Finding Stefanie (7 page)

At any rate, Libby had grown up. When she turned to Stefanie, she wore compassion in her eyes. “You okay? You’ve got a quite a bump there.”

Stefanie nodded at the boy. “Thanks to Rocky here.”

“Gideon North,” the boy said, not quite looking at her. “I’m sorry about that.”

Stefanie lifted a shoulder. “I’m Stefanie. And it wasn’t as bad as being kicked by a horse.” She glanced at Piper, who watched Gideon with a guarded look.

“I don’t suppose we should ask what you were doing here?” Stefanie glanced at Nick, who was probably listening to their every word. He’d been a cop once, and everyone in town sort of expected him to be one again.

Gideon said nothing. He watched the fire with a wretched look on his face.

His sister leaned against the truck, arms folded, face dirty. She had black hair—so black that Stefanie knew it had to come from a bottle—and a number of piercings up her ears and one over her eye. Whatever makeup she’d once worn, it had trailed down her face, or maybe that was simply soot. She wore a black shirt under her jacket and a pair of black jeans that looked like she’d painted them on.

Stefanie had had a pair of jeans that fit like that once. Caused her more trouble than she wanted to remember.

“What’s your name?” she asked the girl.

Her eyes cut to Stefanie, then back to the fire.

“Macey,” Gideon said. “Her name’s Macey.”

“Thanks a lot,” Macey snapped.

“Nice to meet you,” Stefanie said, although that sounded corny because clearly it wasn’t nice at all, for any of them. Not with the inferno in front of them.

“And what’s your name, princess?” Stefanie said, leaning toward the little girl, who watched her with wide eyes. She shrank back into the truck.

No one said anything.

“I don’t know it either,” Libby said quietly. She smiled at Stefanie, and suddenly, strangely, Stefanie felt a kinship with the pastor’s daughter. As if Libby knew exactly what Stefanie might be trying to do.

“It’s Haley,” Macey said, then narrowed her eyes at Gideon. “She doesn’t speak.”

“She speaks,” Gideon said. “Just not when I’m around.”

Ouch. Stefanie tried to read his face. He hadn’t even flinched, but she felt something knot inside her chest. Especially when Macey didn’t contradict him. “Are your parents around here?”

More silence, long enough for her to know that maybe she shouldn’t have asked that question. But she had to be sure before— “Okay, then, tonight you’re staying at my ranch. We’ll figure out what to do tomorrow.”

Macey eyed her, and when Gideon turned, she saw hesitation in the set of his jaw. “No. We can’t.”

Of course he would say that—after all, she wouldn’t say yes to the first stranger that offered a roof over her head. Unless she was broke and had two little sisters to care for and was watching everything she had burn to the ground.

“Listen, don’t be stubborn.” Stefanie kept her voice deliberately casual, low, easy. “Let me and my family help you, at least for tonight.”

Desperation was a tough negotiator. She watched his options play across his face as he glanced at Macey and Haley. Then he sighed, looking at the ground. “Just for tonight.”

For starters.

Macey sighed, loud enough to hint at mutiny, but only wrapped her arms around her shivering form.

“Good thing John emptied the propane tanks when he left,” Nick said, coming over to join them. Either he’d heard everything and didn’t want to interfere or he agreed with her invitation. Regardless, he gave Gideon a nod. “Looks like it might have just been an accident.”

Translation: Nick would listen if Gideon wanted to talk. Sometimes, like now, Stefanie got an up-close-and-personal look at the type of man Nick had become, and it filled her with joy.

“Who does this house belong to?” The question came from Macey, who asked it so quietly, it nearly got lost. Stefanie saw how she gave an easy shrug as if not really caring but curious.

“Don’t know,” Nick said. “Used to belong to a friend of ours, but he sold it. I heard it was purchased, but I don’t know by whom.”

“Hope they have fire insurance,” Libby said.

Gideon gave her a dark look.

“Sorry,” she mouthed.

Stefanie wondered if Libby’s father knew she was here. Because . . . well, Pastor Pike wasn’t shy about his expectations where his daughters were concerned. Missy, now that she had her own business, her own house, had made rich fodder for the rumor mill
over the past nine months. Apparently her independence made her “headstrong, rebellious, foolish, and just askin’ for trouble.”

Stefanie had no doubts the same adjectives had been used for her a few years ago, when she’d taken over running the Silver Buckle Ranch.

As for Libby, wasn’t she going to be a missionary or something?

Another truck pulled up and Stefanie looked around. A few more onlookers sat in their vehicles, out of the cold, their bright lights illuminating the burning pile of rubble. But from this pickup emerged a group of cowboys from the Double B, the Breckenridge place. Her gaze connected with JB’s.

In a way, JB sort of reminded her of how she remembered Lincoln Cash—dark blond hair, a rugged shadow on his chin, penetrating eyes.

JB nodded at her, touching his hat. “Howdy, Stef.” He walked by her to stand next to Nick. “Someone torched the old Kincaid place, huh?”

Nick said nothing. Beside her, Gideon shoved his hands in his pockets, his jaw stiff.

“Nick, I think I’m going to take these kids home,” Stefanie said softly.

Nick glanced at her, and for a second, argument, or perhaps concern, flashed in his eyes.

She met it with a look of her own. She’d inherited the same Noble spine he had. Besides, one look at Gideon told her that he wasn’t a hardened criminal about to make a run for it. This kid had
broken
written all over him.

And if God could change her brother Rafe, maybe He could do
the same with Gideon, given enough big sky and patience. The thought made her put on her fight face. If Nick even opened his mouth to argue—

Nick nodded. “I’ll stick around here for a bit, but I’ll sleep on the foldout tonight.”

Stefanie could read between the lines—he wanted to help, but he wasn’t letting her stay in the house alone with Gideon and his little flock despite how innocent they looked. “No—it’s my idea. I’ll sleep on the sofa. You and Piper can have Dad’s room.”

She reached for Haley, who recoiled. “It’s okay,” Stefanie said, wondering what had made the girl accept her hand earlier. She kept it outstretched and offered a smile.

Haley scooted out of the truck but didn’t take her hand. Instead she reached out for Macey, who pulled her close. Stefanie met Macey’s eyes, challenge in their depths.

“There’s some chili in the Crock-Pot,” Piper said, engulfed in one of Nick’s wool-lined denim shirts. She looked tired tonight, her blonde hair down and blowing in the wind.

“Thanks,” Stefanie said, pulling out her keys. “Ready to go, Gideon?”

He glanced at Libby, as if needing something from her. Approval? Forgiveness?

“See you tomorrow,” Libby said, smiling at him. Was she blushing? Hmm.

A car door slammed, and Stefanie watched another form making its way through the darkness, just outside the glow of light. Apparently Gideon had inadvertently ignited a town meeting. People she didn’t even know were emerging from the hills—

Except, she
did
know him. Stefanie stopped swinging her keys
as her eyes tried to deceive her, tried to tell her that she recognized Lincoln Cash, in the flesh, walking up the drive of the Big K. All six feet two of him, wearing a leather jacket and jeans, his blond hair just below his ears, sporting his trademark scruffy rub of whiskers. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and seemed mesmerized by the flames. There was a serious, even pained, look on his face, in his blue eyes.

No. She was tired, and the smoke and flames had made her eyes water. Besides, he didn’t have an entourage or a curvy blonde on his arm. It couldn’t be Lincoln Cash.

He caught her gaze. And in the briefest of moments, something sweet, perhaps a memory, filled his expression.

Could she breathe? She tried it, and her breath came out in a gasp that earned her brother’s sharp look. Oh, good grief, now she was acting like a fan, a sappy fan.

She turned away, staring unseeingly at the embers that now glowed, pulsating in the night. “Lincoln Cash is here,” she said, more for herself.

But Nick heard it. “What’s he doing here?”

Stefanie said nothing, paralyzed. She could even feel Lincoln creeping up on her; the little hairs on the back of her neck had begun to vibrate.

“Hey, Lincoln, remember me?” Nick said. He held out his hand.

Stefanie watched them out of her peripheral vision as Lincoln took it.

“Sure do. Rafe’s brother—Nick, right?”

Nick clapped the man on the shoulder. “What brings you to Phillips?”

Lincoln glanced at her. “Hi, Stefanie.”

Stefanie managed a smile. A very bad one, lopsided, all teeth. What was wrong with her? “I’m surprised to see you.” Her voice was high and squeaky; she sounded like she was about three years old.

And
surprised
might be the understatement of the century. Why on earth would Lincoln Cash simply drop out of the sky to land here, at the Big K, the night the house burned to the ground?

The answer crawled slowly through her chest and made it to her brain by the time he responded.

“This is my property.” He looked past Nick to his burning house, then back again. “And I want to know who burned it down.”

Silence fell like ashes between them. Lincoln had to know that the entire bunch of them had become liars, accessories to the crime, when no one spoke a word. Until . . .

“I did, Mr. Cash,” Gideon said, meeting Lincoln’s eyes. He was ashen, rattled by Lincoln’s appearance. He wasn’t the only one. “It was a mistake,” he said quietly.

Good for you, Gideon,
Stefanie thought. See, she knew that buried inside this kid lay real potential.

Potential that Lincoln Cash apparently couldn’t see, what with the stars of fame and power blinding him, because he looked Gideon up and down before he said, “You’re right, kid. A real big mistake.”

And as Stefanie stood there, a cold slice of reality spearing through her, Lincoln turned to Nick and said, “Point me in the direction of the sheriff.”

Fire. Of course, fire.

Watching from the car as the flames flickered in reflection against the windshield, it all became painfully, gloriously clear.

He would die by fire. He deserved it, really. He’d wiggled out of justice so many times; fire would be slow and painful and the poetic way for him to meet his end.

She leaned her head back on the seat, a wave of relief rushing through her, the adrenaline of the road still buzzing her nerves. She couldn’t believe she’d found him—although she’d done her homework, stalked him for so long he’d become almost a part of her. Sometimes they even had conversations in her head. His arrogance often astounded her.

It would be a relief for both of them, probably, when it was over. The waiting, the wondering when exactly it might happen. She would ache with the loss, but a sweet ache. Nothing like before.

He had done this to her. To himself. Watching him now, standing there, distraught, sated the hunger in her belly.

Time to make him suffer. Just like she had promised herself.

CHAPTER 4

L
INCOLN HAD BEEN TIRED.
And crabby. And sore. And mad.

And an Academy Award–worthy jerk. If there might be any confusion in that assessment, in the tally of votes, one look at the expression on Stefanie Noble’s face confirmed it.

That and the snarl she’d added to her tone since the last time he’d seen her. He didn’t remember a snarl when they’d talked last summer, during the Fourth of July rodeo in Phillips.

“What is your problem, Lincoln? Didn’t you hear him? He said he made a mistake! An accident!”

An accident was knocking over someone’s planter with a football, maybe banging someone’s car with a bike. Lincoln wasn’t exactly sure what the word might be for incinerating someone’s house, but
accident
didn’t come close.

Besides, he’d taken one look at the kid, at the way he shoved his hands in his pockets, at his slouched yet wary pose, the expression of defiance as the boy peered at him through that shaggy hair, and Lincoln had flashed right back to the past, to the trailer park and getting his insides rearranged by just this sort of kid.

The sooner this little arsonist was behind bars, the better off Phillips would be. Lincoln couldn’t ignore the flint of disappointment that slivered though him. He’d thought Phillips was safer than this—free from the punks that plagued bigger towns. In fact, he counted on that safety to attract celebrities like himself who needed to hide from the crime that stalked them.

“I heard him loud and clear, thanks. And nice to see you too, Stefanie.” He only half meant the sarcasm in his voice. When he’d envisioned this moment—well, not
this
moment, not the moment when he’d watch his only shelter burn to a crisp, but the moment when he’d see Stefanie again—he’d entertained the notion of rekindling the tiny flame he’d started last summer.

Or at least he
thought
he’d started it. One look at her face now—and wow, he’d forgotten how pretty she was with her big brown eyes, that long dark hair, the high cheekbones, the slim, strong, yet graceful aura that she carried in her step—and he wondered if she’d ever liked him at all.

Maybe she’d simply liked the Lincoln persona.

Of course she did. After all, what did he expect?

“Don’t ‘nice to see you’ me,” Stefanie said, echoing his sarcasm with deadly accuracy. “Could you just try to be a nice guy? Can’t you see that these kids need our help?” She gestured to the kid, whose eyes darkened as he glanced at Stefanie, apparently piqued by her description. No, he wasn’t remotely a kid, judging by the scars, the anger on his face. This punk had left “kid” behind at least a decade ago. Which was why Lincoln felt justified in his urge to flatten him.

If he could control his arm enough to swing, that is. And then there was that little issue of his balance. Lincoln was turning back into a hundred-pound weakling, right before his own eyes.

“Don’t you think you should be a little more concerned for the victim here? That
is
my house burning down.” How would she react if someone set her ranch—her
future—
on fire? “And what do you mean by
mistake
?” he growled at the kid. See, he could be nice. He wasn’t yelling, was he?

“I think Gideon was just trying to keep his sisters warm—he built a fire in the fireplace and it got out of hand,” Stefanie answered for him.

“Since when did you become the local public defender?” Lincoln snapped, watching her glance back at a girl, a teenager, who stared at Lincoln with eyes that told him his star powers had taken control of her mind. Behind her, another little girl slunk behind her sister’s leg, apparently terrified by the mean man.

He really felt like a jerk now. All the same, he couldn’t afford to have juvenile delinquents running around Phillips, especially when they left flames and rubble in their wake.

“I’m only defending him because you had to come in swinging. It was an accident—don’t you see how hungry and cold they are?” Stefanie answered, even stepping between Lincoln and Gideon, a little bobcat of attitude.

No. All he saw was trouble—past, present, and future. Where was Dex when he needed the guy to yell, “Cut”? This scene hadn’t played out at all like Lincoln had hoped.

“Where are their parents?” he asked, trying—
really
trying—to put a soft tone in his voice.

No one said anything.

Swell
. “Listen, why am I the bad guy here? I’m just saying, the kid burned down my house. Where I’m from, that’s a crime.”

“I’ll fix it.”

This, mumbled from Gideon, hit Lincoln square in the absurd bone. He couldn’t help letting out a burst of laughter that didn’t in the least resemble humor, expect perhaps a crazed Jack Nicholson–in–
The Shining
kind of humor. Maybe the drugs the doctor had given Lincoln affected his ability to control his emotions, but with everything inside him, he wanted to leap on this skinny kid and strangle him.

“Right,” he said instead, ignoring how the kid flinched. “Let me get the tool kit from my luggage. We’ll get started on it tonight. Because I forgot my tent and my sleeping bag, thinking that maybe I might have a place to sleep tonight.”

Liar
. But Lincoln delivered the line with such rancor that even he believed he had intended to bunk down in John Kincaid’s three-bedroom modular home, maybe build a campfire in the living room and dine on a package of cold ramen noodles.

“Oh, please,” Stefanie sneered, one hand on her hip, apparently using her killer X-ray vision to see right through him. “Like you were really going to stay here. It doesn’t have satin sheets or a mint for your pillow. Oh, and furniture or appliances, for that matter.”

And here, when he’d met her, he thought Stefanie Noble quiet. Even docile. Clearly she was the one who deserved the Oscar. If this reception was any indication, he’d read every happy, pleasant vibe he’d picked up last summer entirely wrong.

Fine. He didn’t expect
everyone
in the world to love him. Not really. However, even if he had been a little over the top with his response, he didn’t deserve
both
barrels. His house was on fire. He had feelings too.

Lincoln folded his arms over his chest, thankful that his hand didn’t shake for once. “It’s true; I’d forgotten the warm and friendly
Phillips hospitality, but obviously the law has changed. What, is this the let-bygones-be-bygones form of justice? Or maybe just, ‘Hey, let the rich guy pay for it. He’s got the dough.’”

Stefanie also crossed her arms, not rattled in the least by his throwing out the truth. Instead a smile—and he put it solidly in the category of nasty—raised one side of her mouth. “That sounds about right, Mr.
Cash
.”

Lincoln stared at her, everything inside him hollow. He’d wanted to hide, not be trampled into the soil. So he held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, sweetheart. My fault for thinking that a guy might get a fair shake here. Sadly, I’m fresh out of fifties. And a house, it looks like. I guess I’ll just go find a tree to put my bedroll under.”

“Lincoln—,” Nick started.

Stefanie cut him off. “I think there’s a big cottonwood over in Idaho.”

They’d attracted a small crowd. Or, given the population of Phillips, a large one. But enough murmuring and unrest rippled through it to evoke the Old West traditions of lynching and being run out of town on a rail. Lincoln had seen enough Westerns to know that wasn’t his preferred method of deportation.

Besides, he needed this town on his side if he hoped to sweet-talk them into spiffing up the place for his purposes. Maybe fixing—or installing—sidewalks, replacing the green road sign that announced Phillips with a real Western-looking carved sign that gave the place some class. Perhaps even adding another restaurant.

Stymied, he turned and surveyed the wreckage of his house. The fire had died to spitting flames and simmering embers. Thankfully the barn, which had been rebuilt less than five years ago, still stood, as did the rest of the outbuildings. He’d already talked to a
contractor about revamping the barn to create a theater. He’d have to track the man down and have him rearrange the schedule to work on the house first. Lincoln hadn’t seriously planned on living in John’s old digs, but he’d slotted the demolition of the house after the building of the theater.

This
accident
might even have saved him a headache. It probably wouldn’t hurt him to let go of his anger. Except for the fact that Lincoln knew, better than most, how kids like the one who had torched his house only meant trouble. Trouble and hurt and danger and—most of all—tragedy.

He watched as Stefanie rounded up the two girls, motioned to Gideon, then gave Lincoln a stinging glare as she walked past him, toward a truck sitting not far away on the back side of the property.

Lincoln’s gaze fell to the little girl walking hand in hand with her older sister. His gut twisted so tight his eyes began to burn.

The punk belonged in jail. Before he hurt someone else.

Someone like Alyssa.

Stefanie still couldn’t believe the way she’d treated Lincoln Cash.

Her sarcastic tone, the horrible way she’d reacted to his tragedy. She had overreacted in an epic, live-in-her-nightmares kind of way.

Even if he had been calloused toward the need radiating from the kids or the wretched guilt on Gideon’s face, she didn’t have to go into she-bear mode.

It was just . . . well, she expected so much more from him—no,
wanted—
more from him. She wanted the charming guy she’d met
last summer, the one she’d seen on the big screen, the one who occupied her hopes. Maybe it had been his attitude that set her off, arriving in his shiny luxury rental car with his bad-boy looks, his designer jeans and leather jacket, swaggering in like he owned the place.

Which, apparently, he did.

What was he doing back in Phillips, anyway? The last thing her town needed was his entourage clogging traffic. And where was his arm candy, Elise Fontaine? Stefanie hadn’t seen—okay,
purchased
—a magazine in the last six months that didn’t have a shot of them together somewhere in the pages, if not on the front cover.

Stefanie ran a hair pick through her wet hair. She’d showered right after showing Gideon to Rafe and Nick’s room and getting the two girls settled in her old room. Although she’d purchased a new comforter and pillows, it still felt just as girlie as when her mother had remodeled it the year before she died. Pink roses on the wallpaper, a shelf for knickknacks—mostly Stefanie’s horse collection. And a dollhouse her parents had made for her eighth birthday, complete with miniature furniture, set on a table in the corner. Over the years, she’d taken down the posters and the dusty horse-riding trophies, the basket of stuffed animals. But with the white-painted French provincial dresser and desk and matching double bed her parents got on mail order from Montgomery Ward, the room still looked like it might belong to a twelve-year-old. Stefanie hadn’t had much time since her thirteenth birthday to do anything but tend to ranch chores.

Besides, sometimes, deep inside, she longed to be twelve again. Longed to be the girl who dreamed of maybe someday raising a herd of horses and using them to help troubled children. She’d even
named her dream ranch—Redemption Ranch. She’d rescue horses and children, and just like she and Sunny had, they would heal each other. She hadn’t taken those dreams out to scrutinize for . . . years. Definitely not since her mother passed away.

But suddenly, like an echo of an old prayer, those dreams had formed right before her eyes as she’d watched Gideon tumble out of his car and sprint toward Kincaid’s burning house. Even after he’d hit her, everything inside her had longed to help him. Especially when he collapsed in the dirt, one hand over his face, trying to hide his tears. She’d have to be made of stone not to see how much he cared about his sisters.

Which, apparently, was the substance of Lincoln’s heart. Stone or perhaps granite. So much for his hero image. Heroes didn’t kick down-on-their-luck kids in the teeth.

“Since when did you become the local public defender?”
She smiled remembering Lincoln’s words. That’s right. Just call her the Defender of the Oppressed. Besides, someone had to care about these kids.