"Why did you decide to bring your horses home now?" Megan asked when they were back in Jake's truck and headed toward the northwest in the general direction of Fairview.
"I thought it was time. Patrick's had them since the shooting. And since I can take care of them now, I ought to be doing it."
"You could have taken just as good care of them last week," Megan reminded him. "Why didn't you get them then? Or next week, when you'll be in even better shape. Why now?" Why now, she wondered, when according to Jake, prowlers were crawling over the property. "Are you going hunting? Are you going to put yourself in danger again?"
Jake took one harried look at her and pulled his truck to the side of the road. He turned in the seat to face her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Megan. I'm going to do my best to see that neither one of us is in any danger. You have to trust me on this."
She glanced at the hand on her shoulder, his right hand, his scarred hand, and swallowed a wave of fear that came from nowhere. She looked up, trying to understand where the fear had come from. "I don't want you hurt again," she said.
He lifted just the corner of his mouth. "Believe me, I don't want that either," he told her.
She tried to match his smile. "Trust is easier to give when it goes in both directions, Jake."
"I trust you, Megan," he told her solemnly, and she saw the truth of his words, and his surprise at that truth in his eyes. "I trust you with my life."
"Just not with the little things, like an explanation of what you think is going on?" she asked, trying for lightness. But that was too much effort. "Jake, do you think our prowler could be some poor misguided treasure hunter after the army gold?"
"I don't know. And since I haven't really had time to explore that possibility, I'd just as soon not speculate. We've got enough to worry about without putting treasure hunters on the menu too." He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "But it might simplify things if that's who is coming on the property."
Jake's truck rumbled over the cattle guard and up a lane bordered on both sides by huge old trees and brown-painted rail fences enclosing pastures so neat they appeared almost manicured.
"Nice," Megan murmured. "Very nice."
"You should have seen the place when Patrick first bought it. It was nothing but bramble and briar and half-grown trees as far as you could see. Except where it was full-grown trees and rock."
The lane opened into a wide rectangular area which it skirted to the right toward a cluster of barns, wooden corrals, and outbuildings. Off to the left, shaded now by two big oak trees, sat a two-story farmhouse, neat and well-tended but not ostentatious.
"He's worked hard."
"They've worked hard. Patrick was just out of school with a brand-new degree in journalism, and Barbara had been accepted at med school. She wouldn't marry him till she finished, said it wouldn't be fair to tie him down, to her debts or to her schedule. Somehow he managed to scrape together the down payment on this place and then took off for parts unknown to make his fortune. He wound up with the Reuters News Agency, covering mostly eastern Europe, until Barbara finished her residency, and they both came home together."
She heard affection in Jake's voice, pride in his friends' accomplishments, even a touch of envy as Jake braked to a stop beside the house.
He opened his door and stepped from the truck, then turned, retrieved a small bag from behind the seat, and held out a hand toward her. "I need to go in for a minute. Come with me?"
"Sure." Megan slid across the bench seat and let him help her down. "But aren't they both at work? Or does Barbara's mother live with them?"
"They wish," he said, sliding his fingers into the tight watch pocket of his jeans. "And yes, they're both at work." He pulled out a single key.
"For emergencies," he said in response to her raised brow. "They have keys to my locks too."
"And is this an emergency?"
"Maybe a little one," he told her.
Inside, the house was cool and dim, but Megan suspected that in winter, with the leaves gone from the oak trees, this house, like her own, would be flooded with brightness and warmth. She glanced around her, appreciating the homey touches Barbara had made seem so natural. "If this place were mine," she said, "I don't think I'd ever want to leave it, not even to go to work."
He flashed her a reassuring grin. "Yours will be every bit as comfortable," he told her. "You've already made a good start."
"Sure," she said. "One green bedroom, less than half finished. But thanks for the vote of confidence."
"Any time, Megan," he said. He gestured toward the side-by-side refrigerator. "Would you mind fixing us a couple of glasses of ice water while I take care of something?"
Secrets? Great. Just what she needed, more secrets. But she supposed she could give Jake that much. After all, he had given her much more than simply a little trust.
She didn't want water, though. She suspected that Jake didn't either, that his requesting it had been an attempt an keep her occupied while he was gone.
She didn't need busywork to stay occupied; Barbara's kitchen was a treasure trove of wonderful things to examine: handwoven place mats, ceramic canisters, a framed ancient cross-stitch sampler on delicate linen.
Tucked away on a wall in an arrangement of samplers and paintings and photographs, she found a group picture of a tow-headed boy, another boy who was dark and lean, and a tiny little girl. They had towel capes hung from their necks and improvised swords hanging from oversized belts at their waists and were obviously playing the Three Musketeers.
Megan reached to touch the glass covering the picture. How fierce Jake had looked even then. How old had he been, twelve? She recognized the corner of the house in the background as hers and saw that the porch had been converted to his bedroom. At twelve he'd already had good reason to look fierce.
But he had friends.
And she never had.
Determined not to wallow in self-pity, Megan looked back at the picture. The overgrowth south of the house hadn't been as heavy then as it was now. Megan easily made out the outline of a portion of the stone borders. And beside the kids, to the east, stood a tumble of stones, almost like the remains of a small turret. From the top of the pile on a branch stuck into the stones flew a homemade flag, its design lost in the flutters and furls but obviously of great importance to the three young adventurers.
She heard a noise from the front of the house, a scraping sound and then a blare of music quickly softened to the mellow sounds of a jazz number.
Music? Jake must have finished whatever it was he'd needed to take care of. Megan pushed open the swinging door and walked through the dining room into a large, comfortable den.
Kneeling on the stone hearth, Jake looked up with a medium-sized flagstone in one hand and a sheepish expression on his face. "I should have known that the noise would summon you," he said. "Oh, well." He lifted a cassette tape from the hearth beside him, dropped it into the cavity he'd exposed, and then placed the flagstone on top of it.
"Trust," he said. He smoothed the stone back into place and stood up. "Sometimes Patrick and I need to leave messages for each other. Sometimes we just need a safe place to stash things for a short while."
Megan nodded, understanding, promising with her silence to keep his secret. "And the tape?"
"I dubbed off a copy on his cassette deck, so now there's more than just you, Mark, and Rolley P to hear Mark's threat, so that when you—if you decide to file a complaint you'll have even more to complain about."
"Thank you," she said.
"For what, Meg?"
"For understanding that I might not be able to file the complaint." She felt a grin breaking through. "And for giving us the ammunition to help put that wormy overbearing tyrant in his place if I get the courage."
"I think you've got the courage to do just about anything you want, Megan McIntyre." Jake told her. "And I think you're well on your way to recognizing that you do."
Patrick had kept Jake's trailer when he brought the horses to his place. Megan waited in the house while Jake hooked it to the pickup's trailer hitch and backed it into place, but she walked down to the barn while he loaded his two horses: a gentle dapple-gray mare and a big sorrel gelding with a white patch on his forehead roughly in the shape of the state of Texas. When she saw the larger horse, she merely shook her head. Should she be surprised? Maybe. But there had been so many surprises, they were losing their power to stun her.
"What do you call him," she asked, when he had slammed the trailer gate shut and secured it, "Tex or Red?"
"O ye of little faith," he said, dusting his hands on his jeans. "Are you so sure I have that limited an imagination?"
"What do you call him, Jake?"
"Mm," he mumbled.
"Again, please. And louder."
"Red," he said, raising his voice to be heard over her spluttering laughter. "But that's only because he was already named when I got him. She, however"—he pointed to the mare—"has a truly unusual name. I call her Lady."
They stopped once on the trip back to their houses, at a convenience store and gas station, and while Megan sat in the truck, close enough to the pay phone to hear Jake's words, he called Patrick and invited the Phillipses to his house for dinner that night.
"Couldn't you have waited until we got home," Megan asked, when they were once again on the road, not realizing how she had lumped their two homes together as one until the words had already been spoken, "or called him from his own house?"
"I wanted to make sure I caught him before he got away from the office. And I didn't want to advertise to anyone who might be listening that I had been inside his house."
"Are you saying—"
"Am I saying the phones are tapped? Maybe. Mine, Patrick's, possibly even yours. I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't say anything that I didn't want known on any of them."
"And I thought I was paranoid," she muttered.
Jake chuckled. "Haven't you heard the old story about the man who went to the psychiatrist to complain that he thought he was paranoid. 'Why, no, Mr. Jones,' the shrink says to him, 'it's not paranoia; everyone really does hate you.' Well, I don't think everyone hates me, any more than I think everyone is out to get me. But I do believe in being careful."
"And Rolley P is the type who would illegally tap phones, just on the chance that he might hear something?"
"You've had two encounters with his office now, Megan. What do you think?"
Megan thought about her telephone conversations. Only those with Dr. Kent could possibly be of any interest to Rolley P, or to anyone else for that matter. And of those talks, only the last one—maybe. "Oh, damn."
"What's the matter?" Jake asked. "Have you been selling state secrets over a party line?"
"It's a private line," she told him. "At least I thought it was until now. And they're not state secrets, just mine." She rubbed her hand over her face and shrugged. "Fortunately, I didn't trust the person I was talking with enough to be completely honest with him. So if some poor overworked deputy is listening on my line, he's heard Barbara check in with the clinic and give them my unlisted number, which the sheriff probably already knew anyway; he's heard me telling my psychiatrist how much better I feel; and he's heard me cajoling, begging, and bribing various tradesmen to come out and work on the house."
"And he hasn't heard you telling your father, the Attorney General's office, or a best friend back in D.C. or Tulsa what happened?"
"No."
"Maybe he should. Maybe our sheriff would think twice about threatening you again if you'd already told your story to anyone who would listen."
"Technically, he didn't threaten me."
"No, but he was present when his first deputy did, and he didn't do anything to stop it."
"Why, Jake? What possible motive could he have for bothering with me? I have no connections here; I didn't even meet the man until yesterday."
"I think I have a motive," Jake told her. "I just don't understand the reason behind it."
"Great," Megan said, running her fingers through her hair. "Do you want to share that insight with me?"
"Not yet." He turned the truck onto their private lane and braked to a stop. "Do you want to get the lock or would you rather drive the truck through?"
"Saved by the gate," she muttered.
"What?"
"I said, I'll drive through the gate," she said, smiling sweetly.
He grinned, reached over, and touseled her hair. "That's what I thought you said."
Whistling, he opened the door and stepped from the truck, leaving Megan fumbling with her seat belt and mumbling to herself. "Yep. 'Little lady' is right around the corner," she said under her breath.
Because of the horses in the trailer and the increasing afternoon heat, they didn't stop at Megan's house but only slowed enough to look down the drive. The house sat in quiet solitude, its front door closed, as they had left it. Megan smiled at the antics of the two black kittens, just barely visible across the distance, as they cavorted on the porch steps.
How peaceful, she thought. How marvelously peaceful after a lifetime without peace. Yes. She had made the right decision in coming here, in spite of what had happened; in spite of what might still be happening. To have a home that was really a home, to have a life that was truly her own—she glanced at Jake—to have a man who loved and cared for her because of who she was, not because of her father or some imagined status.
Except she didn't have Jake.
Damn.
Helen, Helen, Helen, she repeated silently. Remember her. Remember her. Remember her.
Jake didn't look like a grief-stricken man; he didn't act like one. But talk of his marriage was off limits. And, oh, God, in spite of all that Megan hadn't liked and couldn't respect about her sister-in-law, Helen had been talented and charismatic and gorgeous.
Jake grimaced as the truck bounced into a deep rut in the uphill road. He grimaced again and drew his lips tight against his teeth in what she suspected was a reaction to pain as he fought to control the stubborn vehicle and the added burden of the trailer.
And Helen had left this man, her husband, wounded and still in the hospital, to go off on a manufactured junket to further her career.
Soaking wet, Deacon stood guard in the middle of the road when they rounded the next curve.
"He's ruined," Jake said, expelling a sigh as he braked to a stop. "Completely ruined."
But Megan noticed that he didn't sound too upset.
He leaned his head out the window. "Don't think you're going to ride in the cab with us after you've been in the creek, you old reprobate." He jerked his head toward the bed of the truck. "Hop in the back. And be careful of the trailer hitch."
Deacon trotted obediently to the back of the truck and sat on the roadside, looking at Jake.
"Damn," Jake muttered again. "The tailgate's up, and it's got to stay that way until I unhitch the trailer."
He opened his door and stepped down, blocking the path as Deacon rose to his feet and bounded toward him. "No way, dog," he said. "I want a shower, but not right now, and not inside that truck." He looked at the dog and the truck and considered the possibilities. "Do you want to race?"
Deacon woofed once, and Jake grinned. "That's it boy. Race. Whoever gets there first wins a big bowl of ice cream."
Megan's laugh turned to a soft smile as Jake got back in the truck and revved the engine twice before easing back into gear and up the hill.
"You really do love that dog, don't you?" she asked, not a little envious of the easy companionship they shared.
"Yeah." Jake seemed reflective for a moment as he struggled with steering. "He was with me in the agency, you know."
Megan shook her head. "No, I didn't."
"He was. He was kind of a renegade, like me. He saved my butt on a couple of occasions. He didn't take well to his new partner after I left. I learned they were about to destroy him just in time to pull a few strings and get him pardoned to me."
"I'm glad you did."
"Me too." Jake braked the truck to a stop near a small barn. "I'd only had him with me a couple of months when the ambush took place. He repaid me for rescuing him. He took more than one of the bullets meant for me. He saved my life."
While Jake off-loaded the horses and unhitched the trailer, Megan dished up Deacon's ice cream, giving him an extra spoonful and a pat on the head. "Good boy," she told him. "You've earned the right to be spoiled."
When she returned to the barn, she found Jake had already saddled the sorrel and had a rifle slung across the saddle in a tooled leather holster.
"You're going riding?" she asked.
He nodded. "I wish you'd go with me, but maybe it's just as well. The trail isn't too bad on horseback, but it could be a heck of an interesting first riding lesson."
Megan closed her eyes, remembering too well her first time on a horse. Her father had decided she would make a fine-looking equestrienne, so when she was thirteen he'd bought her jodhpurs and Wellingtons, a pink jacket, an English saddle and a highly bred horse, and had hired an Olympic coach to teach her to ride.
What she'd felt when she first mounted the horse was so much more than fear that to this day she couldn't describe it. She'd immediately freed her feet and dropped ungracefully from the horse's back, to her mortification, the coach's amusement, and her father's unhidden contempt.
He'd told her to get back on, and she had, only to feel fear and nausea engulf her. Again she slid down, ungraceful, uncaring.
The third time, her father had stormed over to where she stood by the horse and had lifted her up, forcefully seating her in the saddle with a demand that she stay there.
Megan still didn't know what had spawned the blackness that had come over her. A stable boy told her later that she had started screaming and crying and fighting and finally had fainted. She did remember coming to and seeing her father leaning over her with what appeared to be genuine concern. "I'm never getting on a horse again," she had told him, while she was still too weak to stand up. "Not ever. So you might as well sell it." Remarkably, he had done so, and only Roger had ever made more than a half-hearted attempt to get her a horse again.
It wasn't that Megan didn't like horses. She did. Lady approached, as gentle as her name, and stuck her head over the corral rail, and Megan gently stroked the smooth length of her nose. She just couldn't bring herself to get on one, not even for Jake.
"This isn't a pleasure ride, is it?"
"No."
"Is it dangerous?"
"I don't think so, or I wouldn't have asked you to come with me."
She looked at the rifle. "But you don't know for sure."
He didn't answer. Megan suspected he remained silent so he wouldn't have to lie to her. "Jake, where are you going and why?"
"That's a fair question," he admitted, "especially since I need your help. I told you someone has been coming onto the property. Well, last night I saw a moving light, one ridge over."
"And you're going to go investigate?"
Jake twisted Red's reins in his hand. "I have to."
"Why now? Why not wait until Patrick can go with you, or—" she realized she'd been about to suggest they involve the law. "Sorry."
"Do you know what could have happened if that raid the other night had turned up the amphetamines the warrant claimed were there?"
"I'd have been arrested?"
"Yes. And your property would have been confiscated."
"You meant the house?"
"I mean the house and all the land."
Megan's hand stilled on Lady's muzzle. "You can't be serious. That's—"
"That's the law, Megan. And Rolley P is the type to take full advantage of it. He wants me gone bad enough, maybe, to plant something on my place. Even though he knows he could never get a conviction against me, he could make a good case for taking my home. What I don't understand is why these forays have moved over onto your property."
"So you're not just going out there to see what someone found but to make sure no one left anything?"
"Right. And I'd like you to know the general direction I've taken. I'm not anticipating any trouble, but it's smart to have someone know where you are. It won't be for long. Patrick and Barbara are coming for supper. I mean to be back before then."
"But what if—"
"I'll have Deacon with me," he said. "And the rifle. If anything happens, I'll fire three quick shots. You'll be able to hear them here, at the house. That will be your signal to call Patrick and have him rouse the troops—the friendly troops."
"Jake, I don't like this."
"Oh, hell," he said. "Now I've worried you. Let me say it again. I would not have asked you to go with me if I thought there was the slightest danger to either of us. You have to believe that."
She studied his eyes, intent on hers, hiding something but completely honest in his concern for her, and his tortured hand clenched on Red's reins.
Trust. It was so easy to ask for and so hard to give.
It was all he had asked of her.
Megan released her gentle clasp of Lady's muzzle and took the four steps that separated her from Jake. Helen be damned. She wanted to trust this man, she wanted to hold him, and someday, soon, she hoped, when they were both healed of their trauma—she wanted to love him.
There. That wasn't so hard to admit, at least not to herself. It would be a long time before she had the confidence to admit it to Jake.
Unless her actions did it for her, and right now Megan didn't care. She slid her arms around Jake's waist. She felt his start of surprise as she leaned into him, holding him in a tight hug, felt the moment his body welcomed her embrace, felt the moment his welcome became more, much more, than either of them could yet act upon.
"Be careful," she said, reluctantly releasing him and moving back one step.
He tucked his hand under her chin and lifted her face to read her eyes. "You bet," he told her softly. "I've discovered a whole lot of reasons lately why I want to take care."
With Jake ahead of her on horseback, Megan followed in the pickup to the ridge. At his instructions, she parked out of sight—of what? she wondered—beneath a tree. He dismounted and walked to the truck, opening the door. For a moment he just looked at her; then he reached beneath the seat and fumbled with something.
The something turned out to be a large silver-colored automatic pistol in a black leather holster.
Jake didn't say anything for a moment; he just watched her. She saw him blanch and saw the nerve twitch once beside his mouth; then he took the pistol from the holster, slid a shell into the chamber as she had seen on countless cop shows, put the gun back in the holster, and stood there.
"Do I have to do this?" he whispered.
"What, Jake," Megan asked, beginning to be frightened. "What's wrong?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. I think Mattie would say a goose just walked over my grave, and that makes as much sense as anything I can think of. Here." He handed her the weapon. "Do you know how to use one of these?"
"No." Megan didn't reach for it.
"Look," he told her. "Just flip this slide—the safety—in this direction, point it like your finger, and squeeze the trigger."
"Do I need it, Jake?"
He took her hands and folded them over the gun and holster. "Probably not. But it never hurts to be prepared. There've been a couple of bears sighted. And snakes."
"The two-legged or the no-legged variety?"
"Look," he said, gripping her hands before releasing them and stepping away. "Just keep the damned gun handy, will you? Run like hell if you have to, hide if you can, but if it comes down to it, use it. I'll feel better knowing you're protected."
The voice didn't sound like his, his words certainly didn't fit the conversation they had already had about this afternoon, and he looked and acted both reluctant and afraid to give her the gun even though he insisted she take it. And now she was afraid.
"Jake, what is it?"
He stepped away from her, shook his head, and looked at the gun. Carefully she placed it on the seat beside her.
"Please. Tell me."
"I don't know, Megan, unless it's just a damned busy goose."
"I'll be careful, too, while you're gone," she promised, searching his eyes for a reason for his strange behavior and finding nothing but the vestiges of a confusion that overshadowed the confidence she had come to expect from him.
"Yeah," he told her. "I'd like that."
"And don't be gone longer than you have to."
"No," he conceded. "Not today."
Although she wanted to slide from the truck seat and take him in her arms, Megan did not touch him again before he left. She sat in the truck and watched him ride down the brushy mountainside on Red. And Deacon, as though knowing he was once again on duty, followed purposefully.
When they had disappeared from sight, she glanced down at the gun. Jake's rifle hadn't bothered her. Knowing he had armed himself this morning with probably this very weapon hadn't bothered her. She'd never hated guns or feared them until recently, and only then when they were in the hands of men gone mad. But this one?
This one seemed to call out to her to touch it, to pick it up, to hold it close. And at the same time she suspected that if she embraced this gun, she'd know what had brought the fear into Jake's eyes.