Finding Jessie: A Mystery Romance (33 page)

There was no sound from inside the trailer. “I know you said you wanted your privacy, but come on, angel face, open the door.” He knocked louder, his leather-gloved hands hurting from the wet, cold weather. There was no answer from within.

“I usually see your lights at night, with my telescope, but I didn’t see any last night. Are you okay?” He pounded on the door. There was no reply.

“I’m going to open the door, Tara.” Zane tried the handle. It was not locked. He wiped his muddy boots on the welcome mat and climbed the steps. He turned the knob slowly.

“I swear, Tara, I won’t even
look
at your face if you still don’t want me to.” He opened the door a few inches and the hinges creaked. The trailer was dark inside, the shades drawn. He flipped on the light switch by the door and pushed it open. The first breath that he inhaled inside the trailer almost knocked him over with the stench of something spoiled.

“Whew! What’s that smell?!” he exclaimed. He lifted the lid of a pot on the stovetop. Raw black beans were swelled with water as if she had been soaking them to cook. A slimy mold bubbled up, as if the pot had sat there for a few days. He wrinkled his nose and slammed the lid back on the pot.

“This is a bad sign.”

Tara was so tidy that she never would have left beans to soak so long that they spoiled.
Had something had happened to her?

His heart pounding, Zane strode to the curtained-off bedroom and flipped on the light. The bed was neatly made. He checked the tiny bathroom and found everything in order, except for one thing. The bathroom mirror was completely covered in black electrical tape. He shuddered when he saw it. He even opened the shower door to see if she was pressed against the wall.

Then Zane looked in the tiny clothes closet to see if she was hiding, but all he saw in there was black clothing. Black shirts. Black jeans. The black dress she’d worn to Hugh’s funeral and the black hat with the sad black veil that had covered her burned face completely. The ugliest black terry bathrobe that he’d ever seen hung on a hook.

“She’s turned completely into a woman in black,” he said to himself. “Widow’s clothing is all she has!”

***

“Tara?” Zane called inside her empty barn from the back of his blue roan gelding that exactly matched his Stetson hat. Her Dodge Ram dual-axle truck was in the barn and the keys hung from the dusty ignition. He frowned.

A great horned owl slipped down from the shadows and near-grazed his shoulder. Blue, his calm horse, only flicked his ears a little bit, but stood quietly. The owl slipped out the open barn door, flying as soundlessly as Zane’s exhaled breath as he listened for Tara to reply. She did not.

Tara’s horse was gone, the last livestock that she hadn’t sold in her grand plan to sell everything so she could leave the state and go somewhere else with her scarred face that he hadn’t seen since before it was ruined in the fire that took Hugh’s life, the man she’d left him for.

Zane dismounted and tried to find hoof prints leading out from the barn, but the pouring rain had obliterated any tracks that her horse, Lucky, might have left.

Zane threw Blue’s reins over a hitching post and he walked a short distance away, up a hill, so he could see down into the valley. Then he tried to call Ty and Fly, who both used to be his own dogs, but had followed Tara when she’d left him. Zane whistled short piercing sounds through his teeth, as high-pitched as he could make them, so that the sound would carry farther and shouted down into the valley, “Fly, here! Ty, here!” just like in the old days. He whistled as loud as he could and shouted for the dogs until his throat felt raw.

There was no use trying to search thousands of acres for her if he could find the dogs and let himself be led to her. Unaccustomed to speaking as he was, the shouting made his throat feel uncomfortably strained. A fear grew inside of him that something bad had happened to Tara…

Do you want to know what happens next?

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Taking Back Tara
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Have you already read
Taking Back Tara
? The next book in the Ranch Lovers Romance series is
Tara Takes Christmas.

TARA TAKES CHRISTMAS

by

Eve Paludan

1.

THE SUNDAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING, the snow fell in dense clumps, as if angels were gleefully sifting sticky, shredded coconut over the Tetons.

Tara wiped her hand over the moisture on the kitchen windowpane and peered out at the gathering weather.

“Good morning, Wyoming,” she said cheerfully.

When Zane walked into the kitchen and kissed her on the back of the neck, she sighed happily. His arms went around her from behind and enfolded her.

“Hello,’ darlin’,” Zane said. “Miss me?”

“Miss you? I just saw you fifteen minutes ago, in the shower.”

“That was a long time ago,” he teased.

“Oh, you!” She turned around in the circle of his arms and they kissed softly. “Before the highway gets too slick, I need to go to town and get some baking supplies, a big pumpkin, a turkey, and coffee. Will you please take me?” she asked, looking down at the clumsy medical boot that sheathed her leg.

“Sure. I need to check our post office box, too.”

“Thanks.”

“How’s the ligament pain today?”

“A twinge. No more than that. I can’t wait until Doc Nelson says I can stop wearing this big blue boot on my leg. I’m going stir crazy. I need to get back on a horse and behind the wheel of a truck. Not that I have a horse right now…Rest in peace, Lucky. I haven’t even started my truck for months.”

“It’s not like you can fit that boot thing on the driver’s side.”

“You’ve got that right. I haven’t wanted to drive so badly since I was going on sixteen.”

He grinned wryly. “You don’t like relying on me, do you?”

“You know me. I’m fiercely independent.”

“Aw, shucks. And just when I was going to ask you if you would marry me again.” His eyes twinkled.

She smiled, but shook her head. “Not yet, Zane. Please? I’ll let you know when I’m ready. In fact, when it’s time,
I
will ask
you
.”

Their eyes met and he ran his finger down her burn-scarred cheek and kissed it. “Is that the way the wind blows now?”

“Yep. I figured since you asked me the first time, it’s my turn to ask you the second time.”

He didn’t reply, but opened and closed the fridge a couple of times without taking anything out of it.

Tara grinned, put on the coffeepot and turned to Zane again. “Is that all right? If I propose to you?”

“As you wish,” he replied softly, with one eyebrow cocked.

“I do wish.” She changed the subject. “Let’s make a list for our trip to town so we don’t forget anything.”

“Or anyone,” he added.

“What do you mean, any
one
?”

“We might go a-visitin’ in town,” he said mysteriously.

“Lordy. I’m afraid to ask what you’ve got up your sleeve. Do I need to bust out the curling iron, hair spray and lip gloss?”

“No, your hair looks beautiful. And to cover up those lips with goo is just a crime against nature.”

“Oh, you. Tell me this: Why do men hate makeup and hairdos?”

“Because it gets in their way.”

She chuckled and busied herself assembling baking supplies on the granite countertop and checking inside the baking powder can. “I’m almost out of baking powder. We haven’t been to town in a month. Not even church.”

“Bad us!” Zane said with a smirk. “Sunday mornings are just too lazy.”

“It’s not Sunday that’s lazy. It’s
us
.”

“
Wicked
us.” He paused. “I’m sure we have window envelopes in the post office box, too.”

“I know I will. I should have packages waiting for me in town. And bills. After the skunks ruined everything in my old Airstream, I’ve been shopping online.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have shot at the skunks
inside
the travel trailer. That wasn’t too savvy, Tara.”

She grinned sheepishly. “I got surprised when I opened my clothes closet and they leaped out at me.” She pulled her hair under her nose and sniffed it. “Do I still stink?”

“Nah, I think we got you all girly-smelling again.”

“Thanks for giving me the de-scenting baths. I can’t believe I cried like a little girl.”

“No worries. It was upsetting. But it was my pleasure to bathe you, darlin’. I couldn’t just leave you like that—Cryin’, stinkin’, and pukin’.”

“Yeah, we’ve got to stop meeting like that. It was not romantic.”

He looked into her eyes. “Soooo…why don’t you want to marry me again, Tara?” Zane slipped his hand in hers.

“Maybe I just enjoy having you for a red-hot lover. Did you ever think of that?” she teased and tapped him on the butt.

“Hey, watch those hands. That’s
my
move!” he replied.

She laughed. “Oh, wait. Let me get this straight. I can’t just walk up to you and pat your butt?”

“Not in the kitchen. We
eat
in here.”

She giggled. “Yes, let’s only make love in all the other rooms of the house, including the walk-in closet. But keep the kitchen sacred.”

“That’s where the pies are born.” He smiled and said, “I’m trying to remember if our married sex was ever this delicious.”

“Of course it was. But now, the steamy scandal of the current situation keeps us both revved up. What will people in town say when they see us together at the supermarket, picking out a frozen turkey and making eyes at each other over packages of Pepperidge Farms cornbread stuffing?”

“What people say to your face and what they think are entirely different. Don’t sweat it, darlin’. You don’t adjust your attitude. Let them adjust theirs.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

He nodded. “I’ll feed and water the dogs and the horse if you make me some toast out of your homemade bread to go with that coffee that’s perkin’ on the stove.”

“Okay.”

“Three slices, please. Butter and honey on the side.”

“You got it, handsome.”

2.

“I’m glad you came by on a whim, Tara. I have good news for you.”

Tara sat up straight on the examining table at Doc Nelson’s clinic. The protective boot was off and they looked at her X-rays on the computer monitor.