Renegade Father (7 page)

Besides, the laughing, gutsy girl that had sustained him through those grim years when he thought he would shatter apart if he had to endure one more day was just a memory. That girl didn't exist anymore.

In her place was a sad-eyed, skittish woman who jumped at shadows and trusted no one.

Occasionally the girl he had known reappeared, though. This afternoon, for instance. He set the book down and gazed once more at the flames as if he could conjure her there.

It had been so good to see Annie laughing and joking with him, to see that flush on her cheeks again and that sassy spark in her eyes.

He missed the old Annie, the one who used to see the world as one big challenge for her to conquer. The Annie who found joy in the simplest of things and who was willing to take on a bully twice her size on the school bus when Joe stoically refused to respond to his taunts.

He hadn't realized how much he missed her until he caught that rare, fleeting glimpse today.

He had loved that girl. It had been his guilty secret through most of his life. Annie had represented every
thing he didn't have in his life—sweetness, laughter, joy—and he had craved her like an addict desperate for his next fix.

He'd tried to hide it and thought he had succeeded pretty well until the day he had found her grieving for her father up at the lake. He had kissed her only in comfort, but that one embrace had sent all his bottled-up feelings—some he hadn't even admitted to himself—exploding out of him like Roman candles.

The memory was etched in his mind, right alongside the day he learned she had married his brother.

He found out the same day he had been transferred from the county jail to Deer Lodge. He didn't know what he remembered more, his first official day as a convicted murderer or that solemn, devastating letter from Colt.

Annie and Charlie.

He had thought it was a joke at first. When he finally realized Colt was serious, he thought he was suffocating, being buried alive.

She hadn't even bothered to write to him herself. He was amazed at how much that still hurt, even though he admitted he was probably to blame for that. She had tried to come visit him before his sentencing and he wouldn't even see her. He had been too ashamed to let her see him.

Maybe if he hadn't been so stubborn, maybe if he could have swallowed his pride, he might have been able to talk some sense into her before she did something so disastrous as marry his brother.

It was the past, he reminded himself, picking up his book with determination. It was over and done with. Dredging it all up again was pointless—not to mention masochistic.

Despite his best efforts to concentrate on the mystery, he still hadn't turned a single page twenty minutes later when a knock sounded through the cottage.

He sighed and balanced the book on the padded arm of the chair. So much for his quiet night in front of the fire. Trouble was the only thing to come knocking on the foreman's door this late at night.

It was probably Mitchell. At dinner the rest of the men said they were going into Lulu's in town to waste the bonus he'd ended up having to give all of them.

Just his luck that his brainy idea for a vaccination contest would end in a dead tie between both teams—they'd all ridden back to the barn at exactly the same moment. He'd been obligated to fork over eighty bucks, twenty each to the four hands.

He had planned to pay out of his own pocket—it was his idea, after all—but Annie wouldn't let him. She'd insisted on using ranch reserves. The men deserved it, she said, and she only wished she'd thought of it first.

She was a good boss, even though she still didn't have much confidence in herself.

And how could he blame her for that? When she was a child she'd had to deal with her father's harsh expectations and vocal disappointment that she hadn't been a son. Then as an adult she'd had to deal with Charlie.

He put the thought away and swung open the door.

To his surprise, it wasn't Luke standing on his step but Annie, hands shoved into the pockets of a thin jacket and her shoulders bowed against the cold night.

“W
hat's wrong?” he asked instantly, taking in the worry in her eyes and the lines bracketing her mouth.

“I'm being stupid. Probably nothing. It's just…” She chewed on her lip. “I saw your light on and thought I'd ask. Did you see Dolly by any chance when you were doing the evening feeding?”

He frowned, trying to remember. “No. I think the last time I saw her was this afternoon when we all came back after finishing up the shots. Why? What's the matter?”

“Probably nothing.” She blew out a breath. “I just can't find her anywhere. I've looked in all her usual hideouts but she's not in any of them. I don't know where else to look.”

As the surprise at finding her knocking on his door this late at night began to wear off, he started to notice other details about her appearance. Huge white flakes of snow stood out in stark relief against the auburn of
her hair, her face was pale and set, and her lips had an ominous blue tinge to them.

Didn't the woman have more sense than to wander outside in the middle of the night during a Montana February wearing only a thin jacket? She colored at his scrutiny and reached a hand—a bare hand, he noted with aggravation—and swiped at the snow in her hair.

“Where are your gloves?” he snapped. “What were you thinking to go outside in the middle of the night without a good coat on? Do you want to freeze to death?”

She shoved her hands back into her pockets. “I didn't expect to be out this long. I thought I'd only be going to the barn for a moment, just long enough to find Dolly and take her back to the house for the night.”

He wasn't helping the situation at all by forcing her to stand in the open doorway while he yelled at her, he realized. He opened the door wider. “Come inside by the fire. We'll get you warmed up first and then you can tell me why you're so worried about her.”

He urged her toward the easy chair by the fireplace, then sat at the ottoman at her feet and enfolded her hands in his much larger ones to warm them with his body heat.

While he rubbed at her icy fingers he tried fiercely not to think about how soft her skin felt beneath his hands or just how his mouth could warm her trembling lips.

He didn't realize he was staring at those lips, picturing his mouth fitting perfectly over hers, until they parted slightly as if on a sigh. He lifted his gaze to hers and found her staring back at him, her eyes huge and color now high in her pale face.

The atmosphere pulsed with sudden tension. He saw
awareness in the widening of her pupils, felt it in the fluttering of her hands in his, and realized with a stunning jolt that she wouldn't stop him if he leaned forward and gave in to the impulse to kiss her.

Her mouth would be soft and cool and would probably taste like apples, just like the rest of her.

He couldn't help himself, he focused on her mouth again, and he saw her breath catch. It was just a tiny hitch, not even a full-fledged gasp, but it was enough to yank him back to his senses.

He jerked back, appalled at himself. Dropping her hands, he shoved the ottoman back so he could stand and tried to focus on her reason for being here instead of all the hundreds of reasons he wanted to kiss her—and the thousands more why he couldn't.

“Tell me why you're so worried about Dolly,” he asked abruptly. “She can take care of herself.”

She blinked a few times at his curtness and at the rapid mood shift, then that dazed awareness in her eyes changed back to worry for her dog. “She's getting old, Joe. She'll be fourteen this summer. I don't know where she finds the energy to even keep up with the other dogs, let alone work them into the ground like she does.”

“She's always been one great cow dog. The kind that could win contests if you ever entered her. You did a real fine job training her.”

“I think she trained me more than the other way around.” A smile twisted her mouth then faded quickly. “I've started bringing her inside to sleep lately because the cold seems to bother her so much, but she didn't come up to the house tonight like she usually does. I went to look for her and she's not with the rest of the dogs in the big barn.”

“What about the hay shed? You know how she likes to sneak in there and make a little nest for herself on the loose hay.”

“I thought of that. That's the first place I checked after I went to the barn, but she wasn't there either. She always—
always
—comes when I call, but tonight she didn't. It scares me.”

A hundred things—hell, a thousand—could happen to an aging dog on a spread the size of the Double C. She could have fallen through the thin layer of ice at the creek or been caught by a falling hay bale or dropped her guard around one of the cattle and been gored.

Damn. Annie loved that dog. He hated to think of her heartache if the dog was lying hurt somewhere. Or worse.

He headed toward the coatrack by the door for his own winter gear. “I'm sure she's fine but why don't you stay here by the fire and I'll go out and see if I can find her.”

Annie stiffened. “Forget it. She's my dog. I'm going with you.”

“You're still so cold you're shivering.”

The subtle trembling of her shoulders inside her coat brought all his anger flashing back. “What were you thinking, anyway? Even if you were only going out for a moment, a single-layer denim coat is worthless against this kind of cold. You know that. You're not dressed to go running around outside any more tonight, so be sensible for once and stay right here where it's warm and dry.”

She shook her head and rose from the easy chair. “I'll hurry over to the house and put on my warmer coat and gloves. It will only take a couple of minutes,
I promise, just the time it will take you to saddle a couple of horses for us.”

He knew that stubborn light in her green eyes only too well. “You're not going to budge on this, are you?”

“What do you think?”

He sighed. “That I'd better go saddle a couple of horses.”

His disgruntled tone finally pierced her determination. Too late, she absorbed the particulars of the room, details she'd overlooked in her worry over Dolly—the mystery novel straddling the arm of the chair, the low jazz murmuring from the stereo, the steam curling up from a mug of what looked like hot cocoa.

And he was dressed for relaxing, in soft, faded jeans and a charcoal sweater that made the black of his hair stand out.

How dense could she be? He'd obviously been settling in for a cozy night in front of the fire and here she was filling up what was probably his only time to unwind with more of her problems.

When was she going to learn to take care of her troubles by herself without constantly bothering him with them?

She bit her lip. “I'm sorry, Joe. I wasn't thinking. I should have realized I was intruding on your time off. Don't worry about Dolly, you don't have to help me. I'll find her—just go back to your book.”

He didn't answer her, just gave her the same “don't be stupid” look he used to aim at her when they were younger and she would try to ride home by herself from the Broken Spur in the dark.

“Come on,” he finally said. “I'll walk you to the house on the way to the horse barn.”

Reluctantly, she followed him out the door. The snow
still drifted down slowly, big fat flakes that shimmered in the glow from the vapor light on a power pole between the foreman's cottage and what had always been called the big house. The temperatures had dropped into the teens, she figured. He was right, she should have been more sensible and worn her heavier coat.

He shortened his steps to compensate for her much shorter stride and they walked up the drive in silence. After that charged encounter inside his house, she was intensely aware of him, of his dark hair curling slightly over his collar and the determined set of his mouth and the way his shoulders filled the bulky material of his coat.

They were cry-on-me shoulders, as she knew only too well. She was always entirely too quick to take him up on it, to turn to him whenever she had a crisis.

Why was that? she wondered. What was it about Joe that compelled everyone to lean on him?

When she was a girl she was always running to him with every little injustice in her stupid, sheltered life: a poor grade on a school assignment, another child on the playground who pulled her hair, an unkind word from her father.

She cringed now to think of all the times she had gone whining to him. He had always been so calm, wise beyond his years, with an air of quiet, calming strength that she had shamelessly exploited.

It should have been the other way around. He'd had far more to cry about in his life. She had known what it was like at home for him. Maybe not the full extent of it, but she could guess with pretty grim accuracy now, especially after being married to Charlie for ten years.

Charlie had never touched the children, though; she
wouldn't have tolerated it for a second if he had. Albert Redhawk, on the other hand, had been indiscriminate with his cruelty, dispensing it freely to his first and second wives and to the son he had from each.

Joe wouldn't discuss his home life. At least not honestly.

She remembered asking him once when they were riding home together on the bus why his mother never smiled or laughed. She could vividly remember wishing fiercely that she could take the question back when his mouth quivered like he was going to cry.

But he hadn't cried, instead he had made up some silly story about how an evil shaman put a curse on Mary. If she ever smiled again, she would have to give Joe to the bad medicine man, and Mary loved her son far too much for such a horrible fate. Giving up smiles and laughter was a small price to pay to protect her boy.

Annie couldn't have been more than six or seven at the time, so gullible she sincerely believed quarters could grow out of her ears whenever Patch would pluck one out during his sleight-of-hand magic tricks, but even then she had known Joey was lying.

She knew now why Mary Redhawk never smiled. Knew the reasons all too well.

She pushed the thought away. She wasn't a victim like Mary anymore, she was a strong, confident woman.

And maybe if she kept telling herself that, she might eventually believe it.

“It shouldn't take me long to change my coat,” she said when they reached the big house a few moments later.

“Don't forget your gloves and a good hat.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, mother.”

“I'll take a look for Dolly in the outbuildings again and then meet you in a few moments at the barn.”

She nodded and hurried into the house for her shear-ling coat and lined ropers. By the time she reached the barn, Joe was throwing a saddle blanket over her big dun mare.

“You didn't see her either?”

Joe shook his head. “Not in any of the obvious places. I guess we'll have to start looking in the unobvious places. You're going to feel pretty silly when we find her curled up somewhere warm, sleeping soundly.”

“I hope so. I really hope so.”

She watched him work for a moment, as always in awe of the way the horses responded to his quiet murmurs. “I'll get the saddles,” she offered after a moment, and opened the door to the little tack room at one end of the horse barn.

Switching on the light, she quickly found her saddle, then started to go back out into the barn when she heard a small rustling sound and the tiniest of whimpers.

She whirled around and searched through the clutter, until her gaze landed on a small quivering mound of black and white fur on top of a pile of saddle blankets.

Dolly! The whisper of sound she'd heard was her tail brushing weakly along the floor.

“Joe! In here!” she yelled, dropping the saddle as she rushed toward the little border collie. Dolly whimpered again in greeting and tried to put her nose in Annie's hand but she didn't have the strength to lift her head off the ground.

Her nose was cold, so cold, and she was trembling violently. She didn't have the strength to even lift her head off the blankets and she looked at Annie through dull, pain-filled eyes.

Joe ran in but stopped in his tracks when he saw the dog. “What's wrong with her?”

“I don't know.” She barely spared him a glance as she ran her hands gently over fur, looking for anything that might explain the obvious pain and this awful, awful shaking.

“Anything broken?”

“I don't think so.” She frowned. “How did she get in here? The door was latched tight.”

“Maybe somebody left it open. She could have wandered in and then the wind blew it shut or something.”

“Maybe.” Helplessness swamped her and for the life of her, she couldn't think what to do next.

She would have stood there for several more moments but to her relief, Joe stepped forward to take over.

“Let's get her up to the house where it's warm. We can call Doc Thacker from there.” With a gentle concern that brought the harsh sting of tears to her eyes, he scooped the dog up into his strong arms and led the way out of the horse barn.

Annie trudged through the snow behind them, her heart aching. She hated to see Dolly in such pain and was terrified the veterinarian would say she would have to be put down.

If that's the course of action Graham recommended, how would she ever find the strength to say goodbye?

A tight knot formed in her stomach while she called the veterinarian's emergency number from the phone in the kitchen, then she quickly returned to the family room.

Joe had placed Dolly on a blanket in front of the woodstove and he knelt beside her, petting her trembling sides and speaking soft, meaningless words of sol
ace. The sight of such a big, hard man being so gentle with an old dog was almost more than she could handle.

She gulped back the tears and saw that he had taken time to throw a log into the woodstove. Heat poured out of it in soothing waves and flames flickered and danced through the glass door. The heat seemed to be working—Dolly's shivers had quieted to a soft trembling now.