Dark Paradise (78 page)

any use to her. J.D. himself didn't come, he didn't call. Nor did she go

to him. As much as she ached to see him, to touch him, to have him hold

her, she wasn't so sure they weren't better off apart. She had a new

life to begin. J.D. had an old way of life that was shifting and

changing, leaving him on uncertain ground. It was probably for the best

that they let lie what had tried to take root between them. Or so she

told herself.

Maybe in time . . . or not. She had to keep reminding herself that J.D.

Rafferty was not the reason she had come to Montana in the first place.

She had come for a break. To clear her mind. To get in touch with her

soul. She intended to do just that. Permanently. There would be no going

back to California. There would be no more living in limbo at the Moose.

She felt as if the Marilee Jennings who had first piled her business

suits in the back of her Honda and set out from Sacramento had ceased to

exist. The false shell of that woman had been shed and the real Marilee

was just beginning to emerge. What a wonderful feeling that was.

A little frightening, a little painful, but so right.

Kevin kissed her cheek and gave her right hand a squeeze. "Promise me

you'll come to dinner Wednesday."

"Scout's honor."

She climbed into the passenger seat in the front of the van and Spike

promptly launched himself into her lap and propped his feet on the

dashboard, ready for adventure.

"You're certain you can manage-" Drew began as he buckled himself into

the driver's seat.

"Yes, Drew," Marilee said in a tone that was both patient and

patronizing as if she were answering a two-year-old.

"I manage very well with one arm. juggling is a trick, but the

day-to-day stuff?
 
No sweat."

He frowned and made a humming noise, as if his brain were stuck in

neutral.

They made their way through town at a leisurely pace.

The usual wave of summer tourists had swelled with the ranks of the

morbidly curious who had seen the town spot lighted on national network

news. The sidewalks were busy. All parking spaces were full. The traffic

on Main Street was enough to drive the locals to alternate routes.

The ranch dogs stayed in the backs of their pickups, guarding their

territory and leaving the sidewalks to the strangers.

The businesses were prospering. Still, Marilee couldn't help but wonder

what J.D. would make of it. She could almost hear his growl of disdain

as they passed the Feed and Read, where tourists were emerging licking

stick candy and carrying an odd assortment of souvenirs, seed packets and

bottles of horse liniment and stacks of western novels and cookbooks

from the Lutheran church ladies' auxiliary. Outsiders. Outsiders were

becoming the life's blood of his hometown, with or without the

permission of J.D. Rafferty. The town would change or the town would

die, and Rafferty would stay on his mountain until God or the bankers

drove him down.

Stubborn. Unyielding. Uncompromising. Those weren't supposed to be

compliments, but she could imagine the hard gleam of pride in his

granite-gray eyes when those words were applied to him.

In front of the courthouse Colleen Bentsen had herself an audience as

she worked on her pile of twisted metal. M.E. Fralick was giving a

one-woman performance of Evita under the shade of the bandshell. Her

rendition of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" carried across the park to

clash with strains of Joe Diffie coming from a boom box.

They drove out the ridge road past the Paradise Motel in silence. Since

the incident on the mountain, Drew had had little to say about the

revelation of Bryce's private game reserve. He had kept their

conversations focused on Marilee, fussing over her well-being and her

state of mind.

An obvious diversion, but she had allowed it, too tired and too fresh

from the ordeal to want to talk about it any more than she had to. The

questions came to mind now, but she didn't ask them. She just sat there,

scratching Spike's ears.

Drew glanced at her sideways, trying twice to find the right words.

Finally he just plunged in like a penitent in the confessional. "I knew

about Bryce's hunts. I pieced it all together from odd bits of

conversation I picked up, rumors, that sort of thing. Hints Lucy

dropped. She was a great one for leaving a trail of bread crumbs, then

standing back to watch who followed it and what they did. I didn't do a

bloody thing," he said, his voice sharp with self-loathing.

"Why?" Marilee asked evenly.

"Fear, I'm ashamed to say. At first there was the fear of what Bryce

might do to our business if we meddled in his. Then the fear that what

happened to Lucy might happen to anyone."

"That wasn't an unreasonable fear," she said, trying to convince herself

as much as Drew. She was disappointed in him. She felt let down,

betrayed.

"No, but somehow that doesn't make me feel any more a hero," he said.

"Perhaps if I'd spoken up earlier, you and Samantha would have been

spared your ordeal. Perhaps Lucy would still be alive."

"Sharon killed Lucy out of jealousy. She was after Sam for the same

reason. She didn't want another woman getting close to Bryce."

"Still, if Bryce's activities had been revealed sooner, she may never

have had the opportunity."

"There's no way of knowing that."

"No, and that's something that will haunt me the rest of my life," He

took his eyes off the road long enough to give her his most sincere look

of apology. "I'm so sorry, luv."

"This is what you and Kevin were fighting about, isn't it?" Marilee

said.

He sighed as he let off the gas to negotiate a curve.

"Yes. He wanted me to go to the sheriff. I refused. He accused me of

condoning what Bryce was doing. In a way, I suppose I was. But I was

also trying to keep my friends from getting hurt. Hear no evil, see no

evil, and all that."

"Will you work it out?"

"I don't know," he said softly, staring out at the road, then he shot

another glance across the cab at her. "Will you and I?"

Marilee said nothing for a moment, thinking about the value of

friendship and forgiveness. She had nearly lost her life, but Drew's

intent had been to save her.

"Let's not be sorry," she said quietly as they started up the

switchbacks. "Let's just start over. That's what I came here for."

Drew carried her bags in for her, then headed back to town.
 
Marilee

didn't invite him to stay.
 
After two weeks of media madness, she wanted

some time alone. Time apart from Drew to let the raw feelings fade

seemed a good idea as well. They could start over with their friendship

in a few days, start fresh.

The house was exactly as she had left it - half restored, half disaster

area. Marilee walked through, making a mental list of the things she

would do in the coming weeks, of the things she would change to make the

house her own. Everything that had been Lucy's would go. She couldn't

bear to look at a chair or a painting and wonder whose secrets had been

used to buy it. She would scavenge through antique shops and flea

markets for things of her own. The expensive artwork would go. She would

replace it with local folk art. She had already made arrangements for a

plumber and a carpenter to come out and repair the damages made by

Bryce's people during the search that had passed for vandalism. The cars

would be sold and the proceeds, along with the cash Lucy had left

behind, would go to pay the inheritance taxes.

When all was said and done, she would have an empty house and an empty

bank account, but her new life would not be tainted by the old.

In the great room her eyes landed on the Mr. Peanut tin on the mantel

above the fireplace. The peanut regarded her with a cynical, knowing

look, as if it had foreseen everything that had happened and was amused

with her response to the challenges. With a heavy heart she took it

down and packed it in a box.

"You're outta here, Luce," she whispered, blinking back tears.

With Spike scouting the way ahead of her, she walked out to the barn

with the box tucked under her bad arm and checked on Clyde. The mule was

unimpressed by her return and went on eating grass. The gash in his side

was healing nicely. The vet had told her he would be ready to ride

before she would be ready to ride him.

Spade in hand, she wandered out into the llama pasture. The llamas had

all gone down to the other side of creek to graze and to lie in the

shade of the cottonwood trees. Spike caught sight of them and sent up an

alarm that caused the whole herd to raise their heads. He charged toward

them, ready to do battle. Marilee called him back and explained to him

that the llamas were cool and he didn't need to worry about them. The

little dog cocked his head and listened to her with perked ears.

When the lecture was over, he picked a shady spot and curled up to watch

her dig a grave for Mr. Peanut.

The task was awkward and time-consuming because of her temporary

handicap, but Marilee dug steadily, pushing the spade into the ground

with her foot and levering it up with her good arm. The spot she had

chosen was far away from the house, on a little knoll of land that

overlooked the creek and was shaded by a clump of young aspen trees. An

exile of sorts, but a peaceful one.

She buried the box with the peanut tin inside and transplanted wild

bitteroot on the grave. When the task was finished, she stood back,

leaning on the spade, and stared down at the vibrant pink flowers.

Bright, pretty, tough with bitter roots. Like Lucy.

The flood of feelings that came with thoughts of her friend were a muddy

mix of loss and hurt and disappointment and gratitude. She longed to

grab her guitar and try to pick through the tangle with the divining rod

of her music. But she couldn't play with one hand, and so she packed the

feelings away in her heart to be sorted through another day when time

may have given her the gift of perspective.

Turning back toward the house, she looked up the mountain and wondered

if time had given J.D. any perspective.

She missed him. Damned ornery cowboy. She missed his toughness and the

tenderness beneath it. She missed his hard opinions and the

vulnerability behind them. She missed his arrogance and the rare

glimpses of humor that tempered it. She missed his touch. She missed his

kiss.

"So what are you gonna do about it, Marilee?" she asked out loud.

In her past life she would have done nothing but make excuses. They were

wrong for each other. It wasn't meant to be. Just this morning she had

tried to tell herself it was best to do nothing. To accept. To settle.

The hell it was.

"Come on, Spike," she said, starting back toward the ranch buildings.

"We need a plan."

J.D. slapped his catch rope against the leg of his chaps and shooed the

two calves that had wandered back toward their mamas. The youngsters

darted to the herd with their skinny tails lifted high. His horse fell

out of the canter and dropped to a walk.

He had come up the mountain with the herd three days after the "Incident

at Bald Knob," as the newspapers had labeled it, and stayed on. He

needed to spend some time with Del, to decide what to do about him.

Beyond that, he needed some time to decide what to do about himself.

A lot of things had turned around on him and shifted beneath him in the

past few weeks - perspectives, philosophies, long-held beliefs. He

needed some time to let it all settle into place.

He needed this - long days in the saddle, trailing after cows and calves,

days on the Mountainside and in the lush meadows with nothing but time