle her.
“If you really want to know, I was fine until I heard that lawmen had invaded the T Bar K.”
One corner of his mouth tilted upward into a semblance of a smile. “I wouldn’t call it an invasion. There’s only two of us here. Myself and Deputy Redwing.”
She desperately needed to turn and walk away. To put a few feet between them so that she could breathe without drawing in his seductive scent, so that she could look at anything other than his chiseled lips and damning eyes. But where she was concerned, Jess had always been a magnet. She couldn’t move away. Not just yet.
“So you’re the undersheriff now,” she said softly. “What happened to your job with the border patrol?”
The grooves bracketing his lips deepened with a tight grimace. “I resigned. For personal reasons.”
Even though Victoria was in an occupation that exposed her to many people and even more gossip, she’d never heard anyone say why Jess Hastings had returned to San Juan County four months ago. And she’d not been brave enough to ask. But now the question was on the tip of her tongue, making her bite down to keep the words from passing her lips.
“How’s your medical practice?” he asked.
“Very busy.”
Her short answer told him she didn’t want to discuss her life with him. Which didn’t surprise Jess. She’d stopped wanting to share anything with him a long time ago.
“I guess you’re wanting to know what I’m doing here?”
She nodded once. “It would help.”
To her surprise, he took hold of her upper arm and led her to a nearby leather couch. Before she sank onto one of the cushions she was struck with the fact of how mushy her knees had grown and how her arm burned where he touched her.
Easing down beside her, Jess pulled off his Stetson and combed his fingers through his short, sandy hair.
“I suppose you know the ranch hands have been out searching for Ross’s stallion,” he began.
“Yes. But Marina informed me that he hasn’t been found.”
Jess stroked his fingers along one side of his jaw as he studied her waiting eyes.
“No. The men found something else,” he said grimly. “A body.”
She wanted to gasp, but the air was suddenly trapped in her lungs. She shook her head, then shook it again. “Did you say a body?”
He continued to search her face. “That’s right. Partially decomposed. But enough to tell us it was human and we think male.”
“Oh dear Lord,” she whispered. “Who—”
“I’ve been questioning your family and some of the hands on the ranch,” he answered her unfinished question. “No one seems to have any idea of who this person might have been or why he was on the T Bar K. I was hoping you might be able to tell me something.”
Incredulous, her gaze latched on to his. “Me? How could I know anything?”
One sandy brow lifted sardonically. “You live here, too.”
“Yes, but I don’t know—” She stopped, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. “This body—are you—do you think there was foul play involved or someone just came along and died of natural causes or an accident?”
His thumb and forefinger slid along the brim of his hat, flattening any bumps or dips from the expensive felt. She tried not to notice his big hands or remember the pleasure they used to give her.
“You’re a doctor. You know it takes time to determine those sorts of things.”
She drew in a needy breath, then slowly released it. “Yes. But—there might have been clues—”
His smile was slow and a bit too indulgent for Victoria’s liking. But then, she didn’t want Jess Hastings to smile at her in any way or for any reason. He was a silver-tongued wolf who’d gobbled up her heart, then spit out the pieces.
“Those are to be shared with the sheriff’s department,” he said shortly. “Not the Ketchum family.”
She wanted to stand and walk away from him, but she was afraid her legs wouldn’t hold her, so she stayed where she was and tried to hold her temper in check. Crossing words with Jess would get her nowhere.
“Well, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can tell you.”
“You might be surprised about that,” he said quietly.
She tried not to shiver as a strange chill traveled down her spine. “You can’t think I would know anything about this person.”
His expression didn’t change. “Oh, I don’t know. I have a habit of thinking things I shouldn’t. Has anyone made you angry in the past few months? So angry that you wanted to kill him?”
She stared at him in stunned fascination. “You’re kidding.”
His gray eyes didn’t blink. “Finding a body is nothing to kid about.”
And she could see that he was serious. Fear, then anger poured though her body, making her go cold, then hot. “You just told me you didn’t know if foul play was involved or not. So why do you want to know if anyone has angered me to the extent of committing murder?”
He smiled, but there was no humor behind the curve of his lips. “You always were a little too sharp for me. Weren’t you, Tori?”
“Don’t call me that!” she whispered icily. He was the only person who’d ever called her by that nickname and as far as she was concerned he’d lost his right to be that intimate with her. “And as for your question, no one has angered me in the past months. But a few years ago—I could have killed you. Given the chance,” she added.
Jess was a man known for keeping his head. It was one of the reasons he’d excelled at his job. A man with a cool head didn’t miss anything going on around him. He could reason, stay aware and stay alive. But there had always been something about Victoria that heated his blood. And it wasn’t just the lush, feminine shape of her. One glance, one word from her had the power to ignite an explosion in him. And she’d just set him off.
He said, “I guess Ketchum blood must be stronger than that Hippocratic oath you took.”
She was shocked to see her fingers had clenched, forming fists at her sides. She forced her hands to relax and her lungs to breathe. “What is that supposed to mean?”
His gray eyes slipped downward to where her breasts pushed against pale blue cashmere. The fabric was as soft as her skin and a knot twisted in his gut at the memory of her full breasts cupped in his hands, the rosy brown nipples begging to be kissed.
He looked at the floor, then back up to her face. “The oath is to save lives, not take them. But—where I’m concerned you only see me through Ketchum eyes.”
“My family never disliked you.”
He let out a harsh laugh, then rose to his feet and crossed the room to where a low fire crackled and spit in a native rock fireplace. “Tucker couldn’t stand the thought of you being anywhere near me.”
She wanted to point out that his comments had nothing to do with his visit to the T Bar K this evening, but she didn’t. For the past four months, since she’d heard Jess had come back to San Juan county, she’d known a time would come when she would have to face him again, to discover for herself if he held any bitterness about the past. She didn’t have to wonder anymore.
“My father didn’t try to prevent me from seeing you.”
His head turned away from the fire to stab her with a hot glare. “Not in words. No, the old man was too sly for that. He knew just how to get to you. And he did.”
Her jaw clenched. “I thought four years would have made you see how wrong you were. But it’s obvious you’re still just as blind and bullheaded as you ever were!”
“You’re the blind one, Victoria. You were then. And you are now.”
If he’d spoken the words in anger she would have understood them. But there had been no animosity in his voice. Just a quiet sort of warning.
Before she realized what she was doing, she left the couch and went to stand in front of him. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
He took a deep breath, then reached for a small framed photo on the fireplace mantel. It was a snapshot of Tucker and Amelia in their younger days, back when their four children had been small and the oldest, Hugh, had still been alive.
“Everybody but you knows Tucker Ketchum was a shady character—”
“You don’t—”
“That’s one of the reasons why this ranch is so big and profitable. And I’m afraid it’s a likely reason a body was discovered facedown in an arroyo on the T Bar K.”
She pushed at the heavy wave of nearly black hair dipping over her eye. “You’re despicable! You’re not fit to be this county’s undersheriff.”
“Why? Because I didn’t hang around and let the old man corrupt me, too?”
Raw fury brought her hand up and swinging at his face. He caught her wrist easily and jerked her up against him.
“This whole thing is making you happy, isn’t it?” She flung the question at him. “You’ve just been waiting for some reason to spite my family. And now you have it in the form of a dead body!”
His arm slipped around her back to still her squirms. “Nothing about this is making me happy, Victoria.” His eyes suddenly focused on her lips and then his head bent. “Especially not this.”
A kiss was the last thing she’d expected from the man and for a moment she was frozen with shock at the feel of his hard lips spreading over hers. Then her hands lifted to his broad shoulders and pushed. The feeble gesture of disapproval caused his lips to ease a fraction away from hers. But his hold on her back tightened, making her breasts flatten against him, her hips arch into his.
“Jess—”
If she had whispered his name in protest, he would have released her. But there had only been hunger in the sound of her voice and his desire fed on it like flames to the wind.
Time ceased to exist as his lips searched the sweetness of her mouth, his hands roamed the warmth of her back, then tangled in the thick waves of her hair.
Long before he lifted his head, she was clutching folds of his shirt, struggling to keep her knees from buckling. Her breathing was ragged, her heart racing like a wild horse on a lightning-struck mesa. No one but Jess could make her feel so helpless, so alive. So much a woman.
Dear Lord, nothing had changed, she thought desperately. Four long, lonely years had done nothing to erase this man from her heart.
“Is this how you question your female suspects nowadays?” she finally managed to ask.
Slowly, he moved his arm from around her back and she quickly put several inches between the two of them.
“That wasn’t a question, Tori. That was a statement.”
She swallowed as she pressed the back of her hand against her burning lips. “The statement being?”
He smiled, but once again there was no warmth or sincerity behind the expression.
“That I’m in charge of things now. And the fact that you’re a Ketchum means nothing where the law is concerned.”
Pain splintered in the middle of her chest, but she somehow met his gaze in spite of it.
“Is that how you kissed me? As a lawman? Or the Jess I used to know?”
For long moments his gray eyes simply roamed her flushed face. Then his lips parted, but before he could reply, a knock interrupted him.
Glancing over her shoulder, Victoria saw a young Native American man dressed similarly to Jess standing in the open doorway of the study. Victoria noticed that his dark, curious glance missed nothing as he took in the sight of her and Jess standing close together on the hearth.
“Sorry to interrupt, Jess. I thought you’d want to know the head wrangler has arrived back on the ranch. He’s waiting in the bunkhouse.”
The head wrangler for the T Bar K was Linc Ketchum, Victoria’s cousin. Like the rest of her family, she seriously doubted he would have any answers for the lawmen.
“I’ll be right there, Redwing,” Jess told him.
Nodding, the deputy slipped from view. Beside her, Jess made a move to leave the room. Before he could walk away, she reached out and caught his arm.
One brow arched with mocking inquisition as he paused and glanced down at her.
“Jess, what does this all mean?”
The quiet desperation in her voice was a spur in his ribs, both painful and irritating. “We’ll just have to see, now won’t we, Tori?”
Chilled by his sarcasm, she dropped her hand from his arm. “You’re not the same man I used to know, Jess.”
His lips thinned, his nostrils flared as the track of his gray eyes burned her face. “No. I’ll never be that man again.”
Chapter Two
The night air had grown chilly and mosquitoes were making a feast of her bared forearms, but Victoria was loath to move from her spot on the patio to return inside the house.
Jess and his deputy had left the ranch more than two hours ago, yet the place was still buzzing—she was still buzzing. And she didn’t like it.
She hadn’t thought that seeing Jess again would have left her this shaken. And she tried to tell herself it was the circumstances of his appearance that were the real reason she was so disturbed. After all, it wasn’t every day a body was discovered on her family’s land, without any sort of explanation as to why or how it had gotten there.
“Victoria? I wondered where you’d gotten to.”
From her chair, she glanced over her shoulder at her brother Ross, then back out to the dark, pine-covered mountain rising like a sentinel over the T Bar K ranch house.
“For the past hour I’ve been trying to muster up enough energy to leave this chair,” she told him.
His hand came down on her shoulder and gently squeezed. “You hardly ate any supper. Are you feeling all right?”
She tried to laugh, but the sound held little cheer. “Remember, I’m the doctor, Ross. I’m supposed to ask that question.”
He eased his long frame down in the woven lawn chair sitting at an angle to hers. “That’s the trouble with you, Victoria. You’re always taking care of others rather than yourself.”
At thirty-five, and five years older than Victoria, Ross was the younger Ketchum son. Since their brother Hugh had been killed in an accident with a bull six years ago, Ross had taken total reins of managing the T Bar K. Along with being business savvy, Ross was as handsome as sin and some said as tough as their late father, Tucker. But to Victoria he was always gentle, her rock when no one else was there for her.
Casting him a wan smile, she said, “I’m all right, Ross. It’s just been a…long day.”
He sighed. “A hell of a long day,” he agreed.
“Were you able to contact Seth?”
“No. He’s out. On a case, more than likely.”
Their older brother Seth had moved away from the ranch many years ago to become a Texas Ranger. If a problem did arise over the discovered body, Seth would know how to handle it. Victoria could only hope their older brother wouldn’t have to be bothered.
“It’s just as well. There’s really not a problem. And I don’t foresee one.”
“How do you figure?” Ross asked.
She rubbed the mosquito bites on the back of her arm. “Obviously this man wandered onto Ketchum land and died of natural causes or suffered a fall for one reason or another. There’s nothing sinister about that.”
Ross thoughtfully stroked his chin. “I’m surprised you used that word. Jess didn’t imply there was anything sinister going on.”
Her mind whirled as she regarded her brother’s rugged face. “That’s not the impression he gave me.”
Ross’s brows lifted. “Maybe you misread the man.”
“The only time I misread Jess Hastings was four years ago. When he left San Juan County.”
But tonight Victoria had read him loud and clear. Especially his kiss. He was out to hurt her, any way he could. And the idea left a terrible ache in her heart.
“Hell, Victoria,” her brother gently scolded, “I thought you’d gotten Jess Hastings out of your system a long time ago.”
She rose to her feet with plans to go back inside. “I have. I just haven’t forgotten the hard lesson he taught me.”
He studied her for long moments. “I hope you had the good sense not to anger the man, Victoria. He’s in a position to help us or hurt us. I wouldn’t want it to be the latter.”
It didn’t dawn on Ross that Jess had already hurt her more than anything or anyone ever could. But then Ross didn’t know the whole story behind her and Jess. No one did. And as far as she was concerned, no one ever would.
“If Jess decides to pursue this thing in a negative way, there’s nothing I can do to stop him,” she said, then hurried inside the house before her brother could say more.
The baby-fine curls surrounded the child’s head like a red-gold halo. Long curling lashes of the same color lay against cheeks flushed from the warmth of the nearby fireplace.
Jess’s daughter had been asleep in his arms for some time now, but still he lingered in the rocker, savoring the feel of her warm weight resting against his chest. She was the only thing he’d done right in his life. The only thing he really lived for. Her and his grandparents.
“Is Katrina asleep? I’ve got your supper heated in the microwave.”
Jess looked up from his daughter’s face to see Alice, his grandmother, standing a few steps away in the dimly lit living room. She was a tall, rawboned woman, her skin brown and wrinkled by hard work and nearly seventy years of harsh, New Mexico climate. Her hands were big and tough, her hair gray and wiry. But her heart was as gentle as a Chinook wind that melted the winter snows.
When Jess’s father had died at an early age from pneumonia complicated by alcoholism, he’d left behind a five-year-old son and a wife who’d never really wanted a husband and child in the first place. As soon as Jim Hastings had been planted in the ground, his wife had left for greener pastures.
Thankfully, Alice and William had been there to take in their grandson and raise him as their own child. Ma and Pa, as Jess called them, were the only real parents he’d ever known. And now they were helping him raise his own daughter. But they were getting too old to see after a rambunctious two-and-a-half-year-old toddler, even if Jess did take her into a day care near Cedar Hill for most of the day.
“Yeah, she’s asleep. I’ve just been holding her. Thinking how much she’s grown since the two of us came home to the ranch.”
Alice smiled with affection as she took in the sight of her grandson and great-granddaughter. “She’s really starting to string her words together now. But Pa had to scold her for saying a curse word today.”
Jess chuckled. “Now I wonder where she might have heard such a thing?” he asked as he carefully rose from the rocker with the toddler still cradled in his arms.
“Pa said it was from me,” Alice said. “But we both know I’ve never said a bad word in my life.”
“Only if you were by yourself or with someone else,” Jess joked.
Alice’s laughter followed him as he carried his daughter down a narrow hallway and into a small bedroom situated next to his.
After placing her in a white, wooden crib, he made certain she was covered against the night chill, then headed back through the old house to the kitchen.
Even though the hour was late and Will had gone to bed two hours earlier, his grandmother was there waiting for him.
“You didn’t have to wait for me, Ma. I can fend for myself,” he assured her. But already she’d placed his plate of food on the table, along with silverware and a tall glass of iced tea.
Waving away his words, she sank down in the chair next to him and pushed a hand through her gray hair.
“I’ll go to bed in a minute. I wanted to ask you what happened today out at the T Bar K.”
Shaking black pepper over the food, Jess paused to look at her. “News sure does travel fast for us to be living fifteen miles from town. It’s not like you to be gossiping on the telephone.”
“Who has time for the damn telephone? I went into Aztec for a few things at the grocery. Ed mentioned it when I checked out.”
Jess shoveled a bite of black beans into his mouth. “What makes you think I know anything about it?”
She made a face at him. “You’re the undersheriff,” she said proudly. “If anything of importance happens around here, you’re gonna know it.”
With a wry shake of his head, Jess said, “A body was discovered on T Bar K range.”
“I’ve heard that much.”
He chewed a forkful of rice spiced with chili peppers. “There’s not much more to tell. We’ll have to wait and see what the coroner uncovers.”
Alice sighed. “I guess…what I was really wondering was…if you saw Victoria while you were at the ranch.”
He glanced up to see his grandmother regarding him with quiet concern. Since he’d returned from Texas, she’d not brought up the subject of Victoria. Not that there was anything to bring up. That part of his life had been over for years now. He’d already married and lost a wife since Victoria had turned her back on him.
“Why would you want to know that?” he hedged.
Impatient now, she asked, “Well, did you?”
His gaze slipped back to his plate. “Yeah. I questioned her.”
Surprise crossed her wrinkled face. “Questioned her? Why?”
“Ma,” he said tiredly, “it’s my job.”
Moments passed as Jess continued to eat.
Finally, Alice asked, “So was she…glad to see you?”
Jess gripped his fork as he thought about the impulsive kiss he’d exchanged with Victoria. For a few seconds her lips had said she was glad to have him close again. But her words had conveyed something altogether different. And Jess wasn’t ever going to repeat the mistake of allowing her body to rule his thinking.
“No person is ever glad to see a lawman, Ma. Unless they’re in trouble and need help.”
Rising from her chair, Alice crossed to a large gas range and turned the flame under a red granite coffeepot.
“Did you ever stop to think Victoria fits that bill?”
He snorted. “Victoria is a Ketchum. They have money and power. And now that she’s a practicing physician, she has even more money to buy herself out of anything.”
Alice shot him a disgusted look as she pulled a mug down from a pine cupboard. “I’m not talking about trouble with the law, Jess.”
His fork paused in midair as he glanced at his grandmother. “What are you talking about, Ma?”
She poured the coffee, then placed it next to his right hand. “I think you need to figure that out for yourself.”
Jess realized there wasn’t any point asking her what she meant by that comment. She was already on her way out of the kitchen. And even if she hadn’t been headed to bed, she wouldn’t have explained. She’d always liked to let him stew in his own juices.
Well, it won’t work this time, Ma, Jess said to himself. Victoria Ketchum was a bad memory from his past. And if she was in any sort of trouble, she’d have to look elsewhere for help. He wasn’t about to become involved with the woman again. And from her reaction to him earlier this evening, she wasn’t about to let him.
He finished his meal and the last of his coffee. After rinsing the dishes, he walked down to the barn. On the south side of the building two horses milled about in separate lots. Normally at this time of year the horses were loose and running the range, feasting on new spring grasses. Pa had kept the horses penned for more than a week now, waiting for Jess to find time to help him with roundup.
At seventy-one, Will was still spry and healthy and a better cowhand than most men thirty years younger. Jess didn’t want to think about the time his grandfather would no longer be able to pitch hay, build fences or brand cattle. As for riding a horse, the old man would be happy to die in the saddle.
Jess checked the watering troughs and feed buckets hanging on the rail fence even though he knew Will had already seen to the horses’ needs. He was simply making the rounds, satisfying the lawman inside of him that all was well.
In the morning, he would tell Pa to give him two or three more days and then he’d help him hit the brush. Since there was only the two of them, it would take at least three days of hard riding to scour the mountains and arroyos around the ranch for stray Hastings cattle.
They didn’t have a bunkhouse full of cowboys to do the work for them. But even if he had those resources, Will wouldn’t want it that way. Like Jess, the old man was a proud loner. He didn’t want anyone doing his job for him. Yet he welcomed Jess’s companionship and helping hand, because Jess was family. And someday all of this would be his grandson’s.
For the past four years Jess’s help in keeping the Hastings ranch going had been in the form of money. A part of the salary he’d earned with the border patrol. And if Katrina’s mother hadn’t been killed in a car accident, he supposed he would have still been in El Paso.
Sighing wearily, he lifted the felt hat from his head and scraped his fingers through thick waves flattened against his skull.
It must be true that all things happened for a reason, he thought, as he walked slowly back toward the small, stucco house. Regina hadn’t been the love of his life. He’d married her believing she would fill the empty hole in him after Victoria had rejected him. But she hadn’t. And he supposed he couldn’t blame her for divorcing him. He hadn’t been able to give her his heart or the richer lifestyle she’d so dreamed about.
Her untimely death had left his little girl without a mother. Yet it had brought him back to New Mexico, to his grandparents and a job that was better suited to him.
Yes, he thought, all things happened for a reason. Some good. Some bad. Now he could only wonder what this trouble at the T Bar K was going to mean. For him. And the Ketchums.
Victoria had reached the end of her rope. Rather than discussing their health problems, three-quarters of her patients preferred to hear the scoop about the body found on the T Bar K. Who was it? What had happened? What was the law doing about it? Was the sheriff’s department calling it a murder?
She couldn’t get any work done, much less find a moment of peace to clear her mind. By six o’clock on the fourth evening after Jess’s visit to the ranch, she was ready to scream.
Her jagged nerves must have shown on her face when Nevada rapped lightly on the open door of her office.
“Knock, knock. Is it safe to come in?”
Victoria frowned at the young nurse. “Since when have you ever worried about entering my office?”
“About two minutes ago. You looked as though you could wring someone’s neck.”
Victoria signed her name to the bottom of the document she’d been reading, then slapped the paper atop a pile she’d been meaning to clear from her desk for two days. “It’s been a difficult day,” she tried to explain.
Nevada eased her hip onto the corner of the desk. “You look exhausted.”
Victoria chuckled. “I’m not twenty-two like you, Nevada. I’m thirty. By six in the evening I look wilted.”
Nevada shook a finger at her. “That’s not your age. That’s from working too hard.”
“I’m not the only one who works hard around here.” She gave the nurse a grateful smile. “Has Lois already gone home?”
Nevada nodded. “The receptionist is gone, the front door is locked and the lights are out. You should be leaving, too.”
Victoria rose from the leather chair and began to gather several medical reports she planned to read tonight.
Nevada kept her seat, seemingly not in any hurry to leave Victoria. It wasn’t like the young woman, Victoria decided. Normally, she was always in a rush to get home or run some sort of errand, not to mention call one of her countless boyfriends.
“Uh—did you find something bad on Mrs. Barton’s test results?”
Victoria gave her friend and co-worker a reassuring smile. “No. Mrs. Barton is going to be fine. The tests show her heart is strong and healthy. She strained a muscle in her chest while playing baseball with her ten-year-old son. The pain was mimicking angina, that’s all.”
“Oh, that’s good news. I thought—well, you’ve looked a little down these past few days. I was afraid it might have something to do with one of the patients. You treat them all as if they were your family.”
With Victoria’s mother passing, her brother being killed and then her father dying, the past years had seen her once-large family dwindle down to only two brothers. To make up for the void, she supposed she had turned more and more to her patients.
“You worry too much about me, Nevada.”
The younger woman shot Victoria an affectionate grin. “You’re my boss. And friend. I’d rather see you smiling.”
Victoria made a motion that the two of them should leave the small office. After turning off the light, the women walked slowly down a narrow hallway which would lead them to a back exit of the brick building that served as Victoria’s private clinic.
As they walked, Victoria replied, “It’s hard for me to smile when all I hear is questions and speculations about a body being found on the ranch. I’m really getting weary of people asking me about it.”
Shrugging, Nevada reasoned, “It’s big news, Victoria. The whole thing has aroused curiosity in the community. That’s only natural.”
“I understand that much. But it’s impossible to discuss medications, treatments or health problems when my patients want to gossip.”
Nevada had to laugh. “I know what you mean. I can hardly take a blood pressure without people bombarding me with questions. Maybe the authorities will come up with some new information that will quieten down all this talk.”
Victoria nodded hopefully. “What’s needed is a concrete explanation. One that will satisfy all this curiosity and all the townsfolk will turn their attention elsewhere.”
Reaching the back door, the two women paused.
“You’re right about needing an explanation,” Nevada agreed. “But how long do you think it’s going to take the law to figure things out? Sometimes these unknown identity cases take months, even years, before they’re solved.”
Victoria groaned at the thought. Several months of this and she’d pull out her hair. “I can’t stand another week of this uproar, much less months. I’ve got to do something about it.”
Interest peaked Nevada’s dark brows. “Like what?” she asked eagerly.
“Once I leave here, I’m going over to the sheriff’s department,” Victoria stated firmly. “I want answers. Or if not answers, at least some reassurance that the law is moving on this case.”
A wicked grin suddenly appeared on Nevada’s pretty face. “Hmmm. You might meet up with some resistance there,” she said.
Victoria knew the younger woman was talking about Jess. Although she hadn’t known the nurse before the undersheriff had left the area and Victoria behind, Nevada had heard about their relationship. At least, what the general public knew about it and the bits that Victoria had volunteered to her. But she’d not told the other woman everything. No one, not even her family members, knew how much she had loved Jess Hastings or the devastation his leaving had caused her. She’d kept most of it hidden. After all, she was a doctor. She couldn’t be needy herself. She had to take care of the needy.
“I didn’t say I was going over there to see Jess,” Victoria pointed out. “There are other officers in the department, including the sheriff.”
Nevada shook her head. “I heard Sheriff Perez is in Santa Fe on some sort of conference. You won’t be talking to him.”
Victoria refused to be deterred. Tomorrow when her patients started in about John Doe’s body, she was going to have some sort of information to put their curiosity to rest. “Then I’ll see Deputy Redwing,” she told Nevada. “He was at the ranch with Jess, so he’s obviously working the case.”
Nevada’s black eyes suddenly glinted with interest at the mention of the young Native American lawman. “I wouldn’t mind talking to him myself,” she purred.
Groaning, Victoria reached for the door. “I know you’re having fun playing the field now. But eventually your heart is going to be broken and when it is, you’ll be wishing you never heard the word ‘man.’”
Nevada chuckled. “Sometimes a girl has to take a chance, Victoria.”
“Hmm. Well, I’m all finished with taking chances. I’ll leave that up to you, Nevada. But when you find yourself trying to glue the pieces of your heart back together, you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
Minutes later as Victoria headed across town she began to doubt her decision to visit the sheriff’s office. Sticking her nose further into the investigation would probably only make matters worse. From his attitude the other day, Jess would like nothing better than to deal her a pile of misery. More than he already had, she thought grimly.
But this whole matter was interfering with her work. And she wasn’t about to let anything come between her and her patients. Even Jess Hastings.
After parking in the first available space near the sheriff’s office, she pulled off her lab coat, then glanced hurriedly in the rearview mirror. Except for a few loose tendrils, her dark hair was still pulled in a loose knot of curls atop her head.
She smoothed back a stray wisp from her forehead, but stopped short of applying powder or lipstick. If she did happen to run into Jess, she didn’t want him thinking she’d spruced up for his benefit or any of the other law officers.
Inside the building she stopped at the first desk she came to. Seated behind it, a blond, middle-aged woman dressed in a police uniform was talking on the telephone.
Placing her hand over the receiver’s mouthpiece, she questioned Victoria, “Can I help you with something?”
“I’m Victoria Ketchum,” she explained. “I’d like to talk with Deputy Redwing if I could.”
The woman shook her head. “Sorry. The deputy isn’t in right now. Is there someone else—uh, did you say your name was Ketchum?”
Victoria didn’t miss the sudden spark of recognition in the woman’s eyes. “Yes. Dr. Victoria Ketchum. I wanted—”
“I think the lady wants to talk with me.”
Both women turned their heads at the approaching male voice and Victoria’s heart sped into overdrive at the sight of Jess striding her way.
Turning toward him, she said coolly, “I wouldn’t want to take up your time, Officer Hastings.”
The smile on his face matched the frost in her voice. “I’m sure what we have to talk about will only take a few minutes.” He gestured for her to precede him down a short corridor. “Come along to my office.”
She’d rather crawl into a rattlesnake den than join him in the privacy of his office. But with the other woman watching, she could hardly put up a fuss. Especially when she figured that even on a slack day it would be hard for anyone to get a word with Jess without an appointment.
As she walked past him, he told the woman officer, “Don’t disturb me with any calls for the next few minutes, Sharon. I’ll get any messages after I’m finished with Ms. Ketchum.”
Finished with Ms. Ketchum. He was so right, Victoria thought grimly. He’d done that a long time ago. But as she followed him out of the room, she wondered why nothing between the two of them felt finished. Instead, she had the gnawing feeling it was starting all over again.
Chapter Three
Jess’s office was located through a second door on the right of the large hallway. Somewhere, farther in the back of the building, Victoria could hear raised male voices, although she couldn’t decipher the words being said. No doubt the muffled shouts were unhappy complaints from arrestees.
Across the hallway, several officers were grouped around a table littered with coffee and soft drink cups. Deputy Redwing was not among them, so the woman at the front desk must have been telling the truth about the man not being in the building. It would be her unfortunate luck that he was out and Jess was in, she thought dismally.
The room Jess ushered her into was small. Inside the cluttered space was a large desk with a comfortable leather chair, two tall file cabinets and, for visitors, a couple of straight-backed wooden chairs. Beneath a wide window on the south wall, a table held a coffeemaker and all the fixings. Atop one of the file cabinets, a radio was playing at a very low volume. After a moment she realized it was tuned to a local country station.
Closing the door behind him, he said, “Have a seat, Victoria.”
It was more of a command than an invitation. She decided to ignore it and stand.
“I don’t want to—take up that much of your time,” she reasoned.
“You’ve already said that.” While he eased his long frame into the leather chair behind his desk, he gestured for her to do his bidding. “So why don’t you let me be the one to worry about my time?”
She was on his turf now. If she tried to resist him too much, she’d only wind up making a fool out of herself, she decided. And it probably would be better to take Jess sitting down. He’d always had a bad habit of weakening her knees.
“Now,” he said after she’d made herself comfortable on the wooden chair. “What were you wanting to see Deputy Redwing about?”
Victoria forced herself to meet his gaze. And just like three days ago, she felt jolted all the way to her toes. “About the body, of course.”
His gray eyes flicked keenly over her face, then dropped to her thin yellow sweater and on down to where her crossed legs were exposed by the slit in her brown skirt. He was the only man who knew what she looked like beneath her clothing and she could only hope that time had dimmed his memory.
“What about it?” he asked.
She released an impatient breath. “What’s happening in the investigation? Have you found out anything?”
Crossing his arms across his chest, Jess leaned back in the chair and continued to study her for several long seconds. “Funny, you didn’t think there was anything to get in a stew about a few days ago when we found the body. Now you’re wanting answers.”
Her nostrils flared as she tried to hold on to her temper. Back in the days when she and Jess were a couple, she’d not even possessed a temper. But then he’d never done anything to hurt or anger her. That hadn’t happened until he’d gotten the wild idea to tear off to Texas.
“I still don’t think there’s anything…sinister about the man’s death,” she said. “As a matter of fact, I’m not the one wanting the information. It’s my patients.”
One brow arched with sarcasm. “That’s a good one, Victoria. Better than most I hear.”
His mocking attitude caused her lips to purse with disapproval. “It’s true, Jess. I can’t—these past few days in my clinic have been—well, do you know what it’s like trying to tell a man what he should be eating to lower his cholesterol while he’s asking me what the sheriff’s department is doing about the poor fella they found on the T Bar K?”
A bland smile crossed his features. “I’m sure it’s just as frustrating as people coming in here trying to tell me how to do my job.”
“But you have the choice of telling them to leave. I don’t.”
His expression didn’t soften. “You have a mouth. Use it. Explain that the poor fella who died on the T Bar K is none of their business. That should be easy enough.”
She passed a hand over her forehead and realized as she did that her fingers were trembling and beads of sweat had popped out on her skin.
Signs of fatigue, she told herself. Which shouldn’t surprise her. She’d had little rest these past few nights. Sleep had come in fitful snatches while her dreams had been tortured with images of the man sitting across from her. She had to get a grip on herself. She couldn’t go on like this.
“Twenty-five times a day?” she asked dryly, then her eyes narrowed as something he’d just said struck her. “You said the man who died on the T Bar K. Do you know for a fact that he died there? Or was he dumped on the ranch afterwards?”
Her questions caused him to lean forward and prop his elbows atop the desk. Even with several inches separating them, Victoria could feel his presence. Strong. Virile. And unyielding. Those things that had once attracted her to Jess were now the very things that unsettled her the most.
“If the body had been dumped, then there could only be one conclusion. And that would be murder. But, I was merely making conversation, not stating facts.” He continued to regard her with mild suspicion. “Why? Do you know something I don’t?”
She made an impatient gesture with her hand. “I came to you for answers, Jess. Not the other way around.”
“If I remember correctly, you came here to see Deputy Redwing. That’s what I heard you telling Sharon.”
He was playing cat and mouse with her. Teasing her with words and phrases when all along he knew every thought that was flitting through her head. Damn him.
“I did ask to see Deputy Redwing,” she admitted. “I figured he’d be much easier to get answers from than you. And it looks as though I figured right.”
To her amazement, he chuckled. “Don’t bet on it. Daniel is kinda like me. He likes to keep things under his hat. And he’s very stubborn if anyone tries to persuade him otherwise. Including beautiful women.”
That last she desperately tried to ignore, but the foolish, feminine side of her couldn’t help wondering if he really did think of her as beautiful. At one time she’d believed he had. He’d sworn she was everything to him.
The two of them had met by happenchance. She’d been finishing up the last of her internship at a Farmington hospital. During a drive home for the weekend a perfectly good tire had blown and very nearly caused her to wreck the car.
She’d been trying to lift the spare out of the trunk when a police car had pulled up behind her. The officer on duty had been Jess and the sight of his tall, muscular frame and rugged face had instantly bowled her over. While he’d changed the tire, he’d repeatedly called her Ms. Ketchum and she’d continually watched the strong muscles in his arms and shoulders ripple beneath his uniform as he strained to loosen and tighten lug nuts.
It had been Victoria who’d taken the initiative and suggested they should get together later, when he wasn’t posing as a lawman. He’d laughed and told her he wasn’t posing. He was a lawman. And always would be.
After that day, the two of them had become almost inseparable. The attraction between them had been instant and fiery. She’d wanted to spend every spare minute with him and he with her. Suddenly her plans to simply be a small-town doctor had changed to a small-town doctor with a family. As for Jess, he’d sworn she was the only woman he would ever love. The only woman he would ever want to make a life with. And she’d believed him.
Saddened by the precious memories, Victoria rose to her feet. “I’m hardly a femme fatale, Jess. And I can see my coming here was a mistake.”
She took one step toward the door before he was instantly on his feet, blocking her exit. “Why?” he asked, his voice quietly demanding. “Does seeing me again bother you that much?”
Yes, she wanted to scream. Everything about him, from his musky male scent to his rugged features, made her ache with bitter loss.
Her gaze lifted to scan his face. “This conversation is pointless.”
A tiny grin tugged at the corners of his lips. “I don’t know about that,” he drawled. “I’m learning lots of things from this meeting.”
Feeling more than exposed, she folded her arms against her breasts. “Like what?”
Amusement deepened the lines bracketing his mouth. “Like you’re not nearly as indifferent to me as you want to believe.”
The air whooshed from her lungs. “Dream on.”
One step brought him so close that the front of his starched shirt was almost brushing the tips of her breasts. Inside, Victoria trembled like a little lost dogie in a snowdrift.
“I don’t have to dream,” he countered arrogantly. “I kissed you the other day, remember? You didn’t exactly resist.”
Her face flamed as heat rushed from the soles of her feet all the way to her scalp. “That was a purely physical reaction!”
His brows lifted mockingly. “You analyze all your kisses that way, Doc?”
She didn’t have any kisses to analyze. But she wasn’t about to admit such a thing to him. She didn’t want him to learn that after him, she’d forsaken men. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d ruined any chances of her loving another man.
“I didn’t come here to discuss kisses!” she said, her voice rising with each word. “I came here to see if you’d made any progress on finding out the identity of the body!”
Unaffected by her outburst, he said in a voice that could only be described as a purr, “If you ask me, I think the kissing is much more interesting.”
Her teeth ground together as her gaze whipped over his leering face. “Why? I’m sure a man like you has all sorts of women to discuss such frivolous things with.”
His features twisted with even more sarcasm. “Yeah, but me and my…women don’t have a past like you and I do.”
To her horror, tears were suddenly collecting in her throat, sending a fiery ball of pain to the middle of her chest. “Our past—is forgotten,” she said tightly.
The taunting expression on his face suddenly disappeared and before she realized his intentions, his hands were on her shoulders, their warmth radiating up the sides of her neck and down her arms.
“Not for me, Tori.”
“Why?” she whispered huskily. “There can be no good in us remembering.”
His fingers tightened perceptively. “Something happens to a man when he’s rejected by the woman he loves. It flattens his self-worth. It makes him keep wondering why.”
Victoria couldn’t continue to look at him. It hurt too much. Instead, she turned her back to him and drew in a ragged breath that seared her lungs. “We both know you never loved me, Jess. So don’t try to act like the injured soul.”
A tense, pregnant moment passed. Finally he said in a soft, accusing voice, “You don’t know anything about me. I don’t believe you ever did.”
She swallowed, struggling to push down the tears that continued to scald her throat. “I know enough. I know that if you’d really wanted me, you wouldn’t have let me go. You wouldn’t have walked away. And you wouldn’t have waited four years to come back.”
Behind her, Jess closed his eyes while silently cursing himself. He shouldn’t be saying any of this to her. She was right. All that had happened between them was over. Long in the past. Yet in his heart their affair was as fresh as the scent of flowers on her skin.
“Maybe I was waiting on you to come to me,” he countered.
Gasping softly, she whirled to face him. “That’s a lie. If I heard correctly, you got married not long after you went to El Paso.”
Shadows flickered in his gray eyes as he tried to tamp down a barrage of bitter emotions. “After a few months I had to accept you weren’t ever going to change. Or leave your daddy. I had to get on with my life.”
Back then, the news of Jess’s marriage had very nearly destroyed Victoria. Even now the idea crushed her with loss and regret. She’d desperately wanted to marry him, be his wife and make their home on the Hastings ranch. But then he’d gotten the chance to join the border patrol and suddenly it was more important for him to go to Texas than to stay in New Mexico with her.
Looking back on it now, Victoria could see he’d been testing her, forcing her to choose between going with him or staying behind with her father. No woman should be forced to make such a choice, she thought sadly. Either option was going to make her a loser. And it had. She’d not only lost Jess, but now her father was gone from her life, too.
“Is that why you haven’t spoken to me since you’ve come back to San Juan County?” she asked him. “Because your wife would be jealous? Or did you ever tell her about me?”
He stared at her, his brow puckered with a bewildered frown. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard?”
Victoria shook her head as a strange premonition washed over her. “Heard what? That you’re divorced? That doesn’t surprise me. You certainly aren’t behaving as if you’re a married man.”
The frown on his face deepened and she watched him swallow convulsively as he glanced away from her. “My wife and I divorced more than a year ago. But since then Regina was killed.”
Stunned, Victoria stared at him. Why hadn’t Alice or Will told her, she wondered. Had he ordered them not to? “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” she murmured brokenly. “How? When?”
He turned his gaze back to her and Victoria decided his features looked as though they were carved from stone. “Seven months ago. In a car accident. She had our daughter with her at the time. But thank God Katrina wasn’t even scratched.”
His daughter! Jess had a child?
The room around her tilted as shock drained every ounce of color from her face. In a drawn voice, she asked, “You…have a daughter?”
He nodded and, for the first time since she’d seen him again, there was a real smile on his face.
“Yes, I have a daughter. Her name is Katrina,” he answered. “She just turned two-and-a-half.”
Victoria’s gaze fell to the floor as painful emotions slammed at her from all directions. Of course it was a logical thing for him to have a child. He’d been a married man. But in her heart Jess wasn’t supposed to have a daughter or son! Not without her.
“Congratulations,” she said quietly, then glancing back up at him she tried to smile, but she could feel her lips quivering from the effort. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice her jerky smile or the dull pain in her eyes. “You must be very proud.”
Jess stepped behind the desk and picked up a small, wooden framed photograph. “She was a few months younger here,” he said, handing the photo to Victoria. “She’s grown quite a bit since then.”
Victoria studied the little round face topped with a thick thatch of golden-red curls. Baby teeth gleamed behind her impish grin. She resembled Jess in coloring and the shape of her features.
Staring down at the baby girl’s image, Victoria could only wonder how a child of his and hers would have looked. Like this one? Or would it have taken after her with the Ketchum’s dark hair and blue-green eyes? Don’t think about it, she scolded herself. Jess made his choice and it wasn’t making a life with you.
She handed the photo back to him. “She’s very beautiful, Jess.”
With a humble smile, he nodded. “Katrina wasn’t planned. But she’s definitely a blessing.”
Victoria watched him place the photo back on his desktop. “It must be…very hard trying to raise a little girl without a mother.”
“Ma helps. And the women who run the small day care over by Cedar Hill are very good with her. I realize it’s not the same, but—” Once again he came back around the desk to stand in front of her. “Regina never was much of a mother to Katrina anyway. After our divorce I was awarded custody.”
Questions buzzed in Victoria’s head, but she didn’t voice them. To ask any more about his personal life these past four years would be admitting that she was still interested. And she wasn’t! She couldn’t be. Not and keep her senses intact.
“And that’s the way you wanted it? To have total custody?”
He looked puzzled and more than a little offended at her question. “I understand you think of me as a—something lower than pond scum, but I do love my daughter, Victoria. I don’t want anyone raising her but me.”
Frustrated that he’d misunderstood, Victoria shook her head. “I didn’t mean—some men love their children very much but find they can’t cope with raising them alone. Especially babies. I’m honestly glad it’s different for you.”
Deciding she couldn’t take any more talk about Jess’s child, she started toward the door, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll let you get back to work.”
Once again Jess was quick to block her path. Tilting her head back, she looked up at him and was instantly caught off guard by the intimate questions swirling in his gray eyes.
“Why did you come here today, Tori?” he asked softly. “Really?”
Her mouth fell open, then closed as the sound of his voice, the nearness of his body, pulled on her like a sensual rope. It didn’t make sense that she could still want this man, she told herself frantically. He was a heartache just waiting to happen all over again.
“I told you,” she answered. “To talk to Deputy Redwing.”
Mockery twisted his rugged features. “This is the sheriff’s department. My office is here. You didn’t think there was a chance of running into me?”
Lifting her chin, she said, “I knew there was a chance. But you’re not the plague. Even if I do happen to cross your path, I’m not going to catch anything deadly. And anyway, I’m a doctor. I can cure most common afflictions.”
He suddenly chuckled and the warm sound whirled her back to happier times. Back when all Jess had seemed to want was to have her in his arms.
“I’ll remember that. Just in case I come down with one,” he taunted, then almost instantly his expression turned serious. “As for your earlier questions, I don’t have any news on the corpse. It was taken to a state forensics lab in Albuquerque for further investigation.”
She was surprised and grateful that he’d decided to at least tell her this much about the case. “How long do you expect that to take?”
He shrugged. “There’s no way of knowing. It depends on how busy they are down there. And, of course, on the types of tests run. Which, considering the condition of the remains, will probably be several. So I wouldn’t plan on hearing anything for a while.”
She nodded. “Being a doctor, I know how slow-going some tests can be,” she said, then with a sigh, she added, “In the meantime, I can only hope my patients will get all this gossiping out of their system.”
“What are they saying?”
Victoria let out a long sigh. “Nothing in particular. Most of them are asking questions rather than expressing an opinion on the matter. But I will say all of them seem to have faith in you and Sheriff Perez.”
Humor glinted in his eyes. “That’s good to know.”
She regarded him closely as she was struck with more questions. “There hasn’t been anyone able to give you any sort of information or clues? What about missing persons? Did you check with Farmington? Bloomfield? Dulce?”
“Nothing from missing persons fits this case,” he said, then seeing the worry on her face, he asked, “Why are you so concerned about this thing, Victoria? Is there something you haven’t told me?”
Frowning, she stepped around him and this time managed to make it to the door before he could stop her. “I’ve already told you my worries,” she said. “Anything else you’ll have to figure out on your own.”
“I plan to.”
The subtle warning in his voice caused her to pause. She glanced back at him and her heart seemed to wince at the distant look on his face. “What does that mean?” she asked.
“Just what I said. I’m still in the process of questioning the wranglers and cowhands on the T Bar K.”
Frowning, she said, “I thought you’d already done that.”
He sauntered toward her and the unbidden thought struck Victoria that the years he’d been away had hardened him even more. Maybe losing his wife had done that to him, she thought sadly. Heaven knows he must have loved her. A man like Jess didn’t have to marry a woman just to have her.
“The T Bar K is a big ranch,” Jess reasoned. “You Ketchums employ a lot of men. Questioning all of them would take several days, even with Redwing’s help.”
Her fingers curled into loosely formed fists. “You’re not going to let this thing go, are you? You’re going to keep digging until you find something to pin on my family or one of our hands.”
His expression turned to a look of disbelief. “That’s not my intention, Victoria. I’m not—”
“Then why don’t you write the whole thing off as an accident? We both know that’s more than likely what happened. Some transient came along and fell to his death.”
Insulted by her suggestion, he stepped closer, his nostrils flaring as his gray eyes slipped over her flushed face. “I’m not like your old man, Victoria. I don’t make up facts beforehand or try to shade the truth once they’re out.”
She wasn’t going to argue with him about her father. It would be pointless. Most everyone knew Jess hated Tucker. For his wealth and his bulldozing ways of acquiring it, not to mention the gossip of his extramarital affairs. But mostly Jess hated Tucker because the old rancher hadn’t wanted Victoria marrying a common man. And back then Jess had seen himself as common. She wondered if he still did.
As for Tucker, Victoria had always admitted he was far from perfect. But he’d been a loving father to her. Even now with the old man in his grave, she couldn’t forget that.
“I’m not asking you to shade the truth!”
Jess shot her a wry smile. “I don’t have the truth—yet, Victoria. That’s why neither Sheriff Perez or I will rule this case in any way…until it’s solved.”
“And you have a Ketchum behind bars?” she asked tightly.
“Now why would I want that?”
His expression was so stone smooth, it was impossible to tell if his question had been spoken with sarcasm or sincerity. She figured the first.
“You are heading up this investigation, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Then you could influence the outcome.”
One more step brought him close enough to touch her. Victoria forced herself to remain where she was as his fingertips traced a circle on her cheek.
“I won’t play favorites to you Ketchums, Victoria. So don’t ask.”
Anger and pain twisted through her. “I wouldn’t dream of asking you for anything, Jess. I did once, remember? It got me nothing then. It wouldn’t now.”
“Victoria—”
She didn’t give him the chance to say more. Quickly, she jerked the door open and stepped out of the room and out of his sight.
Chapter Four
“Yip! Yip! Yo cattle! Get along and quit dragging your tails!”
As Will called to the seven head of heifers and steers, Jess slapped a stiff lariat against the leg of his leather chap. The popping sound helped to drive the small herd into a makeshift catch pen.
Not seeing much of man since back in the deep of winter, the snaky cattle were wild and reluctant to be cornered. But Will and Jess had set up the portable fencing in a dry wash with steep banks on both sides. Once they’d gotten the animals headed into the gulch they had nowhere to go but forward.
Dust spiraled up from the stirring hooves, clinging red and thick to Jess’s face and black hat. His gray horse was wet with sweat, his head hung low from the long exertion of the day. Jess was feeling the weariness, too, and no doubt his grandfather was getting stiff from long hours in the saddle.
The two of them had been working since sunrise and had already worn out four mounts between them. But northern New Mexico was rough land; ranching this area wasn’t suited for a weak-willed person or animal. The harsh winters could sometimes wipe out half a man’s herd while the steep mountains and rocky arroyos on the Hastings ranch had crippled many a good horse from time to time. But it was home. And Jess was glad to be back. Even if it meant he was closer to Victoria Ketchum.
“That looks like the last of ’em, Pa,” Jess said to his grandfather as he wired the fence panel shut against the nervous cattle.
From his seat in the saddle, Will cast a glance at the setting sun. “Yeah. And not any too soon. It’s gonna be dark before we get back to the ranch.”
“That won’t matter,” Jess assured the old man. “Pokie and Star know the way. The horses could find the ranch even if they were blindfolded.”
“Hell,” Will muttered as he lifted his Stetson and wiped a sleeve across his leathery face, “me and you could find the way even if we was blindfolded. I was thinking about your ma. She’s gonna be worried and thinking we’ve fell into an arroyo like that dead fella on the T Bar K.”
Jess swung himself back into the saddle. “I don’t think Ma needs to be worrying that something like that will happen to us.”
With the cattle safely penned and given access to feed and water, the men turned their mounts toward home while the extra horses automatically trailed behind them.
As they rode up and out of the dry wash, Will said, “You don’t think that dead man just stumbled on a rock and fell, do you?”
For the past week and a half the T Bar K case had been going round and round in Jess’s head. So far, without the coroner’s report, there wasn’t much to go on. Except instinct. And something about the whole thing had been giving Jess a very bad feeling. He didn’t exactly know why. Except that the body had been discovered in an extremely remote area without any access roads.
A transient, as Victoria had suggested, likely wouldn’t have wandered so far off the highway. Even the primitive dirt roads petered out long before the spot where the body had been discovered. Why would a man deliberately leave civilized roads and head into rough land on foot? It didn’t make sense to Jess.
“I don’t know, Pa. Not yet.”
“It’s plain you don’t know, son. I’m askin’ you what you think?”
Jess untied a yellow bandanna from around his neck and wiped the scarf over his sweaty face. It came away as red as the ground they were riding over. “Just between me and you, it looks pretty suspicious.” He glanced at Will. “Why? What have you been thinking about the whole thing?”
Will grunted. “I guess I’ve been thinkin’ about the Ketchums. They’ve had their share of troubles over the years. Just goes to show you money don’t fix everything. I’ll bet Ross would pay a mighty big heap right about now to get all this quieted down.”
Jess shot his grandfather a speculative look. “You think Tucker’s son could be involved somehow?”
“Hell, if Tucker was alive, folks around these parts would already be shouting murder,” Will said with a shrug of his shoulders. “But the younger Ketchum— I ain’t gonna say. I don’t believe he’s as unfeelin’ as the old man. I just think he’d rather not have all this bad talk goin’ on about the T Bar K. Can’t be good for cattle or horse business.”
According to Victoria, it wasn’t good for her medical practice either, Jess thought. Since she’d come to his office nearly a week ago, he’d neither seen nor heard from her. Oddly enough, he’d missed her even more than usual. And he knew it had been a bad mistake to touch her, to kiss her again after all this time. It had only aroused all those memories he’d tried to bury.
“No. It can’t be good for the Ketchums,” Jess agreed. Then, with another thoughtful glance at his grandfather, he asked, “When exactly did Tucker die?”
Will rubbed his whiskered chin as the two men and four horses plodded along in the gloaming, through the blue sage and hunkering stands of twisted juniper.
“Probably more than a year now.”
Jess processed his grandfather’s information. “Do you know of anyone the old man was angry with around that time? Or before that time? Was there anyone in particular he was feuding with?”
Will chuckled. “I doubt there’s ever been a time when Tucker Ketchum wasn’t having it out with someone around these parts. But I can’t think of anyone in particular—” Will gave his grandson a side-long glance. “Jess, you’re forgettin’ the old man was feeble for several months before he died. Spent his days in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank. He couldn’t have knocked anybody in the head.”
Jess snorted. “Tucker was too smart to do any job himself. He would have hired it done,” he said, then his voice softening, he asked, “Was the old man really disabled for so long?”
Will sighed. “Yeah. The old man had all that land and cattle and money, but those things couldn’t cure his heart. Victoria is the one I feel sorry for, though. She stood by her papa ’til the end, doctoring him. She didn’t have a chance to get her own practice goin’ ’til after Tucker died. These past four years haven’t been much of a life for her.”
They hadn’t been much for Jess, either. Not without Victoria by his side. Will knew as much. This was just a subtle reminder from his grandfather that Jess shouldn’t have left New Mexico or Victoria behind.
“She chose it,” Jess clipped, then nudging his spurs into the horse’s sides, he picked up the pace, forcing Will to follow suit.
The moment the two men rode into the ranch yard, Alice ran out of the house, waving her arms to catch the men’s attention. Seeing her, Jess didn’t bother dismounting. Instead, he loped the horse to the yard fence.
“What’s wrong? I told you if the department needed me to call my pager.”
Alice shook her head and by then Jess could see his grandmother was frantic with worry.
“It’s not your work,” she said as Jess quickly slid out of the saddle. “It’s Katrina. She started running a fever this afternoon. I can’t get it down.”
Rather than waste time going around through the gate, Jess vaulted over the yard fence. “Why didn’t you take her into Aztec to the doctor?”
“Because today is Saturday. The medical clinic is closed. And anyway, she wasn’t that bad until this evening. I was about to take her into the hospital emergency room when I saw you two ride up.”
“Where is she?” he asked, already on his way through the front door.
“In her crib,” Alice answered as she trotted frantically to keep up with him. “What—are you going to do?”
Inside the baby’s bedroom a lamp was on, shedding a pool of light over the sleeping child. Jess’s heart clutched with fear as he took in his daughter’s little red face and hot, dry skin.
“I don’t want to take her to the hospital. All of the machines and strange faces would scare her.”
“But Jess, she needs medical attention! I—”
Before his grandmother could finish, Jess was stuffing diapers and extra clothing into a diaper bag. At this moment nothing mattered but his daughter.
“I am going to get her medical attention, Ma. I’m taking her over to the T Bar K. To Victoria.”
Chapter Five
Nearly a half hour later, Jess braked his truck to a stop in front of the Ketchum ranch house. The porch was illuminated with light and, as he killed the motor and reached for Katrina, he could see Victoria stepping through the door.
On his drive over, he’d called on his cell phone to make sure Victoria would be home. Jess hadn’t talked to her, but Marina had assured him she would give her the message. Apparently the cook had come through with her promise.
By the time he stood down on the ground with the baby in his arms, Victoria was standing outside the door of the truck. When he looked at her face, the only thing he saw was concern.
“Did she hurt herself or is she ill?” Victoria quickly asked as she stepped toward father and daughter. “Marina sometimes has trouble with her English. She wasn’t exactly sure what you’d told her over the phone.”
“She’s burning up with fever,” Jess told her.
Victoria didn’t waste time pulling back the blanket Jess had swaddled around the child. Instead, she motioned for him to follow her into the house.
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Stella Bagwell
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: FIVE YEARS TOO LATE….She should have been mine, Victoria Ketchum thought as she cradled Jess Hasting′s daughter. Instead, Victoria had turned from Jess, and he′d married another. Now a widowed single father, the lean, rugged deputy sheriff could still make her passion rise–but the bitterness of their breakup kept them apart.Until now.Now Jess saw Victoria strictly as his daughter′s doctor. And Victoria needed Jess′s lawman skills when a body was found on her family′s ranch. Yet, working together to care for his sick little girl, and to investigate the murder, made them remember just how good it had been between them.And how good it could still be…