Dark Paradise (56 page)

above the peaks. Star light star bright. She stared up at the blue-white

diamond points and wished for just one thing, knowing in her heart of

hearts it wouldn't be coming tonight.

Will lay in the bed of Tucker's old truck, staring up at the stars

through a sheen that might have been tears or the blur of too much

booze. He was beyond knowing.

Too bad he wasn't beyond remembering. Images rolled across the back of

his mind like a silent movie: sleeping out in the pickup bed when he was

a kid, J.D. slipping into the cab and taking the truck out of gear to

roll down through the yard, scaring the piss out of him. The two of them

staying out all night then down in the high grass beyond the pens, where

you couldn't make out the yard light because of the barn, and you could

pretend you were anywhere.

Then suddenly he was fifteen, sleeping off a bender in the back of

Tucker's truck, staring up at the spinning sky and cursing God for

giving him a stubborn son of a bitch for a father and a brother who made

Tom Rafferty look soft by comparison. Wishing he could be free and at

the same time wishing he could be more like J.D. He wanted to be

everything to everybody. Instead, he was nothing.

Not good enough to be a Rafferty. Not tough enough to run the Stars and

Bars. His mother's son - a crime that made him suspect in the eyes of

every rancher in the valley, a title that made him a prince among the

crowd his mother ran with. Prince of the do-nothings.

Then a few more years spun past and he was lying in a the back of his

own truck with Sam tucked in beside him. A silly grin on his face. A

big warm feeling in the middle of his chest. Feeling edgy and wild. On

the brink of something new, something he couldn't name.

And then he was alone, parked on Third Avenue in front of the house the

Jerry Masons had vacated in the dead of night six months before on

account of a little discrepancy with jerry's creditors. Alone and drunk,

listening to the airy purr of a Mercedes engine as it idled in front of

the house he used to share with his ex-wife, ex-wife, ex-wife . . .

You're gonna be free now, Willie-boy.

Free of the ranch. Free of J.D. Free of Sam.

Free to be me.

The fear of that started in his belly and swallowed him whole. And the

stars blurred together as tears ran down his face.

Sharon turned her face up to a heaven as black as pitch and studded with

pinpoints of light. She tried to imagine the heat of all the stars

flowing into her and feeding her, recharging her, but their light was

cold and white, and she felt nothing but emptiness.

She lay on a chaise on the balcony outside the bedroom, naked and alone,

her long, angular body stretched out, silicone-enlarged breasts

thrusting toward the sky like pyramids. She knew she was fully visible

to the ranch hands who lived in an apartment above the horses in the

stable. She knew one was watching her now, but she didn't care. On

another night she might have performed for him. On another night she

might have invited him to join her as she had on other occasions because

he shared her taste for the rough stuff and because the idea of that

kind of sex with a man who was dirty and ugly seemed only fitting to

her. But tonight she had other things on her mind.

Bryce had yet to come up to bed. He had sequestered himself in the inner

sanctum of his study to think.

Not an uncommon occurrence. Bryce's mind was like a Swiss

watch - precision cogs and wheels running perfectly, ideas spinning

through the workings. His mind and an absence of conscience had made him

a wealthy man. She respected that. But Sharon suspected tonight he

wasn't thinking of business, he was thinking of Samantha Rafferty, and

the idea pierced her like a skewer.

The obsession was deepening, as it had with Lucy MacAdam. With Lucy the

attraction had been her style and cunning and her self-professed power

over men.

Theirs had been a clash of wills, a mating of cobras. Samantha

Rafferty's appeal was opposite in every way guileless, clueless, unsure.

Sharon closed her eyes, blocking out the sky, filling her head with the

vision of Bryce and the girl together. Tormenting herself with the

vision. Fear slithered through her, twining around her heart, squeezing

like a python.

Arousal curled through it like a barbed vine. The images tilted and

shifted. The partners changed. Other faces came into view, other

bodies - her own among the tangle of arms and legs, light skin and dark.

Memories of degradations past, the things she would do for Bryce, to

Bryce, to herself. All of it for him.

The girl would never be a strong enough partner for Bryce. Her innocence

would bore him eventually. His tastes would repulse her. Sharon tried to

soothe herself with that promise. She closed her eyes and thought of

Bryce, and satisfied herself with her own touch as she visualized him.

She loved him. He was the only person in the world she loved - herself

included. When the end came and she was thinking of him, there were

stars behind her eyelids and heat rushing from within.

But when she opened her eyes she was alone. The stars were a million

miles away.

J.D. sat on the porch with his legs hanging over the edge and his

narrowed gaze on the night sky. Clear sky. Good weather. They would have

a good day to move the cattle tomorrow - only they wouldn't be moving the

cattle tomorrow. They were short a hand.

He should have been glad Will was gone. No more screwups. No more

questions of loyalty or duty. No more wondering when he would pick up

and leave to go rodeo, or when he would gamble away two months' worth of

bank payments. No more reminder of the long, sad history of the Rafferty

boys. He should have been glad. Instead, there was a yawning emptiness

inside him.

He could have attributed it to a lot of things - the supper he had missed

while tramping along the banks of the Little Snake with Dan Quinn and

his deputies, the specter of an uncertain future that loomed over the

ranch, the dead ends he'd run down in his attempts to stop Bryce from

buying out the Flying K. But those answers were untrue and he'd never

been a liar. He prided himself on that and other things that no one

seemed to care about in the world beyond his own. Integrity.

Accountability. Courage to do the right things, the hard things.

What did it matter if it mattered only to him?

What was any of it worth if he was the last of his kind?

I feel sorry for you, Rafferty. You'll end up with this land and nothing

else.

Christ, he hated irony, and he hated being wrong. He had never wanted

Will to be a part of him or a part of this place. Now Will was gone. The

relationship they had bent and twisted and abused was finally broken.

And he cared. A lot.

He had never wanted a woman to matter to him. Then along came Marilee

from a world he distrusted and despised, as wrong for him as she could

be. And she mattered. Finding Miller Daggrepont's body had sent a jolt

of fear through him. Fear for Marilee.

Can't be afraid for somebody you don't care anything about, can you,

J.D?

Never been a liar. What a lie that was.

He tried to tell himself he hadn't been affected by her tears or her

words outside the lounge at the Mystic Moose. That it didn't matter that

he'd hurt her or that he'd been the biggest son of a bitch this side of

Evan Bryce. They weren't suited. He didn't need the kind of woman she

was. And what would she need with a man like him?
 
She was a bright,

modern woman on the brink of a rich new life. He was an antique. His

life was obsolete. He was tied to a tradition that was dragging him

under like an anchor in high water. Skilled in ways that didn't matter.

A self-trained isolationist who had honed loneliness to perfection and

called it inner peace.

Never been a liar.

The hell you say, J.D.

"A fine night."

Chaske appeared from nowhere and lowered his lean old body to sit down

the porch from J.D. By starlight he looked like a Native American

version of Willie Nelson the long braids, the headband, faded jeans, and

a Waylon Jennings T-shirt. J.D. glanced at him sideways.

"You gonna tell me I'm a jackass too?" he challenged. "Tucker beat you to it."

Chaske shrugged as if to say, You win some, you lose some, and dug the

makings of a cigarette out of his hip pocket. The thin paper glowed

blue-white against the dark.

"I don't need to hear it," J.D. said.

"Mmmm."

"Will is who he is. I am who I am. This day was bound to come."

"Mmmm." The old man opened a cotton pouch and stretched a line of

tobacco down the crease in the paper.

He tightened the pouch string, using his teeth, then rolled the paper

and licked the edge in a movement that had been perfected over a great

many years.

"Will's gone," J.D. said, essentially talking to himself.

"We'll just have to deal with that. I'll get on the phone tomorrow and

find us a hand. We can still have the cattle up the mountain by

Wednesday."

Chaske struck a match against the porch boards and cupped his hands

around his smoke, creating a glowing ball of warm light. He took his

time, concentrating on the moment, savoring that first lungful of smoke.

When he finally exhaled he said, "The cattle can wait. The grass will be

better in a week or two. Now that we got rain."

J.D. studied the weathered old face, an impassive face that gave nothing

away and at the same time hinted at many deeper truths than those on the

surface of his words.

"He won't be coming back, Chaske. Not this time."

Chaske grunted a little, still staring out at the night.

Pinching his little cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, he took

another long drag and held it deep. When he exhaled, the smell of

burning hemp sweetened the air.

"The cattle can wait. You got a lotta cattle. You got one brother." He

took another toke, inhaling until it looked as if he were pinching

nothing more than a real hot spark. He ground the butt out on the porch

floor and dropped it over the edge into the dirt. Slowly and gracefully,

he rose, stretching like a cat. "Gotta go. Got a date."

J.D. raised his brows. "It's after one in the morning."

"She's a night owl. A man has to appreciate each woman for her own

qualities. This one's got some pretty good qualities," he said nodding.

Willie Nelson as Chief Dan George. Wisdom in a Waylon Jennings T-shirt.

"That little blonde - bet she's got some good qualities too. She's got a

look about her. Maybe you oughta find out."

J.D. worked his jaw a little, chewing back the desire to tell Chaske to

mind his own business. The usual rules had never applied to Chaske. He

claimed his ties to the ancient mystics let him live on a different

plane. That or what he put in those little cigarettes.

"She's just passing through, Chaske. Anyway, I got no time. Someone's

gotta keep this place hanging together. Near as I can figure out, that's

the only reason I was hired," he said, wincing a little at the bitterness

that crept around the edges of his voice. "To keep the Rafferty name on the deed."

"Kinda hard to do if there's no Raffertys after you," he pointed out. He

turned his profile to J.D. once again and stared off across the ranch

yard and beyond, his gaze seeming to encompass the whole of Montana.

J.D.'s thoughts drifted to the hazy image of a darkhaired baby nursing

at his mother's plump breast. A son he had yet to sire and a woman he