Danger on the Ranch Read online

  He should have learned that lesson early on. His own mother had given up alcohol while pregnant, according to Mitch’s father, but the changes just wouldn’t stick, not for Claire, Wade or Mitch, or her husband. Addiction gripped Phoebe with voracious fangs, and love and prayers and pleading could not free her.

  Again he felt the coin flipping in his gut between Jane, the monster’s ex-wife, and Jane, a woman willing to do anything to protect her baby boy. Which was the truth?

  “Doesn’t matter,” he told himself. Whoever she was, Jane Reyes and Ben would be safer in the custody of the US marshals. He returned to find Aunt Ginny sliding a plate of muffins onto the table. His stomach growled, but there was no way he was going to eat if Foley didn’t. Chad had gone to sit in a shadowed corner of the living room next to one of the ranch dogs, which was about as social as he got with strangers. Liam had no such reservations about the company. He set about loading up a plate and slid into a seat next to Uncle Gus, making sure, Mitch knew, that his right ear was toward the marshal. Liam didn’t want to miss a word of the whole situation.

  Jane joined them, face now dry and composed. Aunt Ginny handed her the platter, and she accepted a muffin with a grateful nod.

  “Blueberry muffins are the only kind of fancy thing I can make. Gus is the cook around here.”

  Gus winked. “Don’t let her fool you. She can cook most anything if she studies up on it. We ate beef stew for a week solid while she practiced that recipe, and now it’s restaurant quality.”

  She pinked and waved a dismissive hand at her husband. “I’m a decent cook, I guess, but I’ve decided to take up baking as a hobby. I’ve only recently started on muffins, so it’s only been two days of eating those.”

  Liam laughed. “Nothing wrong with these muffins, Aunt Ginny.” He helped himself to a mug of coffee to go with it.

  Foley fidgeted. “Like I said, Miss Reyes, we need to talk. I got the details of Wade’s attack on the beach from Mitch. The guy at the stables down the road says Wade politely returned the horse he rented an hour ago, got into a car, which he can’t describe, and headed away from town, but he may be back, so we have to get you into protective custody as soon as possible.”

  “I appreciate that, Marshal Foley, but it isn’t what I want.”

  He frowned. “It isn’t what anyone wants, but it will keep you alive until we recapture your husband.”

  “My ex-husband,” she corrected again. “And forgive me, but I’m not confident that you’re going to catch him.”

  “We’ll catch him,” Foley said. “We did last time.”

  “You caught him because of Mitch.”

  Foley’s eyes went flat as a mile of empty road. He stared directly at Jane without sparing a glance for Mitch. “He’s not a marshal anymore.”

  “I know, but he’s the only person who ever got close enough, the only person who can.”

  Foley snorted. “Because they’re kin?”

  Something in the way he said it made Mitch’s blood boil. The hatred in Foley’s eyes took him back to the days before the capture. Foley, the marshal tasked with capturing Wade, had sat fuming when Mitch was brought in by Foley’s superiors since Foley hadn’t been able to do the job. The hatred was worsened by other events that had only stoked Foley’s fury at Mitch. “You know how I feel about Wade.”

  “Do I? Took you long enough to capture him in the first place, didn’t it, once you were finally pressured into joining the manhunt?”

  “And I hear it took you the space of one routine prison transfer to let him escape,” Mitch snarled.

  Now both men were on their feet. Gus and Liam stood, too, wary, watching. Chad stopped stroking the dog’s belly, frozen and alert.

  “Simmer down, both of you,” Gus said. “This is a conversation, purely. The important thing is the safety of this young woman.”

  They all remained standing except Jane and Aunt Ginny.

  “Please sit down,” Aunt Ginny said. “I feel like I’m in the middle of a bad spaghetti Western. Sit, sit,” she clucked.

  They did, but Mitch had to force his muscles to obey. The ice-pick pain stabbing his temple did not help.

  Jane said calmly, “Marshal Foley, I would like to hear the details of Wade’s escape, if I may.”

  “No point in it,” Foley said.

  “Still, I want to know.”

  “I can call in a favor and ask someone else in the marshal’s office,” Mitch put in.

  Foley stared him down. “The details are me and another marshal were transferring Wade Whitehorse in a van to another prison, since he kept getting roughed up in spite of the warden’s efforts to keep him isolated. En route, we rolled across a spike strip. The van overturned, knocking my partner unconscious and trapping me in a jammed seat belt. Wade escaped. End of story.”

  End of the part he was willing to share.

  “So Wade had help,” Jane said.

  Foley went still. “Yes.” After a beat he added, “Let’s just put it out there. We looked hard for you, Miss Reyes. Couldn’t find you until you showed up in Driftwood.”

  “You were looking for me to warn me?” Jane said. Mitch saw the realization rise in the silver surface of her eyes. “No, not to warn me. You don’t care about me that much. You thought I helped him escape, didn’t you?”

  Foley jutted his chin. “The marshals are tasked with recovering fugitives. It’s our job. Doesn’t matter what we think.”

  “I can tell by your tone, by your questions, exactly what you think.” Jane stood, one slender hand braced on the table. “Find Wade. I pray that you do before anyone else dies, but I won’t go to a safe house.”

  “Ms....” Foley started, but she shook her head.

  “And for the record, I’ll state it one more time.” Her face was haggard, exhausted, but not defeated, not entirely. “I am not an ally to Wade Whitehorse. As a matter of fact, I never was.” She went down the hall. He heard the bathroom door shut and lock.

  * * *

  Jane braced herself against the marble vanity, avoiding looking in the mirror. She knew what she’d see there—fear, doubt, rage, a woman with few options and even fewer friends.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she muttered, splashing water on her face. “I have my son,” she said to her reflection. “That’s all I need.” Ben was a gift beyond her wildest imagining, proof positive that God was with her in spite of her massive failure. Clinging to the cool stone, she tried to put together a plan.

  Mitch would not help her.

  The marshal did not believe her, and she did not know if she could trust him.

  Nana Jo could not stay with Ben in the tiny trailer she’d rented them outside town for much longer. She’d have to run. Again. To start over and make a whole new identity once more, only she could not ask Nana Jo to come with her this time. The woman had a cozy home, her own life to live, a church family, and no one deserved to take on the label of a fugitive.

  Certainly not her sweet boy.

  But what was the choice? Whom could she turn to? Mitch had been her last and only hope. Once again she realized how much Wade had taken from her, the terrible price she and Ben continued to pay every moment of every day.

  A small tap sounded on the door. Forcing a composed look, she opened it.

  Aunt Ginny was there. “Come into the kitchen. Have some coffee and muffins.”

  “I...” Jane started, stopping abruptly as her throat swelled shut with grief.

  Aunt Ginny squeezed her hand. “You have decisions to make, but let’s go one at a time. Right now, it’s time for food. Then you’ll have strength for the next best decision.”

  Jane blinked back tears, clutching the warm hand that squeezed hers. In a daze, she allowed herself to be led to the kitchen and guided onto a stool at the island, which faced a stove settled into a stone-covered alcove. The floors were the sam
e dark hardwood, reflected by the pendant lights. Behind her was another massive wood table, large enough for the whole Roughwater clan, a clay pitcher holding a spray of mums adding to the homey feel.

  An iPad was open on the countertop, a video paused on the screen.

  “I’m in week two of my online baking class. We’re done with muffins, and speaking of which, you didn’t take a morsel of the one I served you earlier.” She slid one on a plate to Jane, along with a mug of coffee. “Liam’s really excited because next week is pies. Mitch and Gus, and Pops, Mitch’s father, could care less. They’ll eat whatever you put in front of them including the paper plates without noticing. Chad hardly eats at all. Do you like to cook?”

  “I did,” she said. “Once upon a time.” Now she was happy just to make macaroni for Ben. A plate of mac and cheese and sliced apples shared with her son was a God-given feast.

  “If you’re around next week, you can help with pies.”

  Jane smiled and blew out a breath. “Thank you for your hospitality. It’s brave of you to even allow me in the door.”

  “I know a little bit about betrayal, honey, especially the kind where you’re the last to know. My first husband, well, let’s just say he was an unfaithful man and a liar to boot, and I didn’t have an inkling. Even his family realized exactly what was going on, and none of them said a word. It humiliates a person, doesn’t it?”

  Jane could only nod, grateful beyond belief that this woman understood, at least in some small way.

  She sighed. “It was especially painful since I wanted children more than anything, only I couldn’t conceive, but Lex went on to father three kids with his other women. It just never seemed right to me, nor fair. It wasn’t in the plans for Gus and me, either.” She shook her head. “Not bragging, but I would have been a great mother.”

  Jane smiled. “Yes, Aunt Ginny. I am sure you would.”

  Aunt Ginny reached out a finger and gently touched the cross that hung around Jane’s neck, her grandmother’s sent to her by her sister, though there was no return address on the package, a gift that both sustained her and broke her heart at the same time. “You believe?”

  Jane nodded. “It’s the only thing I can do.”

  “The only thing that matters,” Ginny said with a smile. “So that makes us sisters in Christ, you and me. I could use a sister with all these men around.”

  “I...I can’t have a sister anymore. It’s too dangerous for people to be in my life.”

  The morning sun bedazzled the kitchen, lighting a shower of silver in Ginny’s hair and traveling across the counter, bathing it in a buttery glow.

  “It’s risky, living life together, and horrible and awful and wonderful and perplexing. That’s why we weren’t meant to do it alone.” She squeezed Jane around the shoulders and whispered in her ear. “That’s what I keep telling that stubborn Mitch, anyway.” She hopped off the bar stool and returned with the coffeepot to top off Jane’s mug.

  Uncle Gus came in with Liam, followed by Foley and Mitch.

  “More muffins?” Liam asked hopefully.

  Ginny offered up another on a napkin.

  Mitch’s dark brows were knitted together. Foley didn’t look one bit happier.

  Foley tucked a thumb into his utility belt. “Have you heard from Bette Whipple?”

  The name shot right through Jane like an arrow, cleaving the tender membranes of her heart that she’d thought were healed. Bette Whipple, Wade’s only surviving victim, the one who had been freed by the police before Wade could return to kill her, too. “No,” she whispered. “Is she...okay? Did you tell her Wade has escaped?”

  “We tried, but she’s fallen off the radar. I wondered if somehow you two had connected over the years.”

  “No,” Jane said. “I wrote her a letter, just one.”

  “Telling her what?”

  Jane swallowed hard. “Apologizing that I didn’t know, for the things I should have noticed.” For the pain I might have saved her. “You have to notify her.”

  “We have people working on that. My job is to get you to a safe house.”

  “No,” she said again.

  “You gonna stick with that? You’re making the wrong choice.”

  “But I have the right to make it.”

  Mitch cocked his head, silent and considering. She did not know what he thought, could not concern herself with it. He would not help her—that was all she needed to know.

  “Where will you go?” Foley demanded. “Can I at least be in on that?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “She’ll stay here today, anyway,” Aunt Ginny said.

  Jane shook her head. Oh, how she wished she could sink into the comfort that this home, this woman, offered, but she could not risk it, or them. “Thank you, but I—”

  Ginny was undeterred. “You need a day to rest, eat. We’ll wash your clothes, get you a new cell phone.”

  Foley’s eyes rounded. “Anyone who helps this woman becomes a target.” He turned to Mitch. “And in case you forgot, Wade showed up here in Driftwood to kill you, Mitch. You wanna risk the people around you getting caught in the cross fire?”

  “We’ve got his back,” Liam said, all the humor gone from his face.

  Gus nodded. “Plenty of eyes and guns around here. Nothing is going to happen to my family.”

  “You’re deluding yourselves. Wade Whitehorse is unlike any evil you’ve ever known.”

  “No,” Mitch said quietly. “I know exactly who I’m dealing with.”

  And so do I, Jane thought with a quiver deep down in her belly. That’s why I have to get Ben and run.

  NINE

  Mitch led Foley to the door.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Foley said, “and you know it.”

  Mitch shook his head. “Like she said, it’s her decision to make.”

  Foley snorted. “Typical.”

  He could say it, bring up Foley’s past humiliation, the day his frustration had led him into a bar and he’d drunk himself to stumbling. Mitch had happened upon him, heading for his car. No way he was going to let the man drive drunk, but arresting him would ruin his career, so Mitch had hauled him back to his place, dumped him on the sofa and let him sleep it off. Next morning Foley was gone, but the shame Foley must have felt at being rescued by Mitch was clearly not. Mitch kept his peace as they squared off for a moment. “Say it, Foley,” Mitch said at length. “Might as well get it off your chest.” Liam approached quietly behind, close enough to let Mitch know he had backup and far enough that he wasn’t butting in.

  “You were always content to sit back and let others stick their necks out. You didn’t even get involved in little brother’s life until he’d killed three people.”

  “You would have done things differently if Wade was your brother?”

  “Yeah, I would have taken responsibility and tracked him, at least. You always knew he would get around to murder, and you did nothing to prevent it.”

  Mitch let the recrimination roll through him along the well-worn paths of his soul. Foley was right. Mitch should have kept tabs on his brother’s activities, should have known the inevitable would happen, but instead he’d walled himself away behind his other duties, aloof, avoiding any mention of his brother, refusing a cell phone except for work purposes, moving as far from their hometown in Arizona as he could manage.

  Foley had fought to keep him off the case when Wade vanished after the trial. Roles reversed, Mitch might have done the same thing. Mitch Whitehorse would always be known as Wade’s brother, and he would wear the stain of that evil forever. Judged, condemned.

  Just like Jane, his heart told him suddenly. He stayed quiet, waiting for the rest.

  “Are you too slow-witted after your years of retirement not to see the obvious?” Foley continued.

  “Whic
h is?”

  “Jane could be working with Wade, coming here as a ruse, all ready with a sob story, to set you up so Wade could kill you.”

  “That’s a lot of personal risk on her part just to kill me. Why would she stick her neck out?”

  “Because you and I both know that Wade is capable of convincing people to do anything he wants, show them it’s in their best interest to help him.”

  “She’s smart enough to know she needs to stay away from him.”

  “She wasn’t smart enough to avoid marrying him.”

  “You’ve been married three times. Didn’t exactly make the right choices yourself.”

  Foley glared. “So it’s just coincidence that she shows up on the beach just as Wade takes his shot?”

  “She came to find me. Bad timing, not coincidence.”

  Foley grimaced. “You were a cop, Mitch. Use your head.”

  It was his heart more than his head that told him Jane’s fear was not faked, her desperation not manufactured for his benefit, her tears for Ben earnest. But his heart wasn’t a thing he could trust anymore, was it? And hadn’t he been manipulated by the best?

  He flashed back to a time decades before, when he was in his twenties, saving up to go to the police academy by loading hay in the summer. It was backbreaking work, but he didn’t mind, as long as he got to see Paige Lynn in the evenings after she finished her waitressing shift. Wade had met him at the house one scorching summer night, asking for gas money to head into town and look for a job. Mitch told him he had none to spare. Wade claimed he understood, thanked Mitch even. Later that evening Mitch saw Wade setting off on the ten-mile walk between their home and town, sweating and dusty. Sympathy had won out, and Mitch peeled off a couple of twenties from the stash destined for savings and handed them to his grateful brother.