Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Night of the Phantom

About Anne Stuart

First Published January 1987

Electronic Edition Copyright 2016 by Anne Stuart

http://anne-stuart.com

E-book and Cover Formatted by Jessica Lewis

http://authorslifesaver.com

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

All Rights reserved.

To Walkin’ Jim Stoltz,

whose songs and whose life

were an inspiration

Author’s note:  Tanner smokes cigarettes.  A lot.  This takes place in a different time and place, and his smoking is important in the plot.  I don’t think anyone thinks smoking is a good idea, and neither does Tanner.  Mostly he does it to be ornery, and the love of a good woman does a lot to take the ornery out of a man.

Chapter One

He didn’t have to go searching for the volume of fifteen-year-old newspapers and the issues covering that Fourth of July. It was always out, always available for those who wanted to read about it once more, just in case anyone had forgotten the details. Even in the carefully bound edition the newsprint was showing signs of wear. Too many hands had touched it, smoothing the old print. The pictures were faded and grainy, the aging black-and-white print draining the horror from the blood-splattered tableau. He stared at the open page, inwardly reciting the words he’d committed to memory years before.

Vet Goes Berserk —Kills Sixteen in Montana

Morey’s Falls, Montana. July 5, 1972. Charles Tanner, Sr., a forty-two-year-old unemployed Congressional Medal of Honor winner, killed sixteen people and wounded one before turning the gun on himself during Fourth of July celebrations in the tiny town northwest of Billings. The lone survivor is a sixteen-year-old girl, listed in satisfactory condition.

That was all there was. Later editions of the papers had more information, longer articles, details about the victims, and all of those articles were kept, neatly and carefully, a testimony to the past. But he still liked this one the best. Short, simple, direct. With a quiet sigh of satisfaction he closed the heavy volume and turned to face the new day.

* * * * *

Tanner Reached The Edge of the high mountain meadow with a feeling in his gut that was part relief, part dread. He was almost there. Within a few hours he’d be down in the flat, dusty little town of Morey’s Falls, back amid humanity in all its twisted glory. He’d been walking since someone had dropped him off in the middle of Wyoming. It had been ten days since he’d seen another human, and he’d gladly go a hundred days more before he did. He wasn’t ready to face what he’d find down in that depressed Montana town.

But if he wasn’t ready now, when would he be? He’d come here for a reason. He’d put it off for most of his adult life, ever since his father had taken an M-l rifle and blown away a good part of the town’s population. Now, almost fifteen years later, it was time for him to face up to it.

Returning hadn’t been his decision, Tanner thought, slipping the pack from his back and propping it against the tree. If it had been up to him he’d have kept walking, keeping as far away from Morey’s Falls, Montana as he could. Not that he was safe anywhere else. The news of Charles Tanner’s crime had spread over the western half of the country. Almost anyone over thirty remembered that day, remembered the unprovoked bloodbath that had left no family untouched in that small village. And his son bore the same name.

But it wasn’t up to him. Alfred was dying. Alfred, the indestructible, as old as time, as strong as the land, as wise as eternity wasn’t going to be around much longer. That last stroke had almost finished him, but he was holding on until he could settle the ranch. And that ranch in the mountains of New Mexico, the ranch they had run together since Tanner was a half-wild eighteen-year old, would go to someone else if he didn’t stop walking. Not that there was anything wrong with walking, Alfred used to say in that gravelly voice that had once been pure Cockney. Whiskey and wind and dust had stripped the Britishness from his voice, stripped the softness from his face, leaving him the texture and substance of rawhide. Hell, he used to say, Tanner could walk from the East Coast to the West, up the Continental Divide, the length of the Grand Canyon, or any one of the thousands of miles of trails he’d walked, if he chose. But that was the problem. He walked because he had to, not because he wanted to. And there was no way Alfred could leave the neat, prosperous ranch and thirty of the best quarter horses west of the Mississippi to someone who might get itchy feet again when the going got rough.

So Tanner was walking once more. Leaving Alfred back there with tubes and machines keeping him going, helping him steal a few more months from a greedy eternity, determined to give Tanner the time to come to terms with his past.

And that’s what he was going to do. Morey’s Falls lay just over the next rise. The shack and twenty scrubby acres that had once belonged to his father were still there, waiting for him, the son and heir. The townspeople were there too. Fifteen years after losing a goodly portion of their population to his father’s madness, the townspeople were waiting. Somehow he doubted he was going to get a hero’s welcome.

He flexed his taut shoulder muscles, stretching his long arms over his head. The pack weighed a good forty-nine pounds, and every one of those pounds seemed tattooed into his back. The thought of a real bed had been obsessing him for the last few nights. One with pillows and clean white sheets. A hot meal came second on the list, and with luck he’d wind up with both that night—comfort and something other than that dehydrated trail grub that took up more than its share of space in the heavy pack.

Whiskey and a cigarette wouldn’t be bad either. Now that he was closing in on civilization he could feel the old familiar craving. When he was out on the trail he never wanted to smoke. Somehow it would have been a crime against nature. But all he had to do was get within a couple of miles of flush toilets and he started longing for tobacco. Alfred always used to lecture him on how dangerous smoking was as he went through three packs a day himself. But it hadn’t been cigarettes that had gotten Alfred.

Tanner could give them up, live a clean, healthy life, and still die in a car accident in his early fifties, just like his mother had. There were no guarantees in this life—you might as well take your pleasure where you could find it.

He dropped down beside the metal-frame backpack leaning against the tree and stared out over the high, flat meadow. There were wildflowers dotting the fields, columbine and Indian paintbrush and field daisies. And there on the soft wind he could smell the thick scent of sage, not the purple stuff that grew down around Texas, but a lavender-blue color, enriching the air, teasing his nostrils with promises made to be broken.

He sighed, rolling up his sleeves in the hot noonday sun. Maybe he should spend the night in that flowered meadow, to give himself one more day of peace before he faced his past. The silence and serenity flowed around him, broken only by the distant call of a golden eagle wheeling and soaring overhead, by the rustle of the wind in the aspens, of the sound of horses’ hooves on the thick green grass.

He held himself very still. His instincts had failed him. Usually he knew when someone else was around, whether it was four-legged or human. He was so attuned to being alone that he could almost smell another living creature. But he hadn’t heard her coming.

It was most definitely a woman. She didn’t see him, and wouldn’t unless she was looking. She was out in the middle of the field, riding bareback on a big, stodgy-looking bay. And it wasn’t just the horse’s back that was bare.

Her faded flannel shirt was spread out over the horse’s rump, she wore no hat, and her thick chestnut hair was hanging in a braid down her narrow back. She was wearing nothing but a pair of old jeans—even her feet were bare— and her face was turned up to the hot sun, basking in it, as the horse picked its dainty way across the field.

Tanner held himself motionless. He could do that—he’d had to more than once when he’d stumbled across a mother grizzly with her young cub, or when he’d run smack into a cougar that was bigger than it had any right to be. He knew how to stop, to blend with the landscape as well as any chameleon. He sat there, watching the girl and barely breathing.

She wasn’t a girl, he decided, for all her innocent enjoyment of the hot summer sun. Even as he sat there watching her he could tell that her body, lean and spare though it was, held the grace of maturity. Her breasts were small and well-shaped, her arms were rounded with muscle, not softness, and her back was straight, strong, determined. Her legs hugged the barrel of the horse, and a sudden wave of sheer, healthy lust swept over him. He wanted those legs hugging him.

He let it go, noting it with acceptance and amusement. He wasn’t surprised. It had been months since he’d had a woman, and being presented with the sight he was seeing would be bound to have a normal effect on his body. He would have worried if he hadn’t wanted her.

The horse ambled on, in tune with its mistress, picking its way carefully across the high meadow. At one point she lay back on the broad rump, letting the sun bake into her flesh, and it was all Tanner could do not to protest. He didn’t want all that skin burned and blistered by the sun. She should put her shirt back on, he thought critically, not moving. But he hoped to hell she wouldn’t.

The sun was bright, glaring into his eyes in the midday, midsummer heat, and he squinted after her retreating figure. Black flies were buzzing around his neck, and he swatted at one lazily, secure in the knowledge that she wouldn’t see him. The bay flicked his tail, arching his neck slightly. The horse knew he was there, but his rider was still sweetly oblivious. He’d better not swat any more flies, not unless he wanted her to take off like a bat out of hell. As long as she was willing to ride around like that, he was willing to look. It would probably be his last moment of peace and pleasure for a long time.

He’d been up since dawn, which was somewhere around five a.m. at the end of June in that part of the country. He’d washed in an icy mountain stream and set out on the final leg of his journey. He’d probably walked a good ten miles over mountain trails until he reached the meadow, and the hot sun was making him unaccountably sleepy. He didn’t want to nap, he wanted to watch the woman on the stocky bay. He’d close his eyes just for a moment, just to rest them from the sun’s merciless glare, and then...

He felt the shadow cover him. He didn’t move, his eyelids didn’t flicker, he didn’t signal his sudden alertness by anything more than an imperceptible tightening of his muscles. It wasn’t an angry grizzly staring him down, and it wasn’t a crowd of vengeful townspeople. He heard the soft whirrup of the horse, sensed the gentle equine nibbling at his heavy walking boots, and slowly he opened his eyes.

She’d put her shirt on, damn it. He would have liked to have seen her up close, with all that sun-kissed flesh. He blinked his eyes sleepily, yawned and plastered his most innocent smile on his face before meeting her gaze.

She wasn’t a beauty, that much was clear. Her warm brown gaze was a little too direct, her mouth a little too generous, her jaw slightly too determined. And she was older than he’d thought. There were lines fanning out from those soft eyes, lines bracketing her mouth. Lines of unhappiness? Lines of pain?

She was looking at him with a mixture of curiosity, friendliness and a very noticeable unease. He knew just what she was thinking. She was wondering how long he’d been there, how long he’d been asleep. The shirt was buttoned up tight, the sleeves rolled down, but he could see the freckles across her nose and the light peachy blush across her cheekbones.

“Howdy,” he said, giving her the full effect of his lazy smile. He knew perfectly well what that smile did to susceptible ladies, and he used it to its maximum effect. The woman on the horse blinked in surprise, and her grip on the reins tightened.

“Where’d you come from?” Her voice was a rich, warm contralto with a faintly husky note. Like whiskey and honey, he thought. For a moment he toyed with the fantasy of pulling her off the horse, into his arms, of unfastening that tightly buttoned shirt and freeing her warm skin to the sun and to his hands.

“Over the mountain,” he said, dismissing the brief, erotic thought with a moment’s regret.

She frowned, and the lines deepened around her eyes. “There’s nothing over there,” she said.

“Sure there is. There’s Wyoming and Colorado and New Mexico,” he said. “I started walking just outside of Casper.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Walking,” he said patiently. “You know, shank’s mare.” He slapped his long legs.

“How long have you been sitting there?”

Here it was, he thought. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. He was tempted to grin up at her, but he knew better. He gave her his most guileless look. “I don’t know. I must have fallen asleep,” he said.

He could see the tightness of her shoulders relax, and her smile lost its faint hint of frost. “I saw you when I rode into the clearing,” she said, testing the lie on her tongue like someone savoring a strange fruit. “I thought for a moment you might be dead. You gave me quite a turn.”

I’ll just bet I did. “Not me,” he said aloud. “Just taking a well-deserved rest.”

“Where are you headed?”

“A little town called Morey’s Falls. Ever heard of it?” He knew perfectly well she had to have come from there. He remembered his mother’s disparaging comments well enough to know it was the only thing resembling civilization within a hundred miles. He might have walked out of nowhere but she could have only come a few miles.

“That’s where I’m from. It’s a couple of miles down the mountain.” Signs of curiosity were showing on her face. “What in the world would you want with Morey’s Falls? No one ever goes there. People are too busy leaving.”

“I inherited some land a while back,” he said easily. “I figured it was time to check it out.”

Her wide brow creased slightly, as if she was trying to place him. “Were you thinking of settling there?”

“I doubt it. I might sell the place.”

“I don’t think you’ll find much of a market for your land. Morey’s Falls is pretty remote and there aren’t many ways to make a living.”

So what else is new, he thought to himself. His mother had told him it was the darkest, deadest hole in the universe. Up here in this wild mountain meadow it was hard to believe it was so desolate just a few miles down. But he couldn’t see Charles Tanner in a peaceful setting like this one.

He shrugged. “That’s okay. I just want to see what it’s like. What the town’s like.” He rose, slowly, stretching his full length. He could feel her eyes run over him, and while her expression remained unchanged, he knew her brain was clicking along. He would have given ten years to read her mind.

She grimaced. “You’re curious about the massacre,” she said flatly.

He didn’t deny it. “Is that what you call it?”

“Among other things,” she said. “I wish to God people could just forget about it.”

“It’s been a long time.”

“Fifteen years,” she said. “Maybe once the monument is unveiled...”

“Monument?”

“A big granite monolith in the town square. They’re dedicating it on the Fourth of July.” She didn’t sound pleased with the idea.

“Then I got here just in time,” Tanner said softly.

“If you like that sort of thing.”

“It’ll be interesting,” he said. “Very interesting.”

She sat there on her placid bay, looking at him. “I’d better get going,” she said finally. “I’ve got bread rising.”

Belatedly he checked out the hands holding the reins. Strong, brown hands, with long fingers and short, sensible nails. And a thin gold band on her left hand. Only a married woman would be able to spend a Tuesday morning riding up in the hills. He wondered if her husband knew she took off her shirt when she thought no one was looking. He wondered if her husband knew he was going to have to be very careful with Tanner around.

“Nice meeting you, ma’am,” he said.

“Ellie,” she said. “Eleanor Lundquist, but everyone calls me Ellie.” She held out her strong right hand, the one without the ring, and he took it, holding it not for a second longer than was proper, giving it only the acceptable amount of pressure. He was in no hurry. He hadn’t even made up his mind whether she’d be worth the trouble. He’d learned to avoid angry husbands whenever he could. He didn’t need to rush into things.

He took a step back, looking up into her clear brown eyes. “My name’s Tanner,” he said.

All the color drained from her face, her big brown eyes widened, and her generous mouth dropped open. Without a word she wheeled the horse around and took off across the open meadow, racing across the thick grass as if the devil himself were after her.

Tanner watched her go. So it was going to be like that, was it? Well, things had never been easy, and he no longer expected them to be. He looked at her disappearing back, and a grim, determined smile lit his face. Ellie Lundquist had just sealed her fate. He was damned if he was going to let a woman run like that at the sound of his name.

He picked up the pack and slid it over his shoulders, scarcely noticing the weight. He should have remembered. It was the seventeenth of June. Charles Tanner had opened fire on the town square on the Fourth of July, fifteen years earlier. So they were setting a monument up to mark the spot? Maybe he could be guest of honor.

His lips curled in contempt. He hoped to hell Alfred knew what he was doing, sending him up here. If it had been up to Tanner he could have spent the rest of his life avoiding the huge state of Montana. And from Ellie Lundquist’s reaction, it looked as if the townspeople would have appreciated the same thing.

It was too late now. He couldn’t turn around and walk back over the mountains, all the way back to Santa Fe. He’d promised Alfred. And while he had no objections to lying when it suited him, he never broke a promise. The town of Morey’s Falls was just going to have to accept him, for as long as he chose to stay there. Ellie Lundquist was going to have to accept him. Because he had absolutely no intention of taking no for an answer.

He looked in the direction she’d ridden, anger still simmering in his gut. If he was any judge of the matter, that headlong, terrified flight might be the closest thing to a welcome he’d get. He took a deep breath, steeling himself. And then he headed after her, his long legs eating up the distance, heading down the mountain to his father’s hometown.

Chapter Two

Ellie’s heart was pounding so hard it hurt, slamming against her ribs, twisting inside her so that everything felt tight and strangled. Her hands were gripping Mazey’s reins as if they were her only hold on life, her legs trembled as they gripped the horse’s heaving sides, and the two of them raced down the rough mountain trail at a dangerous speed.

It wasn’t until Mazey slipped and was barely able to right herself that Ellie calmed enough to pull back, to slow their terrified descent. It would do no one any good if they fell on the loose shale, breaking their legs, breaking their necks. Mazey was an old lady; she deserved better than an ignominious death on a mountainside.

He wouldn’t be able to catch up with them, even with those long legs of his. They were safe enough, and they’d be back in town long before he made it there. She could warn people...

What in the world was she thinking of? Warn people of what? What made her think the man up in the meadow had any connection with Charles Tanner?

But of course he did. Morey’s Falls was too small a town, and Tanners had lived there since its founding in the late eighteen hundreds. Charles Tanner’s grandparents and parents were buried in the small hillside cemetery just outside of town. Charles Tanner himself even had a small corner, away from everyone else, away from the graves of the people he’d killed.

He’d had a wife and a son. They’d left long before the massacre, even before Ellie had been born. She would have thought they’d change their name and never come anywhere near Morey’s Falls again.

But the man sitting there in the shade of the aspen didn’t look like a man who was going to change his name to suit anybody. Despite that easy smile of his, he didn’t look like the kind of man who gave a damn whether he was welcome or not.

She could still feel the cold sweat of unreasoning fear drying on her back as the sun baked down. She didn’t trust that easy smile, those guileless eyes for one moment. For all his feigned innocence he’d probably been watching her as she’d ridden across the field with her shirt off. For eight years she’d been going up to that isolated field, swimming in the creek on the edge of the meadow, certain that no one would be around to stare at her. It was the only place where she’d felt free, the only place where she wasn’t weighted down by expectations and the past. Now that freedom had been ripped away from her, and by Charles Tanner’s son.

She had no doubt at all that was who he was. She’d never been a strong believer in coincidence, and if that was all it was, he would have shrugged it off with a laugh and said, “No relation, of course.”

But he’d looked her squarely in the eye and said, “My name’s Tanner.” Calm, cool, defiant. Good God, why did he have to show up now?

And why did he have to look like that? He was much too handsome for his or anybody else’s good. His dark-blond hair was too long, his mouth was too sexy, and those bedroom eyes were too blue and too masked. For all their lazy seductiveness, there was a coldness, a distrust lurking behind their innocent gaze.

He had one of those lean, compact bodies that was stronger than it looked. He wasn’t more than six feet tall, with long legs, muscular forearms and wiry shoulders beneath the faded flannel shirt. Which reminded her of her own flannel shirt, or lack thereof, and she felt the color flame into her face. It was a hell of a way to begin a relationship.

And that’s what it was going to be, whether she liked the idea or not. Tanner wasn’t going to stroll through town and leave. He was there for a reason, and any reason involving Charles Tanner’s son would most likely end up involving her.

She needed to get back to the house, to the inadequate shower in the old claw-footed tub, to the proper clothes and proper underwear and layers of protection from the outlaws of this world. Was Charles Tanner’s madness hereditary?

She was no longer hot, she was cold as ice. Fifteen years earlier Charles Tanner had taken a gun and opened fire on the town square, shooting anyone that moved, shooting them with the marksman’s skill he’d learned in Korea. The first person he’d shot had been Nils-Jacob Lundquist. The second had been a sixteen-year-old girl.

The third had been the girl’s father. And so it had gone on, until sixteen people were left dead and dying, the only survivor the sixteen-year-old girl, lying hidden beneath Nils-Jacob and her father’s bodies, her knee shattered by Charles’s bullet.

She reached down and rubbed her knee. It always troubled her when she was tense, and God knows, Tanner’s appearance was enough to ruffle a saint. And that was just what the town of Morey’s Falls thought of her. Eleanor Johnson Lundquist, the martyr of Morey’s Falls. Every family had lost someone that day, every family now thought they owned a piece of Ellie. Somehow her surviving made it not so bad for all of them. She wasn’t quite sure how it made it for her.

Fifteen years later she was still there, still trying to live for other people. She probably always would, she thought wearily, pushing her hair away from her damp face. If only she hadn’t married the Judge. But it had seemed the logical thing to do at the time. She’d been in and out of hospitals, mostly in, for more than a year, the money had run out, her gentle father had left nothing but debts, and she had nowhere to turn. The townspeople had collected money for her, but in that remote little town there was never much to spare. Sixteen funerals had dug deep into everyone’s pockets.

And there was Judge Lundquist, on the far side of sixty, a widower with his only child the victim of a madman. He offered a home, he offered security, he offered a father’s love and protection and name. It would take months and thousands of dollars to adopt her. It took forty-eight hours and a two-dollar license to marry her.

Everyone approved. The martyr of Morey’s Falls would be well-provided for by the richest man in town. And she’d remain that way, an untouched survivor of a bloody massacre, never to be defiled again.

Ellie bit into her lip. What in the world had made her start thinking of that? The Judge had been kindness himself, generous with himself and his money, pampering her and protecting her and asking nothing in return. Except her company, year after year after year in that dark old house.

So here she was, almost thirty-one years old, a wealthy widow, the town pet, still in that dark old house, still alone, still untouched. At this rate she’d probably end her days just as she was now.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t had offers. Offers she was getting desperate enough to consider. There was Bernie Appleton, who ran the dry-cleaning business. He was sixty, with three grandchildren and a large dark house of his own. There was Lonnie Olafson, the editor of the local paper. Poor Lonnie. No, he wouldn’t do at all. And then there was Fred Parsons. He had two teenage boys, a grain business on the edge of bankruptcy and a tumbledown ranch on the edge of town. All decent, worthy marriage prospects.

They all respected her. If it were up to them she’d stay pure.

Now if someone like Tanner were around...

But someone like Tanner was around. And he was very definitely the last thing she needed. Behind that sexy smile, behind those bedroom eyes was a coldness that chilled her to the bone. No, she didn’t need a man like Tanner. Not at all.

She tried to think back, to remember his father. She hadn’t seen much of him—Charles Tanner had been a recluse, living alone in that rundown shack off Town Road 5, skulking around, watching, waiting. The only one who ever got close to him was Doc Barlow, and even he wasn’t welcome. Charles had been a small man, much shorter than his son, with pale, furtive eyes and an air of despair around him. Apart from the dirty-blond hair, there was no resemblance to his son as far as Ellie could recall. Maybe that would work in Tanner’s favor.

She’d gone back a few years before to the newspaper accounts that Lonnie always kept handy in his office for the few tourists he sometimes got. At that point she couldn’t recall what Charles had looked like, and for some reason it became terribly important to remember. The newspapers only had two photographs of him. One of Charles, motionless in death, the high-powered rifle at his feet. And one of him in uniform, young, innocent, never knowing how life and history would twist him into a killing machine.

She’d cried when she’d seen the pictures. And then she’d walked away and never looked at them again. If only the entire town could forget the past. She hated the idea of the memorial, hated the macabre dredging up of memories, and she had only gone along with the plans in the hope that this event would be the last of it. The granite monolith was already in place—in a few weeks they’d dedicate it, and then maybe they could forget that Charles Tanner had ever existed.

If only his son would get out of town. He wouldn’t be made welcome, that much was sure. If he had any sensitivity at all they’d drive him back to where he came from so fast his head would spin.

But she didn’t pin any great hopes on it. Tanner would leave when he was good and ready. It wouldn’t matter to him if he was hated. He must have had negative reactions to that name of his before. It wouldn’t matter to him that he was rejected. With that face and body of his he wouldn’t have had too many women turning him down, but he didn’t strike her as the type to have close friends. And it wouldn’t matter to him that his presence would tear the town apart a little bit more. He’d do what he came for, whatever that was, and leave when he was finished.

He’d have his partisans, even though everyone else hated him. Doc was unflinchingly fair with everyone. He’d been Charles’s friend and tried to help him. He’d be Tanner’s friend too. There was old Maude, who’d befriend him out of fairness and deviltry and reasons of her own.

And then there was the martyr of Morey’s Falls. She was just as fair-minded as Doc and Maude were. It wasn’t Tanner’s fault his father had gone crazy. Somehow people would have to accept that, much as they’d appreciate being presented with a scapegoat. And she would have to set an example.

That example would put her in close proximity to Charles Tanner’s son. A man far too sexy for his own good, and surely the best-looking thing to set foot in Morey’s Falls for many a year. Trouble, she thought again, sighing. Mazey looked back, nodding her head in seeming agreement. Trouble indeed.

* * * * *

Ellie Lundquist was long gone by the time Tanner made it to the outskirts of Morey’s Falls. He’d had more than enough opportunity to think about her during the hour and half it took him to make it down from the high ground into the flat grasslands below. He’d been so busy thinking about her that he’d almost forgotten why he was there. Looking at the bleak, dusty little western town ahead, he thought about Ellie Lundquist and her possible sunburn. Had she gone racing through the town shouting “Tanner is coming!” like a latter-day Paul Revere?

Somehow he didn’t think so. Despite her initial, insulting panic, he doubted she’d give in to it. She might not even live anywhere near this dreary little town. She and her husband probably lived in one of those stifling little developments over the other side. He’d have to make it his business to find out where.

But that could wait. For now he had other things to do.

Morey’s Falls was like most western towns—a big, wide main street, a small square of green grass in the center, a couple of residential side streets, a bank, two gas stations and a number of fly-specked businesses that looked as though they were on the edge of bankruptcy. The big old houses on the street behind Main looked dark and deserted, the depressing reminders of a once prosperous past.

Charles hadn’t lived in town. He’d owned some twenty acres to the west of the town limits, had even tried to make a living from them for a few years. Once Marbella left, taking her baby son, he hadn’t made much of an effort. But the land was still there, waiting.

First things first. He was damned hungry. A hot meal would help. It was a shame there was no motel—he wondered where all the reporters had stayed when they’d flocked around like buzzards. Serve ‘em right if they’d had to camp out in their cars. There’d been reporters chasing after Marbella and Charles’s son. At eighteen he’d decked one of them, smashed another’s camera before he’d taken off. At least Marbella was with Alfred then. Alfred had taken care of her, as he had since he’d picked her up in a honky-tonk five years earlier where she’d been spending too much time with the wrong kind of man and the wrong kind of bottles.

Alfred had put a stop to that. Tanner had always wondered why she hadn’t agreed to marry him sooner. He’d been good to her, better than anyone she’d ever known. He suspected that was part of the problem. She was so used to being abused, to being belittled and used and discarded that she’d become convinced she was as worthless as she’d been told she was. All Alfred’s tender care couldn’t prove her wrong.

This damned town, he thought, moving down the deserted streets. No one had helped her when she was stuck out at the useless ranch with a man already half-crazy. Her parents had turned their backs on her for marrying the wrong man, and she’d had no one to turn to when Charles starting sitting in the corner for days on end, eating nothing, drinking nothing, saying nothing until Marbella would be ready to scream. It wasn’t any wonder she went looking for someone to talk to, no wonder she found herself heading for the bars when Charles didn’t notice.

She’d been ready to leave for good when she’d found herself pregnant. For the baby’s sake she’d held out a couple more years, all alone out there. The car broke down and there was no money to fix it, Charles shot their mangy cattle one by one so they wouldn’t starve. It was the night he got the gun out, the M-l he’d used years later on the townspeople, that Marbella had run, taking her two-year-old and racing into the night with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.

But someone had helped. Someone had given her enough money to get as far away from there as she could. Doc Barlow had come up with a thousand dollars, and Tanner now had that same amount tucked in a belt, next to his skin. He always paid his debts, and Barlow’s was long overdue.

Pete’s Fireside Cafe was closed. Tanner looked around him, mouth thinning in frustration, when he saw the open door across the street. MOREY’S FALLS GAZETTE, it read in gold lettering on the window. All the news that’s fit to print.

The man sitting at the desk wasn’t much older than he was. At least he couldn’t have been working here when Charles Tanner had staged his bloody attack. Tanner stepped into the room, setting his heavy pack down on the floor, and met the man’s welcoming smile.

“I was beginning to think this was a ghost town,” Tanner said.

“It sure seems like it sometime,” the man behind the desk said. “We don’t see many strangers around here. Something I can do for you?”

“When’s the diner open?”

“Who knows? Essie went home with the back miseries and Pete’s gone hunting. If Essie gets better she’ll be back for the supper crowd. Otherwise it won’t be till tomorrow morning, and you’ll have to make do with Davidson’s Market. At least you won’t starve.” He leaned back in his ancient swivel chair. “You walk here?”

“Yes.”

The man was undaunted. “You got business here? If you do, I can help you. I know as much about Morey’s Falls as any living resident. My family’s owned this paper for generations, and there isn’t anything I either don’t know or can’t find out. So what can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for Town Road 5.”

“Out past the edge of town. Though I can’t imagine what you’d want out there. The road doesn’t go anywhere. There’s nothing out there but a broken-down ranch and empty acres.”

“Thanks,” Tanner said, turning to go.

“Listen, you won’t find anything out there,” the man said, leaping out of his chair and heading for the door. “If you want, I can give you a ride out. My name’s Lonnie Olafson.” He held out his hand, a friendly puppy dog of a man with thinning blond hair and a nervous, eager smile.

Tanner looked down at the outstretched hand. If Lonnie really knew everything about this town, he’d be a good place to start. Even if he hadn’t worked on the paper at the time of the massacre, he’d probably remember it. His father would have covered it—maybe he could meet him.

“How long have you been working here?” he countered.

Lonnie kept his hand out. “I’ve been editor for the last fifteen years. Ever since my father died in the massacre.”

No help from this quarter, Tanner thought glumly. “I think I’ll just head out there on my own,” he said, still ignoring the hand. Lonnie wouldn’t thank him for shaking it, once he knew who Tanner was.

That moment was about to come. “Listen, it’s no trouble,” Lonnie said. “I’ll just close the office. We’re always ready to welcome strangers. We don’t see them very often, Mr....?”

Tanner just looked at him. “I don’t think you’re ready to welcome me,” he said, his voice deep and raspy. “And the name’s Tanner.”

Lonnie Olafson didn’t move. He blinked, looked startled and flinched, as if someone had thrown an invisible pie in his face. He didn’t move as Tanner walked from the office, the heavy pack over his arm. He just stood there, staring after Tanner, his face a complete blank.

Davidson’s Market was open, with a couple of desultory shoppers and three bored old men leaning against the sparsely stocked shelves and gossiping. At least it had a state liquor license. He bought a pack of Camels, a bottle of whiskey, a loaf of bread, a pound of bacon and a dozen eggs. He ignored the polite questions, the curious glances, the friendly suspicion that followed him around the tiny store. He was paying for his purchases with a crumpled twenty when he heard her name. It was all he could do not to look up.

“I hear Ellie’s gonna go on a cruise,” one withered old man said, his eyes trained on Tanner’s figure.

“So she says,” the skinny lady behind the cash register replied, her own eyes just as avidly surveying the newcomer. “She won’t go. Something’ll come up, someone’ll need her, and she’ll stay. She’s got roots, has Ellie. She’s not one of your jet-setters. She knows where she belongs.”

“Think she and Fred will make a match of it?” the old man continued.

“Don’t know. It’s not as if she’s got any better choices. There ain’t a single man under fifty in this town besides poor Lonnie.” She let her dark, raisin-like eyes sweep over Tanner’s dusty figure. “How about you, stranger? Are you single?”

He dropped the twenty on the scarred wooden counter. “Got any matches?” he said, ignoring her question.

The woman shrugged, putting down a couple of books beside the twenty. “Just being sociable, mister. We don’t see strangers too often around here.”

That was the fourth or fifth time he’d heard that. He was getting sick of the curious eyes, the friendliness that he knew was going to fade into hatred and distrust. “I’m not a stranger,” he said flatly. “I’m Charles Tanner.” And gathering up his purchases, he walked out of the store.

Chapter Three

Ellie shook three aspirin tablets from the bottle over the old metal sink, poured herself a glass of acrid-tasting water and swallowed the pills. Only for a moment did she long for something stronger to wipe out the ache in her knee, not just to dull it. But she’d spent too many years wiping out pain, years that she’d spent placid, accepting, immured in this house and this town. It was only after the Judge had died that she’d taken a long, hard look at herself, at the gentle haze she’d kept surrounding her. She’d flushed the Demerol down the toilet and gritted her teeth, prepared to endure. And endure she had, with hot baths and aspirin and determination, anything to break the emotional and physical dependency that had ruled her life for too long.

She was almost free. Once the memorial was dedicated, then she could leave. The Judge had left her more money than she’d ever need—he’d been a careful man and hadn’t suffered from the latest hard times. She had enough to live on, particularly if she got a job, and still could leave the majority of it behind. She could set up some sort of trust, leave the house to the town, and take off. It wasn’t too late to go to college. Somewhere near a city, she thought, with a place for the horses. Surrounded by masses of people who, if they ever heard of Charles Tanner’s bloodbath, had long ago consigned him to the company of nightmare figures like Richard Speck and Charles Manson.

And she’d never go back. Not even to visit her father’s grave, not even to visit the Judge’s mausoleum. Every week she made her pilgrimage, with half the town following her, taking flowers to the victims. She’d brought enough flowers to last them through eternity. She didn’t think her father would care. She no longer had to please the Judge.

Her thick hair was a cold, wet bun at the back of her neck. The hot bath hadn’t helped her knee much, and it hadn’t helped her restless, anxious state of mind at all. Tanner must have arrived in town by now. The Judge’s huge old house was only one block back from Main Street, only a few hundred yards from the town park. If they’d decided to lynch Tanner on the site of his father’s crime she would have heard them.

Morbid thought, she chided herself. No one was going to lynch a stranger just because he bore the wrong name. And the wrong genes. These people were civilized.

Still, things had been tense during the last few months. Ellie had blamed it on the memorial, on the milestone anniversary rapidly approaching. A day didn’t pass without someone mentioning the massacre. Though to be honest, a day hadn’t passed in fifteen years without someone mentioning it. But in recent months an edge had crept back, a paranoia spread through the town, making people lock their doors, cast furtive glances over their shoulders and keep to their homes after dark.

Two more weeks, Ellie promised herself. Then it would all be over, and she could make plans to leave.

She moved slowly through the huge dark house, the gold-headed cane clutched tightly in her hand. She couldn’t rid herself of the suspicion that things weren’t going to be that easy. The unexpected appearance of Charles Tanner’s son was going to complicate matters even more.

She sank down in the straight chair and reached for the telephone. It was the only phone in the house, stuck in the middle of the hallway and not conducive to leisurely conversations. She’d always planned to have a phone jack put in her bedroom, or one in the slightly more comfortable living room, or maybe even one in the kitchen. But she never had.

Richard Barlow didn’t believe in employing an answering service or a receptionist. He was a doctor of the old school, one who believed in house calls and tender loving care. He answered on the first ring, his gruff, friendly voice momentarily wiping out Ellie’s fears. He’d been the one to help her get off the painkillers, he’d held her hand through the long nights and never told a soul, not even his daughter Ginger, who was the closest thing to a best friend Ellie possessed. He was the one person she could turn to in times of need. Something told her that was right now.

“Doc?” she said. “I need your help.”

* * * * *

Tanner could feel the eyes burning into the back of his neck. It didn’t matter that he was long out of sight—those angry eyes followed him.

They’d gathered in a little crowd at the end of the main street, watching him as he walked out of town toward the dead-end road that held what remained of his father’s ranch. He didn’t look back, didn’t quicken his even, long-legged pace, didn’t exhibit any signs of nervousness or even awareness of the hostile presence behind him. But he was more than aware of them. Part of him was begging someone to start something. A sheer, healthy rage was filling him. It had started with Ellie Lundquist, and each successive citizen of Morey’s Falls had added to it, until he was spoiling for a fight.

But they had only watched, in sullen, distrustful silence, as he headed out Town Road 5. He just hoped he’d find what he was looking for.

It wouldn’t be a big deal if he didn’t. He’d spent a good part of his adult life camping in the wilderness—he could easily spend another night or two until he located what remained of the Tanner family homestead. He certainly wouldn’t expect help from anyone.

He heard the truck from a long ways away. Lonnie Olafson had said this was a dead-end road—no one would be driving out this way unless they were looking for trouble. Or looking for him. Right now maybe the two were synonymous.

The truck was coming up on him, slowing down. At least it wasn’t going to run him off the road, Tanner thought grimly. Hell, he wasn’t used to being so damned paranoid. He still couldn’t rid himself of the suspicion that the pickup was full of gun-toting vigilantes.

He wouldn’t be able to run, and when you were in that kind of trouble the worst thing you could do was to show fear. He stopped as the truck pulled up beside him, turned and faced the occupant with a deliberately blank expression on his face.

It was a middle-aged man, with a shock of thick gray hair, clear glasses and surprisingly kind eyes. He must not know who I am, Tanner thought cynically. Word doesn’t travel as fast in small towns as I thought it would.

“Need a ride, son?”

Not your son, Tanner thought. Someone else’s. He eyed him steadily. “I don’t have far to go.”

“That pack looks mighty heavy.”

“I’m used to it.”

The man sat there behind the wheel, looking at him. “I’m sure you are,” he said. “But it’d be a sight easier if I gave you a lift.”

“I don’t do things the easy way.”

To his surprise the man laughed. “I imagine you don’t. But your father’s place is overgrown, and you’ll have a hell of a time finding it if you don’t know exactly where to look. Since you haven’t been here in over thirty years I don’t think you’re going to remember too well.”

He didn’t allow any sign of surprise to cross his face. “I can manage.”

“Listen, Tanner,” the man said, his voice growing severe. “That’s what they call you, isn’t it?”

“Among other things.”

He sighed. “You’re going to have enough enemies around here. Don’t push away people who want to be your friend.”

“Why would you want to be my friend?” His voice was distant, cool, suspicious.

“Because I was your father’s friend. I’m Richard Barlow.” And he held out his hand.

Tanner considered it for a long moment. He didn’t like to shake hands with people. It was giving a part of himself, and most of the time he had it thrown back in his face when they knew who he was.

But Doc Barlow knew exactly who he was. He’d been the one to help Marbella and her infant son escape. If anyone was his friend, Doc was.

Tanner slipped the heavy pack from his back and dumped it in the back of the pickup. By the time he reached the passenger side of the truck Doc had dropped his hand, but his expression was still determinedly welcoming. He smiled as Tanner slid in beside him.

“That’s better. We’ll get you settled into the old place and then see about some dinner.” He put the truck in gear and started down the road. “My daughter makes the best pot roast you’ve ever tasted.”

“I bought something for dinner.”

“It’ll keep. Ginger would skin me alive if I didn’t bring you back tonight. The moment Ellie called she started racing around the house.”

“Ellie called?”

Doc cast him a sidelong glance. “Sure did. Told me you were in town and needed some friends. If anyone can see that you have a decent time of it, Ellie can. People listen to Ellie, people respect her. If you’ve got her on your side then half the battle is won.”

Tanner leaned back in the seat, reaching for the cigarettes he’d tucked into his breast pocket. “I didn’t know I had her on my side,” he said, lighting one and blowing the smoke out in a long, steady stream.

“Those things’ll kill you,” Doc murmured in token protest. “Give me one.” He lit it, taking a deep, appreciative drag. “Don’t tell my daughter. I gave these things up when my blood pressure hit two hundred, but you never get over wanting them.”

“Tell me about it,” Tanner drawled. “I’ve spent the last five years giving them up.” He stared out at the scrubby landscape. So Ellie Lundquist was on his side, was she? She sure had a funny way of showing it.

Doc was concentrating on the roadway, sparing only a brief glance at Tanner’s averted profile. “You don’t look much like him,” he said. “You look more like your ma.”

Tanner considered that. “Did you know him well?” He kept his voice level, incurious.

“We were best friends. We went through everything together, childhood, high school, even the army. He got his Congressional Medal of Honor saving my life.”

Tanner turned to look at him. “He killed seventeen people for your sake?”

“Yes,” said Doc. “Helluva thing to live with, isn’t it?”

“Apparently Charles thought so,” Tanner said evenly. “What about you?”

Doc grimaced. “I did a little better than your pa. But then, I was unconscious. I didn’t pull the trigger, I didn’t watch seventeen people die. Your father did. It’s a hard thing to come to terms with. Your father was one of the gentlest people I ever knew. I guess it was just too much for him.”

“I guess,” Tanner murmured, stubbing his cigarette out in the ashtray and crumbling the filter until nothing but shreds remained.

Doc was watching him. “Your father used to do that. We were taught that in the army. You don’t leave any trace behind.”

“You don’t want to leave any trace behind when you’re in the wilderness either,” Tanner said.

“No, I guess not.” The road had gotten narrower, turning from rutted paving to rough gravel. Weeds were sprouting out of the middle of it, and the pines and aspens were growing closer and closer to the sides of the road. Doc pulled off, putting the truck in park. “We’re here,” he said unnecessarily.

Tanner looked around him. The long, low building was set back in the woods. He would have found it, but it might have taken a while. He stared at it for a long, silent moment, trying to imagine his mother trapped out here, young, pregnant, alone with a man who was slowly going crazy. He shivered in the warm summer air.

“At least it’s still got a roof,” he said, climbing out of the pickup.

“There’s a spring out back that’s probably still good. It’s been a wet year so far.” Doc was trailing along behind him. He wasn’t much above middle height, and his waist was spreading. If Doc was his father’s age he couldn’t be more than in his mid-fifties. Somehow he looked older.

Tanner just stood there, staring at the dilapidated shack. He didn’t want to go in there, he didn’t want to settle into a place that had witnessed his father’s descent into madness.

He gave himself a mental shake. That was exactly what he’d come to do. To find out the answers to his past. If he could come to terms with that, with who and what his father had been, then maybe he wouldn’t have to keep walking, keep running away.

“Looks cozy,” he said in a lazy drawl. “I appreciate the ride.” It was a dismissal, but Doc was having none of it.

“My pleasure. We’ll just get things cleared up a little bit, find you some sort of light and make up a bed for you, and then we’ll head on back to town for some of my daughter’s pot roast.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Listen, Tanner,” Doc said, irritation breaking through. “I can’t go back there alone and face three angry women. Have pity on me, boy.”

“Three angry women?”

“Maude Gilles is the nosiest old woman in creation. The moment she heard you were coming she up and invited herself to dinner. And Ellie’s bringing dessert. She wants to make you feel welcome.”

Tanner didn’t allow the smug expression to move past his eyes. He’d let her make him feel welcome, all right. “What about her husband?”

“Ellie’s? The Judge has been dead for over three years.”

“Pity,” Tanner said briefly.

“Not really. That girl hasn’t had a moment to call her own since the massacre...” His voice faded away guiltily.

“Why not?”

“Guess you two didn’t have much time to talk when she met you up in the hills,” Doc said, evading the issue.

“She told you about that?”

“Ellie tells me everything. Come on, son. Let’s get this place opened up. We may be evicting cougars.”

They didn’t evict anything larger than a barn swallow. Sometime over the past fifteen years various creatures had inhabited the place. Raccoons had chewed through the leather chair seats, mice had settled in the sagging mattress, birds had nested in the corner over the fieldstone fireplace. The windows and door were long gone, and more than a decade of rough Montana weather had made its mark.

But once it was cleaned out it wouldn’t be any worse than a dozen trail camps he’d spent the night in. And it was a good distance from the town of Morey’s Falls.

One last time Tanner considered sending Doc away. He didn’t like being backed into a corner, even if it was by someone who professed himself to be a friend. He wanted some time alone, in this barren place that still held the memory of his parents, a place that had seen his first two years.

But he remembered Ellie. With the freckles and the sunburned skin and that determined friendliness that had faded into uncontrollable panic. She’d have that friendliness back at full strength now, and she wouldn’t let it slip again. Not until he showed her exactly what she had to fear from him.

Tanner glanced around the cabin. His pack was propped against the rough-hewn wall, candles and matches were on the table, the pine floor had been swept clean by a shredded broom that must have belonged to his father. The cabin could wait. He wanted to see Ellie again.

* * * * *

Ellie sat all alone at her kitchen table. Even in the middle of the day the high-ceilinged room was dark and gloomy. Tonight, as the early evening shadows began to lengthen, it was eerie and depressing. She didn’t want to get up to turn on a light. She’d be leaving soon enough, maneuvering herself out the door with her cane in one hand and the strawberry torte in the other. For now all she wanted to do was sit there and nurse her last cup of coffee and stop herself putting on makeup.

She never wore makeup, although she had three drawers full of it, most of it untouched. Any salesman found her an easy mark. She had three sets of encyclopedias, two vacuum cleaners and enough Tupperware to hold a year’s supply of food for Morey’s Falls. She could have used some color on her face. Maybe just a little mascara and eyeliner, to make her ordinary brown eyes more dramatic.

But she knew better than to put any on. Maude was coming to Doc’s for dinner, and the old lady didn’t miss a trick. She’d take one look at Ellie and demand to know what was going on. Tanner’s saturnine presence wouldn’t have any effect on Maude’s unruly tongue, and Ellie didn’t want to give her any ammunition. She didn’t want anything embarrassing to happen tonight. She needed to prove to herself and to Tanner that she could be friendly, supportive and helpful. She was bitterly ashamed of her panicky flight down the mountain. She expected better things of herself. She had to take a stand, and that stand included having dinner with the man, making polite, friendly conversation when she’d rather stay right where she was.

She was too honest with herself not to admit that Tanner unnerved her. And it wasn’t just because of his ancestry. He unnerved her with his sexy mouth, his long, lean body, his sleepy eyes and that husky drawl of his. If he were plain John Smith from Colorado he’d be trouble. Charles Tanner, Jr. was sheer disaster.

The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed seven. Doc should be back by now, with Tanner firmly in tow. Unless he’d refused to come. He might, if he knew she was going to be there. She wouldn’t blame him for not wanting to see her again. Her precipitous flight had been nothing less than insulting, though the word was that he hadn’t been treated much better in the town itself. If he had any sense he’d have kept on going, straight out of town.

But sense had nothing to do with it. Tanner was there to stay, and it didn’t matter how many lives came crashing down because of it.

She rose, balancing the cane in one hand and hoisting the strawberry torte with the other. Maybe she’d arrive late enough to go straight in to dinner. Maybe he’d barely notice her. Ginger was desperate for a new man, and Tanner would fill the bill admirably. She’d probably monopolize him, give him no chance to even look in Ellie’s direction, and garrulous old Maude would fill any gaps. If he did turn those blue eyes on her she’d be completely unmoved, cool and friendly, as if he were as harmless as Lonnie Olafson.

Hold on to that thought, she ordered herself, stepping out onto the front porch and closing the door behind her. She never bothered to lock it—she doubted a key still existed. Even living alone, she knew perfectly well no one in Morey’s Falls would harm her.

At least, not until today. The population had increased by one, and that one man was dangerous. Dangerous to her peace of mind, if nothing else. Maybe she’d better find the key.

Chapter Four

“So you’re Tanner,” the woman said, eyeing him up and down as if he were a choice piece of beef.

Tanner was used to that kind of look—he’d seen it ever since he’d reached puberty, and had learned to take advantage of it. Doc Barlow’s daughter Ginger was standing in the warm, brightly lit kitchen of their modest ranch house, a faded cotton apron clinging to her voluptuous figure, cabbage roses dotting her generous breasts. Her hair was blond—that streaky kind of look that was supposed to come from the sun but actually came from hours spent in a beauty parlor. He was surprised Morey’s Falls boasted such a place. Maybe she’d done it herself.

She knew a thing or two about makeup, too. Her lips were a pale, luscious peach, her eyelids mauve, her blue eyes frankly challenging. If he’d been a piece of fruit in the grocery store she would have pinched him. Hell, she looked as if she still might.

“I’m Tanner,” he agreed, letting his own assessing gaze drift over her. It was always nice to know he could find female companionship if he wanted it. She was a lot more his style than Ellie Lundquist. Maybe he’d forget his half-formed plan and settle for Doc’s daughter.

“Nice to see a new man in town,” she drawled.

“I don’t think you’ll find too many people who’d agree with you on that.”

“Pshaw,” Ginger said, dismissing the entire population of Morey’s Falls.

“Stop your drooling, girl!” a sharp voice admonished. “Concentrate on the pot roast and leave the poor boy alone!”

Tanner turned to survey the newcomer, keeping his face impassive. Doc had followed him in the back door, and quickly stepped forward to make introductions. “That’s my daughter Ginger,” he said, casting a fond glance in her direction. “And that mean old lady standing in the doorway is Maude Gilles.”

“I may be old,” Maude announced, “but I sure as hell ain’t mean, and I’ll smack the first man who says so.”

“I just said so,” Doc announced smugly.

Maude glared up at him, her eyes glinting in cheerful malice. “Hell, I’m used to you, Doc. Tell the boy I’m harmless.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Tanner moved across the room, forestalling the cheerful argument. He was in no mood for banter, even the light-hearted kind Doc and Maude were indulging in. He wanted silence, he wanted peace and he wanted a drink quite badly.

Maude was looking up at him. She was ancient, with creased, leathery skin wrinkling around her features. Her hair was snowy white, worn in tight braids, her dark eyes were younger than they had any right to be, and her mouth curved in a welcoming smile, revealing a magnificent set of overlarge dentures. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, and her trim, unbowed body was dressed in jeans and an Indian ceremonial ribbon shirt. Long beaded earrings hung from her sagging earlobes, and her hands looked strong.

She met his gaze fearlessly, and the malice was gone from her eyes, replaced with a softness that was somehow jarring. “Welcome home, boy,” she said gently.

He wanted to believe that her welcome was sincere, but his defenses were too strong, too deeply ingrained. “My name’s Tanner,” he said, for what must have been the tenth time that day. “I haven’t been a boy since I was eighteen years old. And this sure as hell isn’t my home.”

“No offense meant,” Maude said in her rusty voice. “To me, even Doc’s a boy. And I know it’s not your home. But you got roots here, roots that go deep. Your great-grandaddy was a buffalo hunter on the high plains, your grandparents made the mistake of trying to farm here. Your blood kin is buried here, and that makes it some part of home. You know that, too, or you wouldn’t have come back.”

“I forgot to tell you,” Doc said easily. “Maude thinks she’s a witch. She likes to tell you why you do things and what’s going to happen. That is, when she’s not interfering with my patients.”

“I’m not a witch, I’m a medicine woman, like my mother before me,” Maude announced with great dignity. “She was a Nez Perce Indian, niece of Chief Joseph himself, and he passed on her gifts. I can heal better with herbs than you can with your damned penicillin...”

Apparently it was an old argument, one that the two combatants knew by heart. “I know some medicine you both agree on,” Ginger interrupted smoothly. “Tanner, you look like a man who appreciates a glass of whiskey. Get my father to stop arguing and make us all a drink.”

Yup, Ginger was his kind of woman, all right, Tanner thought, following Doc into the cozy, unpretentious living room. Maybe he’d see if she’d drive him home instead of Doc. He could do with a little recreation about now, and the thought of Ellie Lundquist was fading into the background.

One problem, though. Ginger reminded him of someone, and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out who. The memory teased at the back of his brain, nagging at him as he accepted the blessedly dark glass of whiskey and settled into one of the overstuffed easy chairs that rested in front of the empty fireplace. He wouldn’t rest easy until he figured out who it was. Who was he kidding?—he wouldn’t rest easy until he was back in New Mexico, away from the determined kindness of strangers.

“Your father wasn’t a bad man,” Maude announced in her cracked voice, and Tanner’s head shot up in shock at the bald pronouncement. “He just went through more than any man ought to have to bear, and it turned him. You mustn’t blame him for what happened.”

He took a deep, delaying sip of the whiskey, thankful Doc had only put in a token cube of ice. “I don’t imagine that’s a popular view.”

“Hell, no,” said Maude. “People have been blaming Charles Tanner for everything from the energy crisis to falling farm prices. They seem to think if your daddy hadn’t been around life would be peachy. Everyone here tonight knows that just ain’t true, even if it’s hard to accept.”

“I don’t know, Maude,” Doc said. “People lost a lot of kin, a lot of friends. That kind of thing is pretty hard to live with. Think how different things would be for most of us. For people like Lonnie Olafson. For Ellie.”

“Poor Lonnie,” Maude said, her chuckle as dry as dead leaves. “I don’t know as anything would have made much difference. The boy’s a born loser. He’s got the reverse Midas touch—everything he puts his hand to fails. The newspaper won’t last much longer at the rate he’s going. He’s gone through his father’s inheritance and all his property’s mortgaged up to the hilt. The massacre helped him. Harald was all set to bring in a new managing editor the day of the massacre, and then Lonnie would have been left with nothing. Besides, you know he always hated his father. If anything, poor Lonnie was one of the few whose life it improved.”

“Why do you call him Poor Lonnie?” Tanner asked. This was what he’d come for, this was what he needed to know: whom his father had touched in his moment of random violence, and what had brought it all about.

“That’s what we’ve always called him.” Ginger was lounging in the kitchen doorway. She’d dispensed with her flowered apron, and the clinging hot-pink jersey dress did wonders for her already impressive dimensions. Tanner just watched her. “Lonnie never could do a thing right. When his daddy took him hunting, he shot himself in the foot. When he went to Boy Scout camp he set one of the cabins on fire. When Doc took him fishing he sank a fishhook into his cheek. He’s just a complete and utter screwup,” she announced with an impartial lack of charity. “Ellie’s the only female who ever took pity on him, but then, Ellie’s got enough goodness to spare for all the poor losers.”

Tanner shifted in his seat, stretching out his long legs in front of him. So Ellie took on losers, did she? Doubtless she thought Charles Tanner’s son fitted that category. Well, he was damned if he was going to be someone’s pet charity.

“Even Ellie gave up on him,” Maude pointed out. “Of course, she was married at the time. The Judge was open-minded, but I think even he would have drawn the line at Poor Lonnie.”

For some reason their harping on that adjective was getting on Tanner’s nerves. “I met him down at the newspaper office,” he said, his voice a slow, deep drawl. “He seemed pleasant enough.”

“Lonnie’s a little too pleasant if you ask me,” Maude said, ignoring the fact that no one had. “The boy wants gumption. A little ambition, a little meanness might do wonders. He sure as hell doesn’t take after his father.”

“Heredity is an interesting concept,” Tanner said slowly. “I haven’t decided how much I hold with it.”

If he wanted to make them uncomfortable he failed. Maude cocked her head to one side, looking for all the world like a brown wren. “You certainly aren’t much like your daddy, either in looks or in manner. Charles was one of those quiet men. A dreamer, who didn’t really belong in this world. If he’d been left alone he would have spent his days out at the ranch his parents left him, scraping by. Instead he was thrown into a war where he saw and did things no man should have to see or do. It warped him.”

“Interesting theory,” Tanner said, taking another sip of his whiskey.

Maude glared at him. “You worried you might take after him? I don’t think so. You’re a fighter—I could tell that the moment I laid eyes on you. You’re tough, too. Hard as nails when you have to be. Your daddy could have used some toughening up. Then it all wouldn’t have hit him so hard.”

“Let’s not rehash the past,” Ginger protested. “Can’t we spend one evening without mentioning Charles Tanner’s name?”

“Not when his son’s just arrived in town for the first time in…what is it? Thirty-some years?”

“Thirty-two years,” Tanner supplied. “I was almost two when we left.”

“All right, all right. We’ll talk about it,” Ginger said. “We’ll talk about it, we’ll say everything we need to say, and then we’ll drop the subject. I don’t want Ellie to have to hear about it all over again.”

Why not? Tanner was tempted to ask, but he kept his mouth shut. Ginger was wearing one of those oriental, musky sort of scents. It mixed oddly with the aroma of pot roast that clung to her, but it wasn’t unpleasant. He wondered what kind of scent the missing Ellie would wear, and when she was going to show up. He was hungry. And he was curious. She couldn’t have been as elusive, as appealing as his senses told him she was. In this down-to-earth living room with the smell of pot roast in the air and a ripe and clearly eager woman to his left, she’d seem as ordinary as she had to be.

“Don’t you go selling Ellie short,” Maude said sternly. “She can take anything and turn the other cheek. Nothing’s going to get that girl down. She’s quality, through and through.”

“And what does that make me, Maude?” Ginger drawled, a combative light in her blue eyes.

“Honey, you’ve been through every man in the county. Why your daddy hasn’t given you the good hiding you deserve is beyond me.”

“It didn’t do any good,” Doc observed cheerfully enough. “Ginger’s always known what she’s wanted. Maybe if her ma had lived longer…”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” Ginger said calmly. “Ellie’s mother died young, too, and you don’t see her holiness spoiling her reputation. What can I say? I’m just a healthy woman.” And the smile she bestowed on Tanner was nothing short of a leer.

“Wonder what’s keeping Ellie,” Maude said, voicing Tanner’s thoughts.

“She probably didn’t allow enough time. She never does,” Doc said. “We’ll wait, have another drink, and she’ll turn up sooner or later.” He swiveled in the big leather chair, fixing his bespectacled eyes on Tanner. “What’d you think of Ellie, son?”

“She seemed nice enough,” Tanner said dismissively.

Doc just looked at him, and Tanner had the impression that he wasn’t fooled. “Yes, that’s Ellie. Very nice,” he said, and there was a faint undercurrent of disapproval in his voice. “So what are your plans? You gonna fix up the old place? The land’s no good for farming, no good for ranching, set back in the woods like that. No good for much of anything, when it comes right down to it.”

“I don’t have any plans.” He drained his whiskey, allowing himself a brief, pleasurable shudder. “I just wanted to see where it all happened. Maybe talk with the families, some of the survivors.”

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence in the room. Finally Maude spoke up. “I don’t know as how any of the families will want to talk to you. The grudge they bear goes awful deep. The loss of sixteen people in a town this size makes a pretty big hole.”

“And as for survivors,” Ginger spoke up, “there weren’t any. Your father was a marksman—he knew how to hit a target.”

It was Tanner’s turn to be shocked. In the years since it happened he’d managed to repress the details. If he was going to get through the next week or so he was going to have to reacquaint himself with Charles Tanner’s massacre. Maybe Lonnie’s newspaper office would help.

“That’s not true,” Doc corrected Ginger. “One survived, and you know it as well as I do.”

Tanner rose, crossed the room and helped himself to another drink without asking. “What happened to him?” he asked, and the sense of uneasiness grew into a long, tension-filled silence.

The silence was broken by the sound of the kitchen door opening. “Ginger? Doc? Sorry I’m late.”

He already knew that luscious, rich contralto. Even without seeing her he knew that Ginger’s obvious charms were of no importance. He stood, motionless, waiting, listening to the uneven sound of her footsteps, to the peculiar tapping sound as she approached the living-room doorway.

They must have looked like crooks caught in the act, he thought with the last trace of humor in him. Waiting for her, apprehension on all their faces. She paused inside the doorway, a bright, unaffected smile on her face as she surveyed them. These were people she loved, he thought. People she’d grown up with, people she cared about. And he was in the midst of them, the outsider, the skeleton at the feast.

Her warm brown eyes looked fearlessly into his. The last time he’d seen her she’d been racing away like a bat out of hell. She smiled at him, her generous mouth curved in rueful apology, and she moved toward him across the room, with the other three people silent witnesses.

“Hi, Tanner,” she said in that honeyed voice of hers. “I’m sorry I was such an idiot earlier today. Forgive me?” And she held out her hand.

He looked at her. Her thick chestnut hair was in a tight bun at the back of her head, her dress was nondescript and did nothing for her. He was holding a drink in his right hand—he could have just nodded politely. He didn’t want to shake her hand—he was half afraid to.

He looked down, at the elegant cane with its chased gold head. She’d limped across the room, a barely perceptible dragging of her right leg. And he knew what had happened to the one person who survived his father’s attack.

She was still waiting. Carefully he set the drink on a table, controlling the urge to down it in one gulp. Reaching out, he took her slim, strong hand in his.

* * * * *

She’d almost forgotten what he looked like. No, that wasn’t true. She’d assimilated his looks, his seductive eyes and sexy grin and long, lean body before she’d known who he was. Now, knowing he was Charles Tanner’s son, she had to look at him through fresh eyes, as if seeing him for the first time. She didn’t like what she saw.

He was too good-looking, with that faint air of someone who knows it and uses it. His hand was rough, callused, strong and dry and warm around hers. He was trying to look innocent and friendly, but she didn’t believe it. He didn’t like the fact that she’d run away from him, he didn’t like this town or anyone in it. She had the impression he didn’t like much of anything, no matter how much charm he tried to spread.

Well, he didn’t have to play games for her. He didn’t have to flirt with her, smile at her, be anything but what he was. She’d already wronged him with her blind panic. She wouldn’t do so again.

“Would you fix me one of those?” she inquired. “More water than whiskey—I never could hold the stuff.”

He released her, turning to fill her request without saying a word. She wanted to hear him speak again, wanted to hear those slow, deep tones. He turned back, handing her the pale-amber drink, and for a moment he let his green eyes drift downward, over her breasts in a deliberate glance that brought back her afternoon’s ride.

She almost clasped her arms around her chest, almost spilled her drink, almost turned and ran to Doc for protection. But she stood her ground. That lingering gaze was a deliberate affront, and the worst thing she could do was react to it. Instead she smiled, a faint, dismissive smile.

“Thanks for the drink.”

“My pleasure,” he said in that slow, delicious voice of his. And she knew he wasn’t talking about the drink.

She could sense the rekindled tension in the room. Doc was looking troubled, his bushy eyebrows frowning behind his horn-rimmed glasses. Ginger’s expression was speculative. She’d always been too damned observant—she’d know something was going on between them, and knowing Ginger, she wouldn’t rest until she’d wormed it out of Ellie. She’d probably think it was hysterically funny, the thought of prim Ellie Lundquist riding around half-naked. The two of them would laugh over it. For some reason, Ellie hadn’t been able to laugh yet.

“So what do you think of Tanner?” Maude demanded, never at a loss for words. “Think he’ll stir up a parcel of trouble?”

Ellie allowed herself a brief glance at Tanner’s impassive features. “I imagine he will.”

“Should be mighty interesting,” Maude cackled.

Tanner was no longer looking at her; his gaze was directed at Maude. But she could still feel his awareness in every pore of her body, and that tingling, nervous sensation she’d been fighting all day was back at full strength. Maybe she wouldn’t tell Ginger the details of how they had met.

“Mighty interesting,” Ellie echoed faintly. “I can hardly wait.”

Chapter Five

Ellie had been through more pleasant meals. To be sure, Ginger made the best pot roast in Morey’s Falls. And Tanner, once he set his mind to it, proved to be an entertaining dinner guest, full of lazy, fascinating stories of the wilderness. He’d walked just about everywhere, he said. The Appalachian Trail, the Continental Divide, the Grand Canyon, even, one monumental year and a half, from Virginia to Oregon. If she could just have sat back and listened to the rich, slow voice and the world he conjured up she could have had one of the best times of her life.

But every time she began to relax, to fall beneath his spell, she’d glance over at him and find those disturbing eyes on her. She didn’t trust his eyes. They were too calculating, with their heavy-lidded, deliberate sensuality and their chilly blue depths.

For some reason she didn’t much care for Ginger’s attitude either. Ellie knew her well enough to recognize when Ginger was on the make, and Tanner had brought out her old friend’s unquenchable predatory instincts. Tanner knew it, too. When he wasn’t looking at Ellie with that disturbing expression in the back of his eyes, he was smiling and flirting with Ginger. Ellie didn’t know which bothered her more.

He drank a lot of whiskey. She watched him, more covertly than he watched her, watched the amount of liquor he put away without showing it, the edgy, nervous grace of him. She watched him charm Maude, who was old enough to know better, tease Ginger, who’d never had any sense as far as men were concerned, and even treat Doc with a sort of mock deference that held just the right note of respect and assertion of equality. With Ellie, all he did was look.

She had to admit it was the most effective thing he could have done. Flirting she knew how to handle, how to defuse it and turn it into harmless friendship. But she couldn’t handle something as ephemeral as subtle glances, she couldn’t handle that distant politeness that was a lie.

He was a manipulator, she thought, watching him. He knew just how to play each of them, to get the response he wanted, and the other three were falling for it. She was falling for it, too, fascinated despite herself. The thought gave her a little chill down her sunburned back. With defenses that strong he must have something to hide. Maybe it came from a lifetime of running, no, walking, walking away.

She didn’t trust him. But then, he didn’t trust any of them either. If he did, he wouldn’t be quite so charming; he’d allow that mask to slip a little.

He was telling the others about the time he came across a mother grizzly and her cub, and how he’d had to walk backward, slowly, carefully, not even daring to breathe, while the mother just stared at him fiercely. “My mistake,” he drawled, his voice unslurred by all the Jack Daniel’s he’d swallowed. “I wasn’t paying proper attention. Usually you can smell a bear before you see him. But it was damned cold that August, I hadn’t seen a living soul in thirteen days, and I hadn’t been too attracted to the icy streams around there. Probably ol’ Griz smelled me before I smelled her.”

Doc laughed, pouring himself another glass of the bourbon that had somehow made its way to the dinner table. The dessert dishes had been cleared away long ago.  Doc was smoking his pipe under Ginger’s disapproving gaze, though Tanner made no move to take out his ever-present pack of cigarettes, and Maude had brought out her own pipe and her Indian tobacco.

“There’s a heap of powerful medicine in that bear, boy,” she observed sagely, having matched the men drink for drink. “Don’t you go being disrespectful.”

“I’m very respectful of grizzlies, Maude,” Tanner said. “And I like to keep a respectful distance.”

“Well, if you haven’t bathed in thirteen days I’m sure they’d like you to keep a respectful distance too,” Ginger said, her blue eyes alight with amusement and something more.

Tanner laughed, a slow, easy laugh, and his eyes once more drifted toward Ellie. “What do you think, Mrs. Lundquist?” he drawled. “Are you one for respectful distances?”

She’d just about never been called Mrs. Lundquist. When she heard that name she thought of the Judge’s first wife, with her matronly bosom, her blue hair and her unbending pride. She wrinkled her nose in dismay. “I’m not one for being called anything but Ellie,” she said, observing Ginger’s look of displeasure. “I’m also one for early nights.” She pushed her chair back from the table. “I think I’ll head home now. Thanks for everything, Doc. Ginger, you put my cooking to shame.” She rose, grasping the cane in her right hand, feeling the cool, smooth gold of its head with a reassuring gesture.

Everyone else had risen. Tanner was watching her still, a speculative expression on his face. He probably thought she was running away. Well, she’d like to, but Eleanor Johnson Lundquist, though she might be weak in many ways, wasn’t a coward. She met that gaze fearlessly. “Can I give you a ride out to your place, Tanner?

She’d startled everyone. Tanner recovered first, but then, he was used to hiding his emotions.

Ginger wasn’t. “I thought I’d drive him,” she said, and there was just a hint of irritation in her voice.

“No,” Doc broke in, looking more troubled than Ellie would have expected. “I drove him here, I’ll take him back.”

“Well, I sure as hell ain’t going to offer,” Maude announced. “I don’t even drive.”

“I can always walk,” Tanner suggested with the faint trace of a smile. “I’m used to it.”

Ellie stood patiently, waiting. She wasn’t going to say anything more, press him in any way. He’d come with her if he wanted to, or he’d choose another place and time. Sooner or later those speculative looks were going to evolve into something a little more physical, and she wanted to scotch it before it started.

His eyes met hers again, and she met that gaze fearlessly. “Why don’t I go with Ellie?” he said finally. “After all, she has to go out anyway.”

“It’s no trouble...” Ginger began.

“I don’t mind...” Doc said.

“Fine,” Ellie said. “If you’re ready?”

He followed her out into the cool night air. She always limped more when someone was watching her, and Tanner had the gift of making her feel as if she was on permanent display. She tried to hurry down the cement walkway to her huge black car, and stumbled slightly.

She hadn’t realized he was so close. His hand caught her elbow from behind, steadying her, keeping her from falling in an ignominious heap in front of Doc’s modest ranch house. Thank God. It had been years since she’d been lame enough to fall. She had no doubt at all that Maude and Doc and Ginger were standing in the picture window, staring out at them. It would have been a lovely sight.

“Thanks,” she said briefly, not even glancing back.

His hand left her. He moved ahead, silent as a forest creature, and opened the door of her Buick. The keys buzzed in the ignition. It had been the Judge’s car, too new for her to turn in, but she hated the big, unwieldy thing. Its only advantage was the automatic transmission, so she’d held on to it, more out of apathy than anything else.

She slid onto the leather seat and started the car. “You always leave your keys in?” he inquired as he joined her.

“Always,” she replied, pulling out into the empty street. “There’s no crime in Morey’s Falls.”

“At least there’s been none in fifteen years,” he amended for her.

She glanced over at him, but the meager light from the dashboard wasn’t enough to illuminate his expression, and Morey’s Falls was too small to go in for streetlights. “Not in fifteen years,” she agreed.

He slid down in the seat beside her and pulled out his almost empty pack of cigarettes. No one had ever smoked in the Judge’s car. He’d given up smoking when he was sixty, and like most converts, had been rabid about the nonbelievers. Out of deference to his memory she’d always kept people from smoking in what she still thought of as his car, and she opened her mouth to say something.

She shut it again, listening to the flare of the wooden match, watching as it lit Tanner’s face. He looked wary and a little brutal in the flickering flame. Was she out of her mind, driving off into nowhere with the son of a killer?

She was being unforgivably paranoid. “Those things are lousy for you,” she observed, striving for a note of normalcy.

“So they tell me.” His voice was crisp and cool, inviting no further conversation.

Another long, uncomfortable silence as she drove past the cluster of houses that marked the end of town. “How much did you drink tonight?” The moment the words were out of her mouth she could have bitten her tongue in horror. She wasn’t used to having to watch what she said.

His laugh was short and sharp. “Too much. Do I show it?”

“Not at all. That’s why I was curious. I’m sorry, that was horribly rude.”

“Yes, it was,” he agreed. “Are you trying to reform me, Ellie?”

“I wouldn’t think of it.”

“That’s good. Because it’s a lost cause.”

She glanced over at his shadowed profile. “Some women would take that as a challenge.”

“But not you?”

“Not me,” she said firmly. “I’m already responsible for too many souls as it is. You’ll have to reform yourself.” They were heading out Route 5 now, the road getting narrower and narrower, and the moonless night growing darker and darker.

“Maybe,” he said. “If I ever find a good enough reason.” He was speaking more to himself than to her, and she had the good sense not to respond.

“Why are you here?” she asked finally. “I would have thought this was the last place you’d want to be.”

“Why?”

“Because sometimes it’s the last place I want to be,” she said frankly.

“Why don’t you leave?”

She shrugged. “Sooner or later I will. That doesn’t answer my question. Why are you here?”

“Maybe I don’t want to answer your question.”

She thought about it. “Do you have a reason not to, or is it just general cussedness?”

He laughed then, sounding surprised and oddly good-natured. “Just general cussedness. I’m here to find out what happened to my father.”

“Didn’t you read the papers?”

“You know better than that, Ellie,” he said. “The papers give you facts, if you’re lucky. I need reasons.”

She pulled up in front of the clearing and put the car in park, keeping the motor running. “I don’t know if you’ll find them.”

“I don’t know either. I just know I’ve got to try.” In the darkness the words were softly spoken, intimate, a part of him opening up to her.

Just as quickly he slammed it shut again. He slid over on the wide bench seat, and before she knew it he’d reached out and touched her breast, a gentle, feather-light stroke that shocked and aroused her.

“How’s the sunburn?” he murmured.

He smelled of cigarettes and whiskey and warm male flesh. What would happen if the martyr of Morey’s Falls tarnished her halo? she thought for a brief, dangerous moment.

She backed away, up against the door, away from him. His arms were long, he could still reach her easily, but he didn’t choose to. He just sat there, looking at her in the dark.

“You are the most brazen man I have ever met,” she said finally, her voice a little breathless.

He grinned then, a slow, easy smile that made her toes curl. “But then, I don’t think you’ve met too many men, have you, Ellie?” And before she could say anything he slid back along the seat, out of the car, closing the door quietly behind him. “Thanks for the lift.”

She sat there for a long moment. He saw too damned much for her peace of mind. She rolled down the window. “Anytime,” she said calmly. “Do you want me to wait until you get a light going?”

“I can see in the dark,” he said. “Unless you want to come in and complete your little welcome wagon act?”

“Good night, Tanner.” She managed a satisfying spurt of gravel as she sped away from the clearing.

* * * * *

He watched her go with a speculative expression on his face. He’d bet she was damned proud of herself. Hell, she had every right to be. He’d done everything he could to put her on edge, and she’d done nothing but give him that faint, damnable smile all evening long. And he couldn’t see that well in the dark. He would have loved to have seen her expression when he’d touched her breast. He’d felt her tremble, a little shiver of reaction that was infinitely satisfying. He’d been tempted to push it, then and there, and see how far he got.

But he’d thought better of it. The chase was half the fun. If he’d blown it, it would have made it that much harder in the long run.

So Ellie Lundquist was the one survivor of his father’s madness. He’d come up with the impression that she was the town pet, a mascot to be stroked and cared for, the martyr who belonged to everyone.

She was going to belong to him. Sooner or later there wasn’t going to be such a vast discrepancy between the innocent and the profane. Ellie Lundquist was going to descend to his level, whether she liked it or not. Maybe she’d learn something in the bargain. And maybe she’d be able to leave the place she felt so tied to. He was doing a noble thing, he mocked himself. All for her own good.

“Sometimes, Tanner, old boy,” he said in a quiet, deadly voice, “you make me sick.”

Was that how his father had started? Talking to himself in the quiet stillness of a moonless night? He’d better watch it.

Hell, he’d had too much to drink, too much to smoke, too much to think about. What he needed was a decent night’s sleep on something that approximated a bed. Tomorrow he’d pull himself together.

It was more habit than anything else that made him decide to take one last walk around the cabin before he settled down for the night. The kerosene lamp lit the one-room building with a warm glow, shedding a little light out the broken windows. He walked slowly, watching the ground more out of habit than interest. There wouldn’t be cougar or bear tracks this close to civilization. He didn’t have to be that careful.

But it was instinct that made him do it, and sharp eyesight that caught the tiny bit of white paper. He knelt down, brushing at it with his hand.

It was the remains of a cigarette filter. It had been crumpled, shredded, almost obliterated, just as Tanner had always done with his cigarette butts. But he hadn’t been smoking out there. And it wasn’t his brand.

It was the brand his father had smoked, and it was crumpled the way his father used to crumple them. Tanner sat back on his heels and shivered in the warm night air.

* * * * *

Damn the man, Ellie thought as she drove, too fast, down Route 5. He was too observant, too sassy, too brazen, and too much trouble. Welcome wagon act, indeed! Trust Tanner to twist things around. All she’d wanted to do was be friendly, to make up for her earlier panic, to show him that everyone didn’t hate him, didn’t condemn him. If that made it a welcome wagon act then she had nothing to be ashamed of. Damn him!

Of course, he knew perfectly well her motives weren’t that pure. She’d been her usual calm, friendly, sisterly self, the way she always was. It was the manner she’d used for years to keep predatory men at bay. God knows, Tanner was the most predatory male she’d seen in a long time. Maybe in her entire life. He needed to be kept at arm’s length. She’d been so determined to be calm and friendly, and he’d almost managed to rile her. Almost, nothing! He had riled her. At least she could hope that she hadn’t showed it.

What she needed to do was help Ginger. She knew her old friend well enough to recognize the predatory female of the species. The two of them would make a perfect pair, and if Ellie had any sense at all she’d do a little discreet matchmaking.

She deliberately loosened her death grip on the steering wheel. Well, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Besides, how long was Tanner going to be around? It couldn’t be that long, given the hostility of the town. What she needed to do, instead of trying to provide a social life for the man, was to help him in his quest. He wanted reasons, he wanted answers. She could help him find those reasons and those answers.

She knew better than anyone else who’d suffered at Charles Tanner’s hands. She knew the people who’d known Tanner’s father, the people who could shed some light on it. She knew where the bodies were buried, figuratively and literally.

Her course was clear. She’d drive back out to that depressing, tumbledown cabin tomorrow morning and offer her assistance in his quest. With her to speed things along he might very well be gone by the Fourth of July. For everyone’s sake she could only hope so.

The massive Victorian house the Judge had left her was a blaze of lights. She squashed the tiny feeling of guilt that assailed her. Most people in this economically strapped town couldn’t afford to leave their lights blazing. But Ellie lived alone, and not for anything in the world would she enter that huge old structure with only a light or two burning.

Tonight was worse than usual. The sky was overcast, blanketing even the stars, and the blackness around her was thick and inky. If she turned on every light in the entire house it wouldn’t keep the darkness at bay.

She pulled into the driveway and turned off the car. As she opened the door the telltale buzzer sounded, reminding her she’d left the keys in the ignition. Maybe Tanner was right, maybe she was a little too trusting. She pulled out the keys and headed into the house.

Chapter Six

Civilization woke Tanner with a vengeance. His head was pounding, his mouth tasted like an armadillo, and his brain was still reeling with the worst nightmares he’d had in almost fifteen years. He sat up on the sagging cot, groaning, staring around him in bleary-eyed disapproval. Why was he hanging around here, in a place full of miserable memories? What the hell did he need the best horse-breeding ranch in New Mexico for, anyway? Maybe he should just take off, head for Canada. He’d always wanted to take the Yukon trail up to Alaska.

He reached for the crumpled pack of cigarettes, then remembered he’d smoked the last one. Cursing, he pulled himself out of bed and headed for the doorless front entrance. Served him right, he thought, stumbling barefoot over the gravel and twigs. He shouldn’t be smoking at all.

The spring was still flowing, pure and clear. He washed his face in the icy water, then shook his head back, trying to clear the excesses of the night before. It had been nobody’s fault but his own. He’d had too much to drink at Doc Barlow’s, and then finding that shredded cigarette butt had sent him to his own bottle. He’d probably finished that too—he couldn’t remember. If he hadn’t, he had every intention of pouring it out. If he was going to stay on here for even another twenty-four hours he was going to have to do it stone-cold sober.

And he was going to stay on, he knew it full well. He wasn’t staying for the horse ranch, or even for Alfred’s sake, however much he owed the old man. No, he was staying on for himself, for the hope of a future that would be, if not free from the past, at least at peace with it.

He heard the scrunch of the tires on the gravel outside almost an hour later, but he didn’t bother to look out. A small, smug smile lit his face as he tipped back the rickety chair and waited for Ellie Lundquist to walk in the door.

His self-satisfied smirk faltered somewhat as he heard the uneven sound of her footsteps, but he refused to let it bother him. He sat there, waiting, a trap ready to be sprung.

Ellie stopped in the doorway, and the sunlight silhouetted her lean figure. She was wearing jeans again, and her hair wasn’t in that tight knot she’d worn the night before. Probably she was supposed to be down-to-earth and disarming, he thought cynically. It would take more than that to disarm him.

“You’re up,” she said, her low, husky voice a continual surprise to him. “I was afraid I came out too early.”

“I’ve been up for hours,” he lied. “Want some coffee?”

She stepped over the threshhold, her eyes narrowed as they adjusted to the dim light. “All the comforts of home.”

He reached forward and poured her a tin cup of the thick brew. “You’ll have to drink it black. I don’t come equipped with cream and sugar.”

“Black will be fine.” She took a tentative sip without shuddering. He had to admire her self-control. His coffee could strip the paint off a tractor.

“Have a seat,” he offered magnanimously. “And then you can tell me what you want.” He was sitting in the only chair in the shack—so that left the narrow, sagging cot. Maybe she’d opt for the floor.

But Ellie Lundquist was made of sterner stuff. After all, she’d drunk his coffee without flinching. She perched on the side of the bed, cradling the cup of poisonous-tasting brew as if seeking warmth. It was going to be a hot day—she didn’t need that warmth.

She was doing a good job of looking at him too, he thought lazily, taking another gulp of his coffee and waiting patiently. He was wearing jeans and nothing else. She was keeping that even, friendly gaze on his face, but she’d let it drift down his tanned chest as if it held no more interest than the familiar landscape. He didn’t believe it.

“Actually,” she said, taking another drink of his coffee without flinching, “I was wondering what you want.”

He smiled, a brief, lazy smile, fantasizing for a moment how she’d react if he walked over to that narrow, rumpled bed and showed her exactly what he wanted. “I told you last night,” he said, not moving. “I want to find out about my father.”

“Well,” she said, sitting back on his bed, “I’m here to help you.”

“Are you?”

If he’d wanted to daunt her he failed. “Yes. I’ve got a car, you don’t. I’ve lived in Morey’s Falls all my life; I know more about this place than anyone else, with the possible exception of Maude. I can help you find the answers you want.”

“Why would you want to do that?” He drained his coffee cup and set it down on the scarred wooden table, barely controlling his own reflexive shudder. “More of your welcome wagon act?”

Her eyes met his. “You want the truth?”

“That’s always preferable.”

She rose, moving across the room to the empty window frames, her limp barely perceptible. “I’ll help you because I want you to leave,” she said flatly. “I think you’ll stir up a lot of pain and trouble, and the sooner you’re gone the better. So I’m here—” she turned to face him then “—to speed you on your way.”

“Better than tar and feathers,” he said. “What if I decide I like it here? If I want to stay around, to start a family?”

“You won’t,” she said.

“You sound pretty sure of that.”

“No one would stay here if they didn’t have to.”

“Do you have to?” He rose, stretching in the low-ceilinged cabin. He felt her eyes drift down for a moment, then jerk back upward to his face.

“For now,” she said. “Do you want my help or not?”

He reached for his clean flannel shirt and pulled it on, buttoning it and rolling up the sleeves with graceful economy of movement. “I’m in your hands. Where do we start?”

He could see the tension leave her shoulders. Had she relaxed because he accepted her help? Or because he’d put on his shirt? Maybe a little of both. For all her seeming coolness he could tell for a fact she wasn’t used to half-dressed men. Maybe the Judge had insisted on making love in the dark.

“We start with the newspaper office.”

“I’ve been there. I don’t think Poor Lonnie’s going to welcome me with open arms.”

“I talked with him this morning. He’ll be waiting for us,” she replied.

“Pretty sure of yourself, weren’t you? How’d you get him to cooperate?”

“Lonnie and I are old friends.” Her husky voice had just the faintest tinge of repressiveness.

“Okay,” he said. “We need to stop on the way for cigarettes.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You should stop being a pain in the neck,” he said, following her out into the early-morning sunshine. “Does anybody ever come out here?” He kept his voice casual as he slid into the passenger seat and began pulling on his running shoes.

She had a strange expression on her face, one he couldn’t quite fathom, as she climbed in beside him and started the big car. “Why do you ask? Does it look like someone’s been staying here?”

“Nope. I was just curious.” Curious about a cigarette butt that could have been mine, but wasn’t, he thought. But there was no need to tell Ellie Lundquist about that.

“No one comes out here,” she said. “They think it’s haunted.”

“By my father?” he asked, unmoved. “Or his victims?”

“It depends on who you ask. It’s also near the site of an Indian massacre. The U.S. government wiped out an entire village: men, women and children. The area doesn’t have a happy history.”

“It doesn’t sound like it. And I suppose some people think it was the ghosts of the Indians that drove my father nuts?”

“How’d you guess?”

“I hope that’s not a popular belief. It’s not the answer I’m looking for.”

She glanced over at him. “You can’t afford to be too picky. I don’t know if you’ll like any of the answers you’re going to get. If you don’t want to hear them, go back home.”

“Don’t rush me, Ellie. I’ll leave when I’m finished here, and not before.”

She stamped on the accelerator and the car jerked forward. “We’ll just have to see that you finish quickly,” she said grimly.

“What’s the rush? Don’t you like me?”

“I don’t like being toyed with.” There was an edge to her voice he couldn’t miss. “And I don’t like needless suffering. This town has been through enough. You have every right to try to understand what happened, but you have no right to make things worse for these poor people.”

“At the hands of the Tanner family?” he supplied in a silky, dangerous voice.

“I didn’t say that....”

“And what about you? Haven’t you suffered? With that pathetic limp and that kindly behavior I bet you’re the town saint. A perfect contrast to the bad penny showing up.”

If he’d hoped to shock her he’d succeeded. “Is it everyone you hate, or just me?” she said quietly.

“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re just one of a faceless pack. My father’s blameless victims, suffering nobly at the hands of evil incarnate.”

“If you believe that, why are you here?”

“I want to see if it’s true. I want to see if things are black and white, or if there’s a little gray thrown in.”

“You’re hoping to find some justification for your father opening fire on a Fourth of July celebration?” Ellie scoffed. “Don’t count on it.”

“Not justification. Reasons.”

“We’ll find your reasons,” she said. “Then will you leave?”

She was paying more attention to him than to the road. He smiled, an innocent smile that wouldn’t have fooled her for a moment. “Then I’ll leave,” he agreed.

* * * * *

She had a knot in her stomach the size of a fist. First there’d been a sleepless night. Then the anxiety of driving out Route 5 to offer her help to that graceless savage. She’d had to drink coffee that tasted like kerosene, watch him parade around half-naked and then put up with him baiting her while they drove into town.

If she weren’t so desperate to get him out of Morey’s Falls, out of Montana, she’d have kicked him out of her car. A small, craven part of her wanted to abdicate. If Tanner wouldn’t leave, she would. She could fill up the tank of the Buick and start driving, not stopping until she got to civilization and people who had never heard of Charles Tanner.

But she wouldn’t do that. She’d stick it out. Just two and a half weeks, and then she’d leave. If she could help keep things relatively placid during her last days there, then she’d be able to leave in peace. Tanner could go back to wherever he came from, and the townspeople could get on with their lives. Two and a half weeks.

She pulled up the car in front of Addie’s Quickstop just outside of town. She had no idea whether Addie Pritchard had heard about Tanner’s arrival, and she didn’t really care. “Get your cigarettes,” she said in a sour voice.

He didn’t say a word, he just smiled that wicked smile of his that never reached his eyes and slid out of the car. She sat there, watching him go, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. Addie wouldn’t refuse to serve him, would she? Addie was a great, cheerful mountain of a woman, an impartial friend to all. That friendliness probably wouldn’t extend to Tanner, but Ellie couldn’t see her being vindictive.

Or could she? It was taking Tanner a long time to buy something as simple as a carton of cigarettes. Addie kept a gun beneath the cash register to ward off intruders. Maybe she’d decided to dispense a little rough justice to the nearest thing to Charles Tanner that was left on this earth.

Ellie slammed open the car door and rushed up the front steps of the little store, forgetting her cane, forgetting her lame leg. Tanner was standing at the counter, seemingly at ease, and the glance he threw in her direction was no more than mildly curious.

Ellie stopped running, sauntered into the store and picked up the first thing she could find. “I... I forgot. I needed something,” she said breathlessly.

“Did you?”

She nodded, placing the box on the counter beside Tanner’s carton of cigarettes. “Where’s Addie?”

“Haven’t seen her yet. You sure you need that?” He nodded his head toward her hastily grabbed purchase.

She looked down at the bright-pink box of perfume. “One Night of Love Musk Oil, Guaranteed to Make Any Man Your Slave,” the box proclaimed. It was a brand Ginger Barlow favored, and it smelled like insect repellent to Ellie. The scantily-dressed couple on the garish package left little to the imagination, and Ellie could feel the color flood her face. She looked up, into Tanner’s amused gaze, and considered brazening it out. Considered, then rejected the idea. Addie wasn’t known for her discretion, and Ellie Lundquist buying One Night of Love Musk Oil would shock Morey’s Falls past redemption.

“No,” she said, picking the box up again. “I don’t need it. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

She could see the faint expression of shock wipe the humor from his face. He clearly wasn’t used to having anyone watch out for him. Score one for her. She’d finally managed to throw him off balance, at least a little bit.

“Sorry.” Addie bustled into the room, her broad moon face red and panting. “I was on the phone. How are you, Ellie? Haven’t seen you in weeks.”

“Just fine, Addie,” she said. “How’s yourself?”

“Can’t complain. What the hell have you got in your hand, missy?”

Trust Addie to be indiscreet. So far she hadn’t done more than give Tanner a cursory glance, and Ellie felt herself relax. “I picked it up by mistake,” she said with a grin, putting the box back on the shelf. “I don’t need it.”

“More’s the pity,” Addie said, turning her attention to her other customer. Her eyes widened for a moment, and her huge bulk quivered.

Tanner had stiffened, waiting for God knows what. He didn’t know about the gun Addie kept, and Ellie primed herself, ready to leap.

Addie leaned forward, putting her meaty fists on the scratched Formica counter. “Well, well, well,” she said, and there was no anger in her voice. “Look who we have here.”

Tanner didn’t say a word, and the wary posture remained the same. “Who do you have here?” he asked.

Suddenly Addie smiled, a beam of welcome wreathing her broad, red face. “Marbella’s boy,” she said firmly. “Your ma and I grew up together. We were best friends all our lives, until she had the good sense to get the hell out of here, away from the crazy man she married. You look just like her.”

Some of the tension left his shoulders. “So I’ve been told. But I’ve got my father’s coloring.”

Damn the man, Ellie wailed inwardly. Couldn’t he just let things be?

Addie nodded. “You do. It can’t be helped. You’re his son as well as Marbella’s, and there’s no changing that. Your ma was a fine lady, son. As fine a one as I’ve ever known. You ever need anything, you just let Addie know.” She cast a glance in Ellie’s direction. “You with Ellie?”

“Yes.” The sound of his answer gave her a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Addie grinned. “Maybe you better buy that perfume after all, Ellie. Hell, take it on the house.”

“Watch your mouth, Addie,” Ellie said cheerfully, ignoring the fresh wave of color in her face. “Let Tanner buy his cigarettes, and we’ll head on out. Lonnie’s going to let us look at the old newspaper accounts.”

“Poor Lonnie,” Addie said absently, taking Tanner’s money and ringing up the cigarettes. “You come back when you have more time, boy, and we can talk about your ma. I still miss her.”

Tanner gave her a smile of sudden sweetness, the kind of smile, Ellie thought, that a woman would die for. Addie wasn’t immune to it.

“I miss her too,” he said simply. “Thanks, Addie.”

“Take care of Ellie,” Addie admonished.

Tanner cast her a swift, curious glance, and for a moment the faint glimmer of a smile reached his blue eyes. “I’ll try, Addie. I’ll try.”

Her face was flaming again when she reached the car. She paused by the driver’s door, waiting, as he sauntered after her.

“You know,” he drawled, “life would be a lot easier on you if you learned not to blush.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” she said frankly. “I’d just be hiding my emotions away behind a mask, like you do. I don’t want to be you, Tanner. I don’t want to wear a mask with everyone. If I’m going to get embarrassed I don’t mind people knowing it.”

His eyes narrowed against the bright sunlight. “I get amateur psychology along with the welcome wagon?”

“Sorry,” she said, not contrite. “Do you want to drive?”

“Why should I?” He paused, looking at her.

“I don’t know. Men usually like to drive,” she said irritably.

“And you know so much about men,” he added.

“Why do you keep saying things like that? I haven’t been living in a convent. There are plenty of men around here. You forget, I’m a widow.”

“I don’t forget. No, I don’t want to drive. I don’t need to prove my masculinity by ferrying the little woman around.”

“What about proving you’re a gentleman by sparing my bad leg?” she snapped back, then regretted it. She didn’t want to remind him of what his father had done to her. He was living with enough on his shoulders.

Tanner didn’t look the slightest bit chastened. “Is that what people do? Make allowances for you, coddle you, keep you from having to stand on your own two feet? In the twenty-four hours I’ve known you I’ve seen you can do just about anything if you forget you’re supposed to be lame. I’m not about to encourage your notion of yourself as the wounded martyr. Drive your own damned car.” He slid into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut behind him.

She stood there, white with shock and fury. She knew if she opened her mouth she’d start shrieking with rage, she knew if she moved she’d start beating on the car with her fists. She counted to ten, once, twice, willing herself to calm down.

Finally some of the anger faded. She hadn’t been that angry since... Heavens, she didn’t know when she’d been that angry. If Tanner was able to ruffle her famous equanimity, how was he going to affect people with a shorter fuse?

Wounded martyr, was she? The damnable thing about it was he’d hit upon her role very accurately. That’s exactly how people saw her, and out of lassitude she’d fulfilled their expectations. Now, in one day Tanner had seen through it, and her. Maybe she did need some of his formidable defenses. He was far too observant, seeing things, hinting at things he couldn’t possibly know. If she was going to survive his unwelcome visit, survive the next two and a half weeks, she was going to have to become more adept at hiding.

She took a few deep, calming breaths and opened the car door. Tanner didn’t say a word when she started the car, didn’t say a word as she pulled away from Addie’s Quick-stop. He just kept staring out the window, his eyes narrowed and far too knowing.

She drove slowly and steadily, heading toward town. They were almost there when she finally trusted her voice enough to say something.

“You know,” she said conversationally, “you’re a real bastard.”

He leaned forward, smiling at her with that oddly sweet smile. “Ellie,” he said softly, “I only wish I were.”

Chapter Seven

“How about some coffee?” Lonnie Olafson was standing in the door of the Morey’s Falls Gazette, his blue-striped oxford shirt rolled up at the elbows, his khaki pants properly creased, his Nikes scuffed, his sandy hair drooping boyishly across his high forehead. If his blue gaze behind the pale-rimmed glasses held a trace of reserve, the hand he held out was steady.

Tanner had avoided shaking hands with him the day before. This time he didn’t have much choice in the matter. Ellie was watching him like a hawk, that generous mouth of hers pursed in disapproval. He could feel other eyes at his back, watching him. Hostile eyes. Half the town had turned out to see him walk into Lonnie’s newspaper office. He couldn’t believe that so many people had nothing to do at ten o’clock on a Wednesday morning. They were there to get a good look at Tanner’s son, and if Lonnie was reluctantly welcoming, the rest of them weren’t.

“Coffee would be wonderful,” Ellie said, coming up beside him and threading her arm through his, drawing him into the building, away from the prying eyes. There was nothing sexual in her touch, and yet it was somehow more acceptable than the limp grasp of Lonnie’s hand. The instant they were inside she released her hold, and for a half a moment he was tempted to reach out and grab her arm once more. Not for sexual stimulation, but for some odd, ultimately demoralizing form of comfort. He resisted that temptation, noting with interest Lonnie’s proprietary glare.

“None for me,” Tanner said, unwilling to accept anything more than he had to.

“Don’t be ridiculous. That stuff you had this morning didn’t even deserve to be called coffee,” Ellie said. “Lonnie makes the best coffee in town, and anyone would be a fool to turn down a cup of it.”

“I don’t need...”

“Lighten up, Tanner,” Ellie said, clearly enjoying herself. Getting sassy, was she, Tanner thought. She must feel safer with an audience. “You’re here for help. Accept it.”

Lonnie was watching all this with a faintly troubled expression. “What’ll it be?”

Later, Tanner promised himself. “Two coffees. Black.”

“But Ellie drinks it with cream and sugar,” Lonnie protested.

“Make mine black, Lonnie,” Ellie said. “Tanner thinks I’m already full of too much sweetness and light.”

The troubled look deepened on Lonnie’s high forehead. “Two black coffees,” he said. “Go on into the back room. I’ve laid out the papers for that period. You realize there’s a few days gap. When my father...died it took a little while to get things back in order. Even so, we still have the most extensive coverage of the, er, uh, incident.”

“Incident?” Tanner echoed with a snort of derisive laughter. “There’s no need to be tactful on my account. Call it anything you damn well please. Slaughter, murder, whatever.”

“Massacre,” Ellie said firmly, undaunted. “That term seems to cover the situation pretty well. Got anything to eat, Lonnie? I’m starving.”

A faint smile lit Lonnie’s face. “I expect half the women in town will find some excuse or other to come in here and get a look at Tanner. At least a few of them will be bringing donuts and pastries.”

“I hope Nilda Tompkins is one of them. She may be the nosiest woman this side of the Mississippi but she makes the best muffins around.”

“I’ll keep any visitors in the front room. You and Tanner take your time in the morgue.”

“Fitting name,” Tanner said, following Ellie’s tall, straight figure into the back. She’d left her gold-headed cane in the back of the car, and her limp was almost imperceptible, confirming Tanner’s suspicions. She limped when she remembered she was crippled. When something occupied her mind, her walk was almost completely normal.

The morgue of the Morey’s Falls Gazette was as depressing as its name. Stacks and stacks of yellowing news sheet covered the shelves of the small, dark room. There was one window, a narrow one set high on a stained wall, and the small patch of sunlight filtering through shed more light on the scarred table than the flickering fluorescent fixture overhead. Tanner moved over to a chair, staring down at the grainy textured photograph of his father’s face in the open volume spread out for his perusal, keeping his own expression carefully blank.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Ellie’s husky voice broke through his abstraction. He looked up, into that direct, warm gaze, and felt a tightening somewhere in his gut.

“Suit yourself,” he said evenly, dropping into one of the chairs and pulling the yellowed paper toward him. “It makes no difference to me.”

“Then I’ll stay.”

He almost forgot she was there. During the next three hours he sat in the old oak chair, the words sinking into his brain, playing out pictures of pain and anguish and devastation. He read about Nils-Jacob Lundquist, the youngest victim, the sixteen-year-old son of the widowed Judge Lundquist. He read about Harald Olafson and his new assistant editor, about middle-aged ranchers and young mothers, about farmers and grandfathers and college students wiped out in a blaze of gunfire.

At least Charles Tanner had been a marksman. No one died a lingering, painful death. He knew how to hit a target, hit it neatly and cleanly before turning the gun on himself. His only mistake was sixteen-year-old Eleanor Johnson.

There were pictures of Ellie, pictures from younger days, with a faded-looking man in the background. For a moment Tanner wondered if that were the Judge, then realized the man was Ellie’s father, another victim of the massacre. The photos were too grainy—newsprint reproductions of old snapshots, and he couldn’t get any sense of her before she’d been shot. She looked like any other young girl, on the edge of womanhood, the blurred face innocent and smiling.

He found an interview with Judge Lundquist, accompanied by the old man’s picture. The Judge spoke thoughtfully of the need for healing in the town, the sorrow of his own loss, the devastation that would take years to recover from. Tanner looked down into the heavy, jowly features, the stern eyes and conservative mouth, and disliked him on sight. He tried to imagine Ellie in bed with him, tried and failed. If that was the limit of Ellie’s sexual experience she was in for quite a shock.

“There’s a lot more stuff at the local library.” Ellie’s rich voice startled him for a moment. “We have most of the national accounts of the massacre. Time, Life, Newsweek, all that sort of thing. If you want I can get a key. I’m on the library board and they pretty much let me do what I want.”

“When’s the library usually open?”

“Every other Tuesday from ten till three. You just missed it.”

He leaned back in the chair, balancing on the back legs, and folded his long hands in front of him. “I’d forgotten what a small town can be like. Have you read all this stuff?”

She hesitated for only a moment. “A number of times. About three years ago I reread everything we had in town about it. We had reporters nosing around again, asking questions, and I realized I’d forgotten almost everything. I’d even forgotten what Charles Tanner looked like.”

“I can guess why the reporters showed up again. There must have been another mass murder, right?” He toyed briefly with the flimsy paper in front of him.

“Exactly. Every time some crazy man takes a gun and blows away a fast-food restaurant or a post office they dredge up all the other...”

“Incidents,” Tanner supplied with a cynical twist of his mouth that couldn’t be called a smile. “They kept trying to track me down, get my opinion. After I broke a few cameras and a few noses they stopped coming around.”

“Maybe I should have learned karate,” Ellie said. “I guess I’m too polite. I don’t know how to say no.”

Tanner turned the full force of his attention on her. He could see that look in her eyes, knowing she’d said the wrong thing, waiting for him to turn it around into some sort of come-on that she’d have to deflect. He only smiled faintly, determined to keep her off balance.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ve read the accounts, and I remember enough from the national media. Charles Tanner got up the morning of July fourth, 1972, put on his army uniform, picked up his M-l rifle and several handguns and drove his old pickup into town. There was a Fourth of July celebration in the middle of town, on the site of a proposed new bank, and half the town was there. He opened fire, shooting for about a minute and a half, and then turned the gun on himself. Is that essentially it?”

Ellie looked a little dazed. “A minute and a half?” she echoed. “That short a time? It seemed to last an eternity.”

“What happened to you?”

She swallowed. He could see this was costing her something emotionally, could see that serene exterior raveling around the edges. Anyone with compassion would back off. Right now his supply of compassion was running extremely low.

“I was one of the first ones hit. I was talking with Nils-Jacob when he started shooting. I went down, Nils-Jacob fell on top of me, and no one realized I’d only been wounded. I just lay there until the shooting stopped.”

“And?”

“What do you want from me, Tanner?” she demanded, her voice raw with pain. “You want gory details and lots of blood? Sorry, I can’t help you on that score. I’ve managed to blot out most of what happened that day. I know the facts, the time sequence, the death count, everything. But I don’t remember the emotions, and I don’t want to. You’ll have to get that from someone else.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “What I’m more interested in,” he said, his voice low and soothing, “is why no one noticed something was going on. A man walking around in an outdated army uniform and a high-powered rifle shouldn’t be an everyday occurrence.”

“The gun was a new touch. Your...Charles Tanner often wore his uniform. He’d come into town, not say a word to anyone, cash his disability check and buy some groceries and go back home. Everyone just thought he was a harmless eccentric.”

“No one had any idea he was over the edge?”

“He kept away from everyone. I suppose people had their suspicions. Odd things began to happen a couple of years before the massacre. Someone began peering in people’s windows. No one was sure who it was, but they thought it might be Charles. Then animals started being killed. Cattle, horses, old hunting dogs were found dead. Someone began daubing blood on people’s porches. No one knew for sure who it was, but Charles Tanner was the obvious culprit.”

“And no one did anything?” Tanner’s voice was cold, emotionless.

“No one had proof. This is a close-knit community—they don’t go for help to outsiders. They would have had to go to the state or maybe the VA for help, and no one wanted to do that.”

“They paid for it, didn’t they?”

She stared at him, that clear-eyed gaze troubled. “I guess they did. For what it’s worth, Doc had called in help two days before the massacre. Someone was coming from the VA after the holiday weekend to talk with Charles.”

“A little late,” said Tanner.

“A little late,” Ellie agreed. They sat there in silence for a long moment.

“Did they ever build the bank?”

“What?” She was startled for a moment. “Oh. No, the backers pulled out. I guess they thought Morey’s Falls wasn’t the best possible spot for a new bank. They turned the empty lot into a park.”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I’d forgotten. There’s some sort of memorial.”

She looked even more uncomfortable. “They’re erecting a granite marker, with the names of all the victims carved in it. They’re planning a big dedication on the Fourth of July.”

“They? Aren’t you a part of all this? The town survivor?”

“For what it’s worth, I tried to stop the town council from doing it. I think we’ve spent too much time in the past. No one listened.”

“Couldn’t you have made a fuss?”

She met his eyes defiantly. “I told you, I’m not good at saying no, particularly to people I care about. The Judge left the money for the memorial, and I have to be the one to unveil it. I don’t like it, but I’m writing the check and writing my speech.”

He said nothing for a moment. “And that’s when you want me gone. Before this touching little ceremony.”

“Tanner,” she said wearily, “don’t make it worse.”

He stifled the brief surge of compassion. “I could hardly do that, could I? It’s about as bad as it could be. I thought I was living with ghosts. It’s nothing compared to this town.”

“You’re probably right.” She was looking away from him, refusing to meet his gaze.

He pushed his chair back from the table. “All right,” he said. “If you want me out of here in two and a half weeks we can’t afford to waste time. Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“The Charles Tanner Massacre Memorial Park.”

“Don’t call it that.”

“What do you call it then?”

“The park. For pity’s sake, just call it the park,” Ellie said.

“Okay, Ellie. Let’s go for a walk in the park.” God, he was regretting this. Regretting that he’d ever set foot in the state of Montana, regretting that he’d allowed himself to involve Ellie Lundquist in all this. He should have sent her on her way that morning and gone about this at his own pace.

Ellie was complicating matters. He was reacting to her, responding to her in ways he didn’t like. She was the essence of martyred saint, while he was the son of evil incarnate as far as this town was concerned. He had no business with her, no business at all, and if he had a shred of decency in his body he’d leave her alone.

Lonnie had reappeared in the open doorway. He’d checked on them periodically during the last three hours— Tanner had felt those eyes on the back of his neck each time he’d paused in the door. “All finished in here?”

“For now,” Tanner said, rising and stretching his long arms over his head. “I appreciate your help.”

Ellie had moved out of the room ahead of him. Lonnie smiled faintly. “Anytime. Anything you want to know, just ask. I’ve made sort of a study of that day. There’s probably no one around who knows as much as I do about the details, is there, Ellie?”

“Probably not, Lonnie,” she said.

Tanner’s eyes narrowed. He knew that tone of voice, even if Poor Lonnie didn’t. It was maternal, gentle and far too knowing. Lonnie was no threat to Tanner’s plans for Ellie, no threat at all. “Anything you want to know,” Lonnie said again.

“I’ll take you up on that,” Tanner said.

The good people of Morey’s Falls had given up waiting. It was afternoon when they left the newspaper office, and there was no one in sight. They walked down the block in silence, Ellie remembering she had to limp this time, Tanner stifling his irritation as he glanced down at her. He liked her shoulders. They were thin, broad under the soft cotton shirt. Probably covered with freckles from yesterday’s outing in the sun. He wished they were back up in that mountain meadow and that Charles Tanner had never lived.

No, that wouldn’t do. If Charles Tanner had never lived, neither would his son. And if Charles Tanner hadn’t wiped out a good portion of Morey’s Falls, Ellie Lundquist would have moved away long ago, been married to a man her own age and had a couple of kids by now.

You can’t change the past, no matter how much you want to. He’d learned that long ago—now was no time to be forgetting.

* * * * *

Why had she left her cane in the car? For that matter, why hadn’t she suggested they drive to the park? To be sure, it wasn’t very far away. But they were unprotected, on view, with no place to run to. She couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that someone was watching them, someone with the same twisted outlook as Charles Tanner. Someone with a gun.

Don’t be absurd, she warned herself. Lightning didn’t strike twice in the same tiny Montana town. One crazed killer was more than their quota—coincidence couldn’t be cruel enough to bring another one into their midst.

If there was another murderer around, coincidence had nothing to do with it. It had to be heredity. But the man walking beside her with that easy, loose-limbed grace wasn’t the danger she was half imagining. It was someone else, watching them. But it was probably just her overwrought imagination and a sleepless night. Not to mention the upcoming anniversary. The whole town was on edge.

“This is it,” she said, coming to a halt at the small patch of green on the corner of Main and Bank. She tried to see it through his eyes. It wasn’t much—just an empty lot turned into a park, with benches and winding paths and a huge monolith in the center, covered with a drop cloth.

There used to be a fountain there, and Ellie still missed it. She’d liked having it there, something fresh and blue to focus her gaze on. The memorial would be nothing more than a grim reminder of something no one ever forgot.

Tanner hadn’t said a word. He was moving around the structure, that distant, enigmatic expression on his face. And then he squatted down, poking at something in the dirt.

“What have you got there?” Ellie asked, moving closer. She never liked being in the park, and would have preferred to stay on the sidewalk, looking in. When it came right down to it, no one liked the park. No one spent their lunch hours on the comfortable benches, kids didn’t congregate, old men didn’t feed the birds. It was still haunted, fifteen years later.

Tanner rose, looking down into his hand with an odd expression on his face. “It’s a cigarette butt,” he said, his voice sounding peculiar.

She peered into his hand. “It doesn’t look like it.”

“That’s because someone’s crumpled it past recognition. Do you know anyone who does that to their cigarettes?”

Why was his voice sounding so strained? You’d think he’d found a bone or something equally nasty. She was about to say so, when she realized he was genuinely disturbed by the shredded bit of paper in his hand.

“No,” she said finally. “But then, I don’t know many smokers. Why do you ask?”

He stared down into his hand for a long, speculative moment, and then turned his palm over, letting the tiny scraps drift back onto the recently upturned dirt. He met her gaze blandly. “Just curious,” he said. And she knew he lied.

Chapter Eight

Ellie Lundquist felt a sudden chill. A cloud had passed over the noonday sun, darkening the once bright day, and she shivered in her light cotton shirt.

“Where to next?” she asked in a deliberately cheery voice. “We could go out to the graveyard. Or we could see if some of the relatives would talk to us. Or we could...”

“I think I’ve had enough for today,” Tanner said slowly. “It’s after one. Let’s get something to eat. What about the restaurant across the street?” He nodded in the direction of Pete’s Fireside Cafe.

Ellie followed his gaze, looking at the faces turned out toward them. “No,” she said. “That’s not the place to go if you’ve had enough for one day.”

“All right.” He accepted it without question. “Got any alternatives?”

“I need to check my horses. I have them stabled out at Maude’s. If we show up there she’s bound to offer us lunch. Plus more advice than we could ever want.”

“I’m used to advice.’’

“You just don’t take it,” she supplied.

He smiled that cold, wolfish grin. “Not if I can help it. I prefer to make my own mistakes.”

“Okay, let’s go to Maude’s. If you want,” she kept her voice carefully diffident, “we could go for a ride up into the hills.”

“On that old slug you rode yesterday?”

“Mazey’s a wonderful horse,” Ellie protested. “Anyway, I have three horses. You could ride Hoover. He’s got a little more energy.”

“I don’t know if I think you’re much of a judge of horseflesh.” They were walking back toward the big black car, the eyes from Pete’s Fireside Cafe following them.

“And you are?” she shot back, incensed.

He shrugged. “I know my way around a horse.”

“I think you’ve been standing at the back end too long,” she said sweetly, yanking open the car door.

His laugh was a short, rusty sound of surprise. “Ellie, you amaze me,” he said, sliding in beside her. “What an image!”

She switched on the ignition, grinding the starter unnecessarily, and pulled out into the street without looking. Fortunately traffic in Morey’s Falls was nonexistent. It would have been extremely embarrassing to have collided with another car with Tanner as witness. Not to mention Lonnie’s brooding gaze from the front window of the Gazette office. She had to learn not to react to Tanner’s deliberate goading. She had to be cool, friendly, helpful, and let his taunts slide off her back.

It was easier said than done. For some reason she was vulnerable to the man, in ways she hadn’t been vulnerable to anyone in years. Tanner saw straight through to that vulnerability and used it, and her.

She lifted her foot slightly from the accelerator and forced herself to loosen her tight grip on the leather-covered steering wheel. She plastered a pleasant smile onto her face as she headed out toward Maude’s rambling ranch house. “Where do you live, Tanner? What do you do for a living? You can’t walk all the time.”

She didn’t have to look at him to know that a cynical grin had stretched across his too-handsome face. “Welcome wagon time again, Ellie?”

She ignored the gibe. “I’m just making friendly conversation. Besides, I’m curious.”

“I live in New Mexico. A little town up in the Sangre de Cristo mountains that you never would have heard of.”

“What do you do there?” She allowed herself a brief glance in his direction.

His grin broadened. “I live on a horse ranch, Ellie. I’m partners with the man who should have been my father. We raise the best quarter horses known to man. And yes, I’ve spent more than my share of time at the back end of a horse.”

“And your partner doesn’t mind you taking off like this?”

It was the wrong question. His face darkened for a moment, and he reached for the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket with impatient fingers. “He knows when it’s necessary.”

“And it doesn’t matter how long you’re gone?” she pushed.

“It matters.” He lit the cigarette and blew a long stream of smoke into the pristine interior of the Judge’s car, watching for her reaction.

“Then you can’t very well stay here indefinitely.”

“I can stay here just as long as I need to,” he said in a low, rough voice. “And not a minute longer.” He stared out at the scrubby landscape. “Alfred’s dying.”

He’d surprised himself by saying that, she could tell by the sudden grimness around his mouth. He hadn’t surprised her. She had a way about her that invited confidences. People told her things they never expected to tell anyone. Usually they didn’t mind when they found they’d been indiscreet. She could tell Tanner minded like hell.

“Alfred’s the man who should have been your father?” she prodded gently.

He leaned forward and stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray. Two of his cigarette butts already rested there, staking his claim to what had once been the Judge’s. “Alfred is everything Charles Tanner wasn’t. My mother and I moved in with him when I was a wild fifteen-year-old and Marbella had had too many of the wrong men for the wrong reasons. He gave us a home, he gave us love, he gave us a future.” He leaned back against the seat. “It took him five years to talk Marbella into marrying him. She’d decided she wasn’t worth the kind of love Alfred was offering her, and it took him a long time to convince her.”

“So he was your father,” Ellie said softly. “Your stepfather, at least.”

“Marbella died in a car accident two weeks before they were set to get married,” he said in a short, unemotional voice.

“But you stayed on?”

“No. I left Alfred to grieve on his own. I took off the afternoon of the accident and didn’t come back for a year and a half. I wasn’t even sure Alfred would let me come back. But he did.”

“Where’d you walk that time?” Her voice was deliberately prosaic.

Some of the tension seemed to leave him. “I’d never seen New England. It seemed as good a direction as any. Anyplace but Montana.” There was a long silence, broken only by the powerful hum of the Buick’s engine.

“But now you’re here.”

He shrugged, and his hand strayed toward the cigarettes again, then dropped onto the seat beside her. “Alfred gave me a future when I needed it. I’ve got to give him the only kind of future he’ll have. I’ve got to make sure the ranch will be safe, that it’ll be in good hands.”

“You’ve got to be sure that you won’t take off again.”

His eyes met hers for a brief, startled moment. “Exactly,” he said. “Alfred’s had two strokes, and he could have another any time now. He’s holding on by the skin of his teeth, and his last months are misery, not knowing what’s going to happen to everything he’s worked for. I owed it to him to come up here, to the last place on earth I’d ever want to go, and make peace with the past. And why the hell am I telling you all this?” he added with sudden savagery.

“Because I’m easy to talk to?” she suggested softly.

“Because you’re a nosy busybody.” He reached for his cigarettes.

She didn’t even flinch. “You know, you shouldn’t smoke those things. You’re not really a smoker—when you’re preoccupied you forget all about needing them.”

She should have known better than to have twitched the tiger’s tail. He turned the full force of those cold blue eyes on hers, and she felt like shivering all over again. “And you, honey, are not really lame. You limp when you remember you’re supposed to be the martyred cripple, and the rest of the time you do just fine.”

The fact that she deserved it didn’t help the pain slicing through her. For all the physical and emotional anguish she’d been through in her thirty years, she’d never had anyone be deliberately cruel to her. The shock of it took her breath away, and she quickly turned her face back to the road, gripping the steering wheel with shaking hands.

She could feel her eyes fill with sudden, stinging tears, and she tried to blink them away. Her mouth trembled, and she bit down on her lip, hard, as she turned down Maude’s dusty driveway to the rambling little ranch house that had served the old woman as home for over eighty years.

She pulled to a stop and switched off the car. “We’re here,” she announced brightly, praying he wouldn’t notice her absurdly childish reaction to his random cruelty. She reached for the door, hoping to get away from him, to dash the demoralizing tears from her eyes before he noticed, but he was too fast for her.

He caught her wrist, drawing her back, and her resistance was just so much wasted effort. He could see her tear-filled eyes, her trembling mouth, her stupid, babyish behavior, and color flooded her pale cheeks.

“I’m being ridiculous. I’m sorry,” she began, embarrassed, but he stopped her, his fingers touching her mouth to silence her.

His eyes were no longer cold. “You’re sorry?” he echoed. He pulled back his hand, and there was a fleck of blood on his fingers. She must have cut her lip when she’d bit down. His other hand was still holding her wrist, and she felt it tighten around her, felt the infinitesimal pull, and she was ready to move with it, toward him, when he suddenly released her.

He pulled back and reached for the car door. “Maybe,” he said, “I’m more like my father than I thought.”

This time she stopped him, her hand catching his arm, feeling the warm flesh and bone and sinew beneath his skin. “What do you mean?”

“Taking potshots at helpless children,” he said. “Maybe you should keep as far away from me as you can.”

“I’m almost thirty-one, Tanner.”

“That doesn’t keep you from being a child in some ways. You’ve lived in a cocoon here in Morey’s Falls. One moment of random violence and you’ve been protected ever since. You’re not equipped to face the real world and mean, rotten men like me.”

“If I’m still a child,” Ellie said quietly, her tears long gone, “then it’s time I grew up. And you’re not a mean, rotten man, Tanner.”

He leaned across the seat, and before she could realize his intent his mouth had brushed her lower lip, softly, barely touching. When she looked at him again the blood was on his mouth, not hers. “Honey,” he said, “I’m one of the worst.” And before she could say anything more he’d opened the door and slid out into the bright sunlight.

* * * * *

Maude Gilles was standing there, just outside the car, her dark, sprightly eyes an interested witness, no doubt, to the past few moments between her two visitors. She was shorter than Tanner remembered, and older. The merciless glare of the early-afternoon sun played up every wrinkle in her seamed, lined face, making her appear as old as time. She had to be under five feet, and her long, thick white braids hung past her tiny shoulders.

Ellie had wasted no time climbing out of her side of the car. She had the cane in her hand and a stubborn look of defiance around her mouth. “Hi, Maude. We came for lunch.”

He didn’t miss the look that passed between the two women. A very slight expression of inquiry passed over Maude’s face, answered by an imperceptible shake of Ellie’s head. He filed it in the back of his brain for further study, grimacing in annoyance as he watched Ellie limp forward, leaning heavily on the damned cane.

‘“Bout time, too,” Maude announced. “I was wondering when I was going to see the two of you. My spies tell me you’ve been wandering all over town.”

“Who are your spies, Maude?” Tanner asked with deceptive laziness.

“Jamie, I suppose,” Ellie supplied calmly, almost as if the tense moments in the front seat of the Buick hadn’t happened. “He helps out around here, feeds the horses, takes Maude shopping and fills her in on all the gossip. What’d he tell you, Maude?”

“Just that the two of you were as thick as thieves. The old ladies in town are worried about you. They think Tanner here is clouding your mind.”

“The spawn of the devil,” Tanner said in a pleasant tone of voice. “I don’t think Ellie’s mind is too clouded.”

“It’d take more than a good-looking young stud like you to do it,” Maude said bluntly. “More’s the pity. Come along in. You’ll have to make do with peanut butter sandwiches, but I guess you’ll both survive. I’m glad you came, Ellie. Jamie said Shaitan didn’t touch his food. Of course that fool boy didn’t dare get close enough to see if something was the matter. Why you have to keep a horse like that is beyond me.”

“I’d better go see....”

“Ellie, he’s waited this long....” Maude might just as well have been talking to herself. Ellie had taken off in the direction of the barns, limping slightly, barely using the cane. “Damn the girl,” the old woman said under her breath. “What about you, Tanner? Are you going with her or are you going to help me make lunch?”

Tanner looked down, way down into those fierce little eyes. “What do you think?”

“I think you’d be a fool to spend time with an old lady when you could have a pretty young thing like Ellie. And I expect your mama didn’t raise no fools.”

He laughed. “You’re right. But it’s a close decision.”

“Lunch will wait. She’ll be in the stalls to the left in the big barn. You can’t miss her. Watch out for Shaitan, though. If anyone’s a spawn of the devil that creature is.”

“I’ll be careful.”

The barn was dark and shadowed after the bright sunlight, and a wave of familiar smells washed over him. Fresh straw, horseflesh, leather and saddle soap. He stopped for a moment, letting the smells surround him with a comforting blanket of memory. This was solid, real, this was waiting for him in New Mexico.

He was more than used to the sudden surge of homesickness. He’d felt it often enough, but usually not quite so soon. He’d be on the trail, in the midst of some wilderness or the center of a city, and a longing for home would sweep over him. He’d start, then and there, for New Mexico.

But he wasn’t used to having it happen so soon. He’d only been gone ten days this time. He usually didn’t feel that pull for months and months. Maybe there was hope for him after all.

He saw Mazey’s broad, bay rump in the shadowy stall, next to a narrower, chestnut gelding. Ellie was two stalls over, her voice a low, soothing murmur as she talked to the biggest, blackest, meanest-looking, most gorgeous stallion he’d ever seen in his entire life. Covetousness swept over him, wiping out all previous emotions, and he started forward.

“Don’t come any closer.” Ellie’s voice stopped him. She was edging out of the stall, her strong, narrow hands running over the high, beautifully muscled back of the black as she went. He stopped where he was, too much of a horseman to disobey, but his hands itched to touch that smooth back.

Ellie shut the door of the stall behind her and walked toward him. The cane was under her arm, and she was once more forgetting to limp.

“Shaitan doesn’t like strangers,” she said, gesturing toward the barn door.

Tanner didn’t move. “According to Maude, he doesn’t like friends either.”

“That’s right. He doesn’t like anyone but me. You go near him, Tanner, and he’ll savage you. What he doesn’t accomplish with his teeth he’ll finish with his hooves once he gets you down. He’s had a bad time of it with people, and I’m the only one he trusts.”

A small, cautious smile curved his mouth. “You think you’ll have the same luck with me?” he said softly. She didn’t reply, and he looked over her shoulder to the beautiful shape of the stallion. “He’s too much horse for you, Ellie.”

“You touch him,” Ellie said again, “and what he doesn’t do I will. I’ll cut your heart out, Tanner.”

“Tsk, tsk. That’s not the way to earn my trust.”

“The hell with your trust,” she said fiercely.

“Is he all right?”

“What do you mean? Oh, you mean because he didn’t eat? He was just in a mood. As soon as I showed up he chowed down. He loves me.”

He stared down at her defiant face. “Just because he loves you doesn’t mean he can’t be very dangerous. Love doesn’t always mean safety.”

The barn was oddly quiet, silent but for the soft whirrup of the horses, the muffled sounds as they lipped their hay. “I know,” she said, looking into his eyes with her direct, fearless gaze. “But sometimes safety’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Do you want some lunch?”

I want you, lying in the straw, wrapped around me, he thought, keeping his face absolutely expressionless. “Peanut butter sandwiches?” he said. “I can’t wait.”

* * * * *

She didn’t let him near Shaitan again. The day clouded over, threatening rain, and Shaitan was terrified of thunderstorms. Maude kept plying the two of them with fresh-baked bread, coffee that was almost as strong as Tanner’s wicked brew and anecdotes about Morey’s Falls before 1972. She never mentioned Charles Tanner—she didn’t have to. Instead, she gave Tanner a feel for the town his family had come from for generations, and he listened with complete fascination.

It was one of the few pleasant things he could take away with him, Ellie thought, sitting at the table and watching him surreptitiously. Most of his search would turn up tragedy, depression and despair. At least Maude was showing him a part of his more distant past that wasn’t tainted with murder.

For the time being his defenses were lowered, just enough for her to guess what he might have been like if he’d lived a normal life. Those eyes of his were no longer coldly challenging, no longer deliberately seductive. They were simply eyes, of a beautiful blue shade, and the lashes shielding them were wickedly long. His dark-blond hair was pushed back, his expression was both relaxed and intent, and his mouth was curved in a slight smile that held no threats. His skin was deeply tanned from years in the bright sun, and lines fanned out from his eyes, lines that couldn’t have come from smiling.

His hands were wrapped around a mug of Maude’s coffee. Ellie remembered the feel of those long, hard fingers on her wrist, touching her cut lip. She remembered the brief, tantalizing feel of his mouth on hers, and she shivered.

“I’ve got to be heading back,” she said suddenly. “Bridge club is at my house tonight, and if I don’t make tracks nothing will be ready. As it is I’ll barely have time to get Tanner home.”

“You don’t need to ‘get Tanner home,’” he drawled. “I’m perfectly capable of walking.”

“Don’t be silly, boy. Your family’s place is on the other side of town; it must be ten miles from here,” Maude said. “Besides, this is a lonely stretch of road. I don’t like you being out here alone. There’s too much bad feeling still simmering around here. No need to ask for trouble.”

“You think someone’s gonna shoot me in the back?”

“You forget, Maude knows this town and the people in it a lot better than you do,” Ellie said. “And I wouldn’t put it past several of them to do just that.”

“I guess I’d better run for cover then.” Tanner’s voice was cool and remote. “I could always skulk along the side of the road and dive into the underbrush if someone came along. Except that there isn’t much underbrush around here. I guess I’ll have to risk it. We can’t have Ellie late for her bridge game.”

“Cut it out, Tanner.” Ellie rose and carried her empty coffee cup over to the old iron sink. She almost picked up his, and had to force herself not to. She wasn’t going to wait on him, do for him, on any level. It was too tempting, too dangerous. “It’s very simple—you can drop me off home and take the car out to your place. I won’t be needing it, and you can drive it tomorrow morning so that we can get an early start.”

“No thanks.”

Ellie sighed, leaning over to kiss Maude’s withered cheek. “We’ll argue about it in the car. Thanks for everything, Maude. You’re a great lady.”

“No,” said Maude, “I’m not. You’re the good one around here.”

To Ellie’s surprise Tanner came over and kissed Maude too. Ellie held her breath as Maude blinked back tears of surprise and emotion. She hadn’t seen Maude cry in years. Maybe she’d never seen Maude cry. “Thanks, Maude,” he murmured, smiling at her, that rare, sweet smile that he’d bestowed on Addie Pritchard and no one else.

Ellie, watching that smile, felt a knife of longing twist inside her, one that she didn’t dare let Tanner see. Without a word she headed out the door, letting the screen door slam shut behind her. This time she remembered to limp.

Chapter Nine

Ellie headed straight for the passenger’s side and climbed in before Tanner could protest. “You drive,” she announced. “The keys are in the ignition.”

“I thought I warned you about that.”

“You and I have something in common, Tanner,” she growled. “We don’t take kindly to advice.”

They were halfway to town before he spoke. “You’ve got her fooled too, haven’t you?”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“Maude. She’s swallowed the Saint Ellie image like everyone else.”

“Don’t goad me, Tanner. It just so happens that I am a saint. I’ve spent almost—” she looked at her watch “—almost nine hours with you and I haven’t killed you yet. Surely that qualifies for sainthood in some parts.”

He laughed, a short, sharp sound that wasn’t unpleasant. “My mother would have agreed with you.”

“Your mother must have been a wise woman.”

“Not particularly. She had phenomenally lousy taste in men,” he said calmly.

There wasn’t much she could say in response to that. He was driving at a surprisingly decorous pace, and he hadn’t had a cigarette in hours. She would have thought he’d be a demon behind the wheel. Right then she could have used a little bit of lead-foot. The last thing she wanted was to show up late to her own bridge club and start having to make explanations. People were going to be nosy enough.

“Is there any way I can talk you into taking the car?” She tried it one last time. “It would make things easier on both of us.”

He glanced in her direction, his smoky eyes reminding her of a timber wolf. “All right,” he agreed abruptly. “Though I disagree with you. Nothing is going to make things easier on either of us.”

She considered, then rejected the notion of asking him exactly what he meant. She was afraid that deep in her heart she knew, and it was something she wasn’t ready to face.

“I don’t really like bridge.” She changed the subject, her voice slightly rushed. “I just sort of fell into it. People were always looking for a fourth, and it was one thing that had nothing to do with the past. So we started meeting at people’s houses, first four of us, then eight. I expect we’ll make up three tables tonight. Actually, we spend more time eating than playing. And our table talk is outrageous. I hate to think what serious bridge players would think if they heard us.”

Tanner made a noncommittal sound, clearly uninterested, but Ellie plowed on, no longer comfortable in silence. “Sometimes I don’t think the others care that much about bridge either. It’s just a chance to get away from their husbands and kids, or an empty house with too many memories. It’s a chance to let their hair down and gossip.” Her voice trailed off guiltily.

“So I imagine I’ll be a major topic of conversation tonight. Over the chips and dips?”

“How about over the crudites?” she found herself saying.

Again that short, sharp laugh. “Tarnishing your image, Saint Ellie? You’re supposed to turn the other cheek.”

She sighed, recognizing the truth of it. She shouldn’t rise to his bait, shouldn’t fight back. Tanner was the one with psychic burdens weighing him down. He was suffering fully as much as his father’s victims, and if she could comfort the others, why couldn’t she extend comfort to Tanner?

“What are you going to do about supper? It’s already after seven,” she said instead.

“Why, Ellie, is that an invitation?” he mocked her. “I didn’t think so. Don’t worry, I won’t starve to death. Pete’s Fireside Cafe looked like a good possibility.”

“No!”

“Do you want to tell me why, or should I guess?”

“Pete Forrester’s daughter was killed in the massacre, and Pete took it even harder than most. He’d be one you’d want to avoid.”

“Maybe. Or the one I most want to talk to.”

“Don’t ask for trouble, Tanner.”

“I did by coming here.”

“Wait until I can come with you,” she said, and her voice held a note of pleading in it. “Please, Tanner.”

He said nothing for a moment. They were coming into the outskirts of Morey’s Falls, and the approaching storm had brought early-evening shadows down around the barren-looking buildings. “Do you want to tell me where you live?” he said, ignoring her earlier plea. “Or shall I just drive around and guess?”

“Take the next left,” she said. “It’s the house on the corner.”

Tanner pulled into the driveway next to the Judge’s huge old house, and his expression was sardonic. “Very impressive,” he said. “No wonder you married him.”

“Don’t. I don’t owe you any explanations.”

“True enough.” He turned off the motor and opened the door.

“What are you doing?” she demanded nervously.

“Seeing you to your door. It’s the least I can do. My mama did try to make me into a little gentleman. She failed, but a few things stuck.” He strode around the car and opened her door with all the aplomb of a uniformed chauffeur.

Ellie looked over her shoulder nervously. The gathering shadows of the storm darkened the streets that should still have been light at that time of year, and there were lamps shining in the windows across the way. No faces there, watching the sinner and the saint. “There’s no need....” she began.

“There’s every need.” His hand was under her elbow, guiding her up the uneven sidewalk to the back porch, moving her with such gentle force that she had no chance to limp, no chance to pull back. He paused on the porch outside the back door, releasing her, and opened the door. “You don’t lock your house either, do you?” His voice was deep with disapproval.

“There’s no need.”

“Lock your door, Ellie,” he ordered. “And I’ll keep away from Pete’s Fireside Cafe.”

She looked up at him. The shadows were all around them, the smell of the approaching storm thick in the air, and a sudden, waiting stillness caught at her. He was so close, and so locked away from her. His blue eyes were hooded, unreadable, and his mouth looked hard and unyielding.

It wasn’t. Before she realized what he was doing he’d pulled her into his arms, out on the back porch in plain view of anyone who cared to look. His hand cupped the back of her neck, holding her in place as his mouth came down on hers.

She stood rigid in his arms, surprise and panic holding her still as his mouth moved expertly across hers. His lips were soft, warm, damp, and the knot in her stomach tightened and dropped. The long fingers behind her neck were kneading the tense muscles, lightly, erotically, as his lips tugged gently at hers.

She didn’t know what to do. Half of her wanted to respond, to kiss him back, but she didn’t know how. The other half wanted to shove him away from her, remove the tempting warmth of his lean, strong body. She did neither. She stood there in the circle of his arms, unmoving.

He lifted his head, his mouth leaving hers, and his eyes glittered in the shadowy half-light. “You kiss like a virgin,” he said, his voice softly mocking.

She kept herself from flinching. “I wasn’t kissing you,” she pointed out with an attempt to sound matter-of-fact. All she sounded was shaky. “You were kissing me.”

“Then let me do it properly,” he whispered, and the sound played across her spine like a thousand tiny leaves. “Open your mouth.”

She could no more deny him than she could have stopped her heart from beating. His hands moved up, cupping her head, as his mouth caught hers, and her mouth opened, obediently, passively.

She wasn’t expecting his tongue. She jumped, but he held her still, tracing the soft contours of her lips, dipping inside, lightly at first, getting her used to the unfamiliar invasion. Her lips were damp, soft beneath his, and she began to tremble in reaction. His tongue touched hers, sliding over the rough surface, and the intimacy of it was unbearably sweet, teasing, tempting, arousing. Suddenly it was more than she could take. She twined her arms around his neck, pressed her body against his and kissed him back, desperately, inexpertly, passionately.

She could feel the hardness of him against her thighs. She could feel her nipples pressing through her cotton bra and shirt, pressing against his muscled chest. She could feel her heart race and her mind soar as she lost herself in the overpowering sensation of his mouth on hers. If she could she would have crawled into his skin. She wanted to rip off his shirt, to feel his flesh beneath her hungry hands, his body against hers, hot and hard and wanting as she was wanting.

His heart was pounding against hers and his mouth was no longer gentle; it was as hungry as hers. Her lip began to bleed again, and the small touch of pain was just one more point of arousal. She wanted to break the kiss, to pull him into the house, to lock the doors behind them and push him down on the old linoleum floor of the Judge’s kitchen.

The rumble of Ginger Barlow’s aging Camaro stopped her before she could make an even greater fool of herself. In sudden panic she ripped herself out of his arms, and he was too startled to try to hold her. She backed into the corner of the porch, her back against the clapboard, her breath coming in shallow gasps. She could feel the dampness on her mouth, the heat still rippling through her body. She looked at Tanner and wanted to weep. He looked watchful, patient, expectant. He didn’t look as if he’d just experienced the most profoundly erotic moment of his life. He probably hadn’t.

“Well,” she said, her voice low and trembling, “now you know. I’m human after all.”

“Yes,” he said softly. “You are.”

“Damn you, Tanner,” she said desperately. “Don’t play games with me! Leave me be!”

If she expected pity or compassion, she was getting none of it. “You’ve been let be for too long. Didn’t the Judge ever kiss you?”

Color flamed her face. “Sorry I was so inadequate,” she mumbled.

“You weren’t inadequate. Just...inexperienced. Why?”

“There you are, Ellie!” Ginger shouted out gaily, moving up the sidewalk with the sinuous stride she kept for susceptible males. “And Tanner, my goodness. I didn’t realize you were there.”

The hell you didn’t, Ellie thought savagely, and then thought better of her anger. Ginger had prevented her from having to answer a very uncomfortable question. Though she suspected Tanner knew the answer. He just wanted to make her admit it.

“I’m just leaving,” Tanner said. “I’m keeping Ellie from her bridge club.”

“Well, I’m part of the bridge club, and it’s okay with me. I tell you what—I’ll give you a ride home while Ellie puts out the refreshments I brought.” She was wearing too much of her current musky scent, and even out in the evening air it hung about them like a cloud.

“No thanks,” Tanner said distantly. “We’ll finish this tomorrow, Ellie. First thing.” And with that parting threat he left them, moving down the steps to the car with a loose-limbed grace that caught Ellie in the pit of her stomach and warred with the panic that had settled there.

Ginger let out a gusty sigh as he drove away. “That is some man, I tell you,” she said. “They don’t grow too many of them in these parts.” She turned her attention to her friend, and her wide blue eyes narrowed. “What were you two talking about when I got here? It must have been something pretty intense.”

“We were talking about the massacre,” Ellie lied with a skill so immediate that it astounded her.

Ginger shook her head. “That’s no way to win him.”

“Win him?” Ellie echoed, glad she was still standing in the shadows. “Why in the world would I want to win him?”

“Like I just told you, Ellie. Men like Tanner don’t come around too often.”

“Thank God,” she muttered.

“You really don’t want him?” Ginger demanded. “You’re absolutely sure?”

Ellie looked at her old friend with knowing eyes. For a moment she wondered what Ginger would say if she told her the truth. If she said, yes, I want him, I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. Keep your hands off him, he’s mine.

Ginger wouldn’t believe it. Ginger would laugh. Ginger believed what she wanted to believe, whatever was most convenient in her own self-centered life. Ginger wanted Tanner; Ellie had recognized that fact the moment she saw the two of them together, and nothing on this earth was going to shake her determination. Nothing short of Tanner’s outright refusal, and much as Ellie might like to fantasize about that possibility it was highly unlikely.

If she had any sense at all she wouldn’t want him herself. She’d pass him on to Ginger with her blessing and without a second thought. “I’m sure,” she said in the shadows. And very carefully she wiped the dampness from her lips.

* * * * *

It had been a cool night. A sleepless night. Ellie had lain awake for hours, too tired to get up to close the window, too wide-awake to do more than lie there and worry. By six o’clock in the morning she was down in the huge old kitchen, drinking coffee in her oversize flannel nightgown, her bare feet cold on the aging linoleum as she looked around her.

If she was going to stay, she could do things about the place, she thought, not for the first time. She could paint the tall brown cabinets white, hang plants in the bay window, pull up the cracked linoleum to show the wide pine boards beneath. She could put a radio in and play country music while she baked bread. She could raise a passel of kids. It was a big house—it could hold a lot of kids. The sound of children’s laughter would do a lot to lighten up this dark old place.

But children needed a father. And there wasn’t a single possibility. She wasn’t going to marry Bernie Appleton or Fred Parsons with their ready-made families. And she’d long ago given up on Lonnie.

How far was Tanner going to push her when he came over this morning? She couldn’t tell him the truth—she owed Lonnie that much. She owed the Judge that much. Besides, it was none of his business. Her past sex life was her own concern and no one else’s, and he had a lot of nerve making assumptions, asking questions, pushing her for answers.

Life was so much easier twenty, thirty years ago. Women were expected to be in a state of relative purity, and no one would have suggested otherwise.

Except, of course, if they’d been married, she reminded herself grimly. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried.

She had never been able to pinpoint when the Judge’s feelings about her changed from parental to something else. Maybe they’d never been fatherly, and she’d just been too involved in her pain and loss to notice. When she’d finally realized that his possessiveness, his generosity, his heavy-handed attempts at flirtation came from unexpectedly husbandly feelings, there’d been no question in her mind what she should do. He’d given her more than any other human had, and asked nothing in return. If he wanted to have a real marriage she would give it to him.

It had been a miserable, humiliating failure. The Judge was too old, too tied up with guilt and confused feelings, and Ellie was too inexperienced to overcome his emotional and physical difficulties. She was left feeling confused and ashamed, no longer knowing what she wanted.

She’d gone from bad to worse. There were plenty of reasons for her failure with the Judge, reasons she could accept once the initial embarrassment had passed. As far as she knew there was no reason for her failure with Lonnie.

They’d been dating in high school, before the massacre. He’d been a shy boy, overwhelmed by his blustering father, inept at the manly sports his father had demanded of him.

But he’d been gentle and sweet with Ellie back then. And after the Judge had died there’d been no one else, just Poor Lonnie, fresh from an unpleasant divorce, waiting for her.

She’d given herself time. She’d done what she could, waiting for Lonnie to make a move.

He didn’t make one. She waited, and waited, and when finally curiosity and frustration grew too much for her, she took matters into her own hands. It had ended with the same futility and sense of inadequacy as her attempt with the Judge. And while Lonnie had been the soul of gentleness, she knew whose fault it had to be.

Now here was Tanner, reminding her of things she’d chosen not to feel, waking her up to emotions she hadn’t even come close to before. Here was Trouble, and instead of running as far and as fast as she could, she was lending him her car, her time, her mouth—and her body, if it ever came to that.

She reached down and rubbed her stiff knee. He was wrong about her knee, but maybe that was wishful thinking on his part. He wasn’t wrong about her. She’d been cosseted and protected too long, out of the real world. Tanner was as solid a dose of reality as they’d had around here in a long time. Reality wasn’t always pleasant, but it was better than sleeping her life away.

She wrapped her arms around her waist and hugged herself in the chilly kitchen. Two weeks. Tanner would be gone, and so would she. Maude would keep the horses, Jamie would feed them, and when she got settled she’d send for them. She’d have to come back for them—no one else would be able to get Shaitan into a horse trailer. But that would be the last time. Maude hadn’t left Morey’s Falls in more than twenty years, but for Ellie she’d do it. The Barlows would come to visit, wherever she ended up. But never again would she live in a living monument to death like Morey’s Falls.

She didn’t hear the door open. She didn’t feel the eyes on her, so different from the angry, threatening gaze that seemed to haunt her, the gaze she could never trace. She was staring sightlessly out the side window, into her blank future, when Tanner spoke.

“Is that nightgown an invitation? If so, I ought to tell you that I prefer silk to flannel.” And he shut the door behind him with a quiet little click before advancing on her, purpose in every line of his graceful body, his eyes intent.

Chapter Ten

Ellie’s hand tightened around the mug of coffee for a moment before giving him her full attention. “It’s too early in the morning for heavy-handed seduction, Tanner,” she said calmly. “Stop stalking me and pour yourself a cup of coffee. I’m willing to bet it’s a lot better than anything you’ve had this morning.”

To her relief it worked. The predatory air left him, he strolled to the stove and helped himself. “You might lose the bet. I stopped off and had a cup with Addie Pritchard on my way over here. She makes damned good coffee.” He took a tentative sip, impervious to the scalding temperature. “It’s too weak.”

“What else would you expect?” She wanted to button the top of her flannel nightgown, but refused to give in to the temptation. Even with Tanner’s high-powered sexuality turned down to only a dim glow she was acutely aware of her state of undress.

He took the straight-backed chair across the table from her, flipped it expertly and straddled it, resting his arms on the back. “No comment. Do you always get up this early?”

“I didn’t sleep well.”

He grinned. She watched in fascination as it started as a smirk, broadened, and finally reached the cool depths of his blue eyes. “Sorry.”

“That’s all right,” she said in her mildest voice. “I expect to sleep very well in a couple of weeks.” Absently she rubbed her knee through the heavy flannel nightgown.

“Once I’m gone,” he supplied, his eyes watching her hand. “Think you’ll last that long?”

“I’ve had sleepless nights before.”

“I wasn’t talking about sleeping.”

“Tanner...” Her voice carried a very definite warning.

“I’ll behave,” he promised rashly, and she didn’t for one moment believe him. He reached in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes and came up empty. “Damn,” he said, rising. “I left my cigarettes out in the car.”

“You don’t really need to smoke,” she protested.

He stopped where he was. “I’ll tell you what, Ellie. I won’t smoke if you don’t limp.”

Enough was enough, she thought grimly, pushing back her chair. “Come here, Tanner,” she said in an even voice.

His expression was wary. “Why?”

Ellie allowed herself a determined little smile. “I’m not going to hurt you. I want to show you something.” She reached down and pulled up her flannel nightgown, halfway up her thigh, exposing her knee to his reluctant gaze.

She tried to see it from his viewpoint. It was part of her body, and she’d learned to accept it, but a stranger, especially someone like Tanner, wouldn’t be used to women with those kinds of scars marring them.

The scars ran from halfway down her calf to midthigh, deep, wide scars that still kept their livid color, a color that was unlikely to fade after all these years. Her leg was twisted slightly, and all the physical therapy in the world hadn’t managed to straighten it completely. Ellie looked down at it and sighed.

“Pretty ugly, isn’t it?” she said evenly. “I hate to tell you Tanner, but it makes me limp.”

She shouldn’t have done it. His mask was back in place, his eyes cool and blue and unreadable. If she’d hoped to shock him into some sort of reaction, she’d failed.

“I’ve seen worse,” he said. “You don’t seem to have any trouble riding. If you can control that black beast of yours then you can’t be that messed up.”

“Shaitan’s very responsive,” Ellie said, flaring up at the insult to her beloved horse.

“Still trying to convince me you’re a cripple?”

“I’m not a cripple,” she shot back. “Sometimes my knee hurts and I limp. It’s that simple.”

“And sometimes my nerves hurt and I smoke,” Tanner said. “Another simple equation. I’ll get my cigarettes, and you can get your cane. Where’d that fancy thing come from, anyway? The head of it looks like solid gold.”

“It is,” Ellie said. “It was a birthday present from the Judge.”

“It figures,” he drawled. “What’d he do, give you a wheelchair for Christmas?”

“Nothing’s going to shut you up, is it?”

He shook his head, unrepentant. “It takes a hell of a lot to do it.”

“Get your cigarettes, Tanner,” she said, pulling the heavy flannel down over her knee again. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

“That’s a shame. I like arguing with you.”

“Why?”

“Why?” he echoed. “I’m not sure. Maybe because things are safer that way.” And before she could respond he’d headed back out the kitchen door, leaving it open to the early-morning chill.

* * * * *

The air was cool and crisp outside, unseasonably chilly, and he crossed the walkway to the car in long strides, taking in deep breaths of the fresh morning air. He stopped by the Buick and leaned against it for a moment, unseeing.

He began cursing, a low, steady stream of profanity. He felt sick, shaking with a rage so deep, so profound that he wanted to pound on the shiny black hood of Ellie’s car.

He pushed himself back, forcing himself to take slow, calming breaths.

It had never seemed real before. Reading the newspaper accounts, seeing the survivors, even visiting the scene hadn’t made it sink into his thick skull.

But those long, dark scars on Ellie Lundquist’s leg were real enough. The lines around her warm brown eyes and her generous mouth were lines of remembered pain, and the limp was real. And his father was a vicious, murdering bastard.

What did that make him? What right did he have to come back here, to remind people, to remind Ellie of a past that was better left buried? Even for Alfred’s sake, did he have the right to dredge up past miseries?

Except that those miseries weren’t in the past, weren’t safely buried. They were alive, tormenting this town, and his presence made no difference, one way or the other. The people in this town had to come to terms with that day of violence, with his father’s life, just as he had. All of them, Tanner included, had put it off too long.

She was sitting where he’d left her, staring into her coffee. Her hair hung down her back in a thick chestnut tangle, her bare feet were curled on the chair rung, and her forehead was creased with thought. With worry?

As usual he felt like the world’s worst bastard. As usual he wasn’t going to do anything about it but make things worse. He didn’t take his seat again, but began prowling around her huge, dark kitchen, opening cupboard doors, intensely aware of her troubled gaze watching his progress. “What’s on the agenda for today?” he asked, poking around the Rice Chex. “Any charnel houses we could visit? Maybe we could have a picnic in the graveyard.”

She ignored his tone of voice. “I’m trying to think who would be the best person for you to talk with. Lonnie’s available anytime. He has an almost ghoulish fascination with that day—he could tell you anything in terms of facts and figures, but he doesn’t necessarily know about emotions. Addie wasn’t around. Georgia Bellingham lost her husband and her brother, but she’s just finishing teaching for the year and she’d be pretty busy. You wouldn’t get anywhere with Pete Forrester, so there’s no need to try the Fireside Cafe. Maybe George Throckton—he lost his mother and father. Or Mabel Henry. She was dating Nils-Jacob Lundquist. Or there’s—”

“Please stop,” he said, his voice low and bitter as he tried to halt her cheerful litany of death. “Didn’t anyone die a natural death around here?”

He could feel the warmth in her eyes—it was a tangible thing, reaching out to him, enfolding him in comfort. Determinedly he shook it off.

“Well, a few,” she said. “The Judge’s wife, for one.”

“I thought you were the Judge’s wife,” he countered, seizing on a new topic as would a drowning man a lifeline.

If he’d hoped to shake her he’d failed. She merely shrugged. “For sixteen years of my life I’d thought of Mrs. Lundquist as the Judge’s wife. Just because he happened to marry me later didn’t really change things. They were made for each other.”

“Made for the Judge, eh? I can just imagine. She must have had blue hair, an iron jaw and a massive bosom.”

Ellie giggled. The sound was soft, unexpected, and it began uncoiling the knot that had twisted in his gut. “I don’t suppose it takes a whole lot of E.S.P. to guess that. She also had the kindest heart around.”

“What got her? Since you said it wasn’t my father’s M-I rifle.”

“Don’t, Tanner,” she protested. “Mrs. Lundquist died of a heart attack a year before the massacre.”

“Lucky her.”

“Tanner...”

“That reminds me,” he continued, closing the door on the cereal boxes and turning to face her, leaning back against the counter. “You said someone was teaching school. How come I haven’t seen any children around? Did Charles wipe out everybody of childbearing age?”

“Of course not. Most young people leave here as soon as they can. There’s not much to offer a growing family. The few that stayed bus their children three towns over to the regional school. A lot of them spend the week with relatives and come home on the weekend. But you’re right— there aren’t too many of them.”

“And you and Lonnie haven’t contributed your share.”

He didn’t miss the tightening of her soft, generous mouth. “Clever of you to notice. Do you think I should do something about that? Maybe you could drop me off at the Gazette and I’ll get to work on it.”

She was clearly hoping to goad him. He gave her a brief smile. “Don’t try sarcasm with me, Ellie. It doesn’t work. Besides, I think you’d be wasting your time with Lonnie.”

She lifted her chin and looked him squarely in the eye. “Got any other suggestions?”

She knew that he did, and that was enough. He didn’t have to say a word, he just let his smile broaden slightly before he turned back to his perusal of her cupboards. “So which victim do we visit next?” he asked. “Unfortunately you’re the only cripple around here, but maybe we can find someone who carried emotional scars.”

“Tanner,” she said, her voice low. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

He knew exactly what she was talking about. So much for fooling her with his callous attitude; she’d seen right through to the very real shock and anger he was still trying to suppress. He held himself still for a moment, then turned and moved behind her. She didn’t turn, didn’t meet his gaze, she just waited.

He put his hand on her shoulder, lightly, feeling the tension beneath her skin, feeling the bone and heat and surprising muscle. “Thank you,” he said.

She looked up then, over her shoulder, into his eyes, and her smile was breathtaking. She parted her lips, about to say something, he didn’t know what, but he was leaning toward her, planning to cover her mouth with his and stop whatever words might come tumbling forth, when he heard the footsteps on the wooden porch outside.

He was six feet away from her when Doc Barlow stormed in the kitchen. He stopped short when he spied Tanner in the post-dawn shadows, for a moment his expression slipped, and Tanner saw something he wished he hadn’t.

“What are you doing here?” Doc blurted out. “Jesus, Tanner, you didn’t spend the night here?”

“No, he didn’t spend the night here.” Ellie said with a trace of asperity. “Not that it’s anybody’s business but mine if he did. I would have thought Ginger told you—I lent Tanner my car last night so I wouldn’t be late for bridge.”

“Sorry,” Doc mumbled, still looking slightly dazed. “Sorry,” he said again. “Of course she said something. And you’re right—it’s none of my damned business. I’m being an interfering old fool.” The hearty tone didn’t quite ring true, but Ellie was satisfied, and for the moment that was all that mattered. There was no way Doc was going to fool Tanner—not now.

“I’ll grant you,” Ellie said, “that seven-fifteen is a little early for visitors. Tanner thinks my coffee’s too weak. Pour yourself a cup, Doc, and tell me what’s got you out and about so early?”

“You make great coffee,” Doc said loyally, and Tanner allowed himself an audible snort. “I’m afraid I’m just one step ahead of Dave Martin. He headed out for Tanner’s place, but when he doesn’t find him I expect he’ll be here next.”

Tanner watched with interest as Ellie’s freckled face paled in the dimly lit kitchen. “Who’s Dave Martin?” he asked.

“He’s what passes for the law around here,” Doc said, pouring himself a mug of coffee. “He’s a good, strong boy and does a good enough job for what little crime we get.”

“Good and strong,” Ellie echoed cynically. “Muscles all over, particularly in his brain.”

“Now, Ellie,” Doc admonished her. “The boy’s no intellectual, but he does well enough.”

“Dave Martin’s capabilities are beside the point. Why is he looking for me?” Tanner inquired in a carefully bland voice.

“I guess because you’re the only newcomer in town,” Doc said, squirming a bit.

“But what’s happened?” Ellie demanded. “Why should he be looking for anyone?”

Doc squirmed even more. “You remember Mabel King’s dog?”

“That nasty crossbred Doberman? The one that savaged Maude’s cat? Of course. What’s he got to do with anything?”

“She found him this morning with a bullet in his brain.”

Ellie took a shaky breath. “Well, I’m sure he’s no great loss. Someone must have thought he was running deer or something.”

“One of George Young’s cattle was found the same way,” Doc interrupted her. “And one of the sheep down at the Cutler ranch, and three of Marcy Laverty’s chickens.”

“Oh, my God,” she said, and her eyes were haunted.

Tanner stood straight. “It sounds like Charles Tanner’s son is the likely culprit. Who else would follow in his father’s footsteps? Of course, the fact that I don’t know these people or where they live is of no importance. The fact that I’d have no reason to do such a thing doesn’t matter either. Is Martin coming alone or does he have a lynch mob with him?”

“Now, son, that kind of attitude doesn’t help anybody.”

“I don’t want to help anybody,” Tanner said.

They all heard the sound of the car pulling up in back of the Judge’s house. Ellie rose, moving across the room to the back door with only the faintest trace of a limp. “He’s alone,” she announced.

“Uh, Ellie,” Doc cleared his throat. “Don’t you think you ought to put on something a little more, er…?”

Ellie looked down at her voluminous flannel nightgown and grinned. “If Tanner can control his lustful passions in the face of this erotic lingerie I think a happily married man like Dave Martin can. This is more covering than people usually wear.”

“Yes, but it’s nightclothes,” Doc’s voice trailed off as Martin’s sharp-knuckled rapping broke through.

Ellie opened the door and waved the burly young cop into the room. “Come on in, Dave,” she said affably. “We were expecting you. Tanner, why don’t you pour Dave a cup of coffee? Maybe he’ll appreciate it more than you do.”

Tanner had to admire Ellie. She was acting as if this was an early-morning offshoot of her bridge club, offering refreshments, polite conversation and all the social amenities. If the thick-necked young man with the humorless expression was about to bring out the handcuffs he couldn’t very well do it in the face of Ellie’s determined sociability.

He could try, though. “You Charles Tanner, Jr.?” he demanded gruffly.

Tanner handed him a cup of coffee, smiling sweetly. “I am.”

“Where were you last night?” Tanner knew right then and there he could play it two ways. He could be friendly, helpful, try to make the townspeople accept and understand him. Or he could spit in their eyes.

Dave Martin wouldn’t respond well to friendliness and helpfulness. Neither would most of the people he’d met in Morey’s Falls. Tanner smiled, the smile that never reached his eyes. “Who wants to know?” he said gently.

“Listen, boy, this is a criminal investigation.” Dave Martin’s face was getting redder by the minute.

“And I’m more than happy to help. I can tell you that I wasn’t prowling around Morey’s Falls shooting animals. I don’t have a gun, and if I did it wouldn’t do much good. I don’t know how to use one.”

Martin’s expression was incredulous. “You don’t hunt?”

Tanner shook his head. “I don’t kill anything bigger than flies, Martin.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question.”

“I’m not going to answer your question. A lady’s reputation is involved.”

He heard Ellie’s smothered laughter. He saw Doc’s expression darken for a moment and Dave Martin’s face turn sullen and disbelieving. As if that weren’t enough, Lonnie Olafson chose that moment to wander in from the front hall, and it was Tanner’s turn to frown. Damn it, Ellie had to start locking her doors.

Lonnie looked the same as always, his boyish hair rumpled, his blue-and-white striped oxford shirt rolled up at the elbows, his chinos artfully creased. His running shoes were encrusted with mud—the only change from his usual yuppie perfection.

“Hello, again, Dave,” he said, moving in and helping himself to the coffee. He spilled a bit, scalding himself, as Tanner looked on impassively. “Tanner, Doc, Ellie.” He greeted them in turn.

“What are you doing here, Lonnie?” Ellie’s irritation was obvious.

“Serving the public of Morey’s Falls. This is news,” he said self-righteously.

“My kitchen is news?” Ellie scoffed. “I think I’d like you all to leave. I need to get dressed. When I come downstairs it would be nice if all of you were gone.”

“All of us, Ellie?” Doc questioned in a worried tone of voice.

She gave him a warmer smile than Tanner had ever seen her give another man. Certainly warmer than she’d ever given him. “All of you,” she said gently. “Except Tanner.” And she left the room without a backward glance.

“You better watch yourself, boy,” Dave Martin said. Coming from a man a decade younger than Tanner, it sounded not so much pompous as absurd. “We don’t like your type around here. The sooner you get out of Morey’s Falls, the better for everyone.”

Tanner didn’t have to look around him to know there’d be agreement, reluctant or enthusiastic, on the faces of the other two men. “What’s my type?” he asked.

Dave Martin turned even redder. “Don’t sass me. You better watch your step. And don’t go disappearing on me—I’m not through with you yet.”

Tanner smiled, his best shark’s smile. “Martin, in one breath you tell me to get out of town; in the next you tell me to stay put. Make up your mind.”

There wasn’t much Martin could say in response to such a reasonable statement. With a final threatening glower he stomped out the back door, slamming it behind him.

Doc’s eyes were troubled, filled with something Tanner wished he’d never seen. “We’d better go too, Lonnie. There’s nothing for the papers here, and I’ve got patients coming in another half an hour.”

“I just got here.” Lonnie’s high-pitched voice cracked slightly, as if he hadn’t quite settled into puberty.

“You gonna go against Ellie’s wishes?”

“Of course not.” Lonnie set his cup down on the counter, sloshing more coffee over the sides. He headed for the door, never once looking at Tanner.

Doc followed him, pausing in the open doorway, turning to say something to Tanner, then clearly thought better of it. “For what it’s worth,” he said finally, “I know you didn’t have anything to do with those animals.”

There wasn’t anything else he could say. “Thanks.”

He watched as Lonnie skirted the yard and headed for his car. A BMW, Tanner noticed with a curl of his lip. Doc was driving his pickup, and as he pulled away his face settled in a look of profound trouble.

Tanner turned away. He wasn’t used to having to worry about other people, other than Alfred. But already he cared about Doc, cared about what he was going through.

He moved back for more of Ellie’s weak coffee, then stopped, squatting down. Thick clumps of dirt littered the floor. He’d seen that dirt on Lonnie’s sneakers, but Lonnie hadn’t been near that part of the kitchen. One of the other morning visitors must have brought in the same mud. He picked up a clump, rubbing it between his fingers, and then rose, stretching wearily. He didn’t like the suspicions that were filtering through his mind, and he didn’t like any of the alternatives. Damn, why couldn’t things ever be easy?

Chapter Eleven

Tanner was standing in the kitchen, his back to her, when Ellie came back downstairs. He was staring out the window, out into the morning sunlight, and the faded chambray shirt stretched across his shoulders. His dark-blond hair hung below the collar of the shirt, and tension radiated through his finely muscled body. She stopped in the doorway, watching him, knowing he knew she was there, knowing he was letting her watch. And still she couldn’t stop herself.

His legs were long, encased in jeans that had seen hard wear, and his hips were narrow, sexy. Everything about him was sexy, and she would be a fool to pretend otherwise. She sighed, a small, quiet sound of resignation that nevertheless traveled across the huge dark kitchen. He turned then, his blue eyes cool and assessing as they took in her appearance.

She kept her expression bland, as she’d taught herself years ago, but she wondered what he was thinking. She’d braided her hair in one thick, loose plait, and she was dressed pretty much as he was, in a denim shirt and faded jeans. She’d spent almost five minutes buttoning and unbuttoning her shirt, finally saying “The hell with it!” and leaving three buttons unfastened. If he looked closely enough he’d be able to see the remnants of the sun from her shirtless ride two days ago. Knowing Tanner, she had no doubt he’d look.

His eyes didn’t linger on her chest, her hips or her face, despite all her hard work. They dropped to her feet, encased in sensible riding boots. “That’s probably a better idea than riling an already riled population,” he said. “Are you going to let me ride Shaitan?”

Simple and direct and easy to answer. “Forget it,” she said sweetly.

If Tanner’s laugh wasn’t particularly mirthful, it was better than that distant, haunted expression that shadowed his eyes. “We’ll see,” he said. “I’ve worn down harder women than you.”

“I’m stubborn,” she said.

“So am I.” And they weren’t talking about horses.

They were halfway out to Maude’s before he brought up the subject that hadn’t been far from either of their minds. “Has this happened before?”

She turned to look at him. It was a bright, warm day, and she was wearing sunglasses, the smoked lenses giving her an infinitesimal measure of protection from Tanner’s gaze that saw far too much. “What happened before?” she asked warily.

“Animals being shot. Apart, of course, from my dear departed father’s nasty habits,” he said, his voice low and bitter.

“Not that I know of,” she mumbled unhappily.

“Great,” said Tanner savagely. “What else did he do? What else have we got to look forward to? Is anyone absolutely certain he died that day? Maybe he’s been lurking up in the mountains, waiting to come back.”

“He died that day,” Ellie said, her voice strained. “I saw his body.”

He was silent for a moment. “All right,” he said finally. “We can rule out the return of Charles Tanner. I suppose we can rule out ghosts. So what possibilities does that leave us with? Another madman, waiting to wreak havoc on the innocent town of Morey’s Falls? Or a malicious newcomer, out to ruffle a few feathers?”

“You didn’t do it.”

“Thanks for that vote of confidence. I don’t know if anyone else will agree with you,” Tanner said evenly. “I could have done it. I had your car, and the whole night stretched in front of me with nothing to fill it. After all, you’d sent me away in favor of a bridge game.”

“You don’t even know where those people lived.”

He shrugged. “I could have just picked random farms.”

“You don’t know how to use a gun.” She heard her own voice sounding a little panicked. It was a game she didn’t want to play; she didn’t want to have to suspect him when she’d been so certain.

“I could have been lying about that,” he said reasonably. “You saw how shocked your rent-a-cop was when I told him I didn’t hunt. Maybe that was to throw everyone off the trail.”

“Tanner, you didn’t do it. I know it, and at least Doc knows it.”

“So who does that leave? Come on, Ellie, it’s a reasonable enough question. It needs to be asked.”

“You’re right. Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers.”

“No other lonely hermits living on the edge of town and madness? No human time bombs waiting to explode?” Tanner pushed mercilessly.

“Not that I know of. And it’s a small town, Tanner. I’d know.” She turned into Maude’s long winding drive.

“Well, then,” he said with a shrug and that charming smile that never reached his eyes, “I guess that leaves me.”

And Ellie, unable to think of any way to refute it, was silent.

Maude was standing on the porch of her house, watching for them. “Are you coming in for coffee?” she called to them, her voice brittle and cracked with age, “or do you want a thermos to take with you?”

“We’ve already made our lunch, Maude,” Ellie answered, wishing she could warn the old woman, wishing she could tell her not to look at Tanner with such sad, hungry eyes.

Maude cackled suddenly. “You two look like you’ve done a lot for only ten o’clock in the morning. Did you spend the night together?”

Ellie sighed. “Why does my private life have to be town business?”

“Because you decided to become the town pet,” Tanner said in a cool undertone. “No, Maude,” he pitched his voice louder. “She sent me home so she could play cards.”

“I always said the girl had no sense,” Maude said, nodding. “Jamie’s already fed the horses, including that beast of Satan. Have a good time. I won’t expect you till I see you.”

They headed toward the horse barn, Maude still watching them. Tanner was walking at a loose, easy pace, but Ellie still had to struggle to keep up with him. She had her cane with her, the gold-headed one that clearly grated on Tannr’s nerves, and she did the best she could. She would have been boiled in oil before she asked him to slow down. He hadn’t smoked a cigarette since they’d left, and if he could be forbearing so could she.

“What do you think of Maude?” She hoped she sounded as casual as she wanted to be.

If nothing else it made him slow his walk just a bit. “Maude?” he echoed, puzzled. “I like her. She’s a character, for one thing, and for another, she’s one of the few people who’s welcomed me. Why?”

She hoped the heat in her cheekbones came from the blazing sun. “Just curious. Some people find her a bit overwhelming.” She moved ahead of him, into the cool darkness of the barn. “You saddle and bridle Hoover while I take care of Shaitan. The tack’s in the corner.” And she walked away before he could ask any more uncomfortable questions.

By unspoken consent they headed up the path, back to the meadow where they’d first met. There were other trails, other meadows, other streams just as lovely, and for a moment Ellie had considered suggesting an alternative. Considered, then rejected the notion. The high meadow had always been her special place. Its sanctity had already been breached. If she didn’t go back now with Tanner himself, she’d never feel comfortable there again.

Not that it was really an issue, she reminded herself as Shaitan picked his sure, delicate way up the narrow path. In less than two weeks she’d be gone, she’d never see that meadow again. There would be other mountains for her, other meadows.

The path widened, and Tanner brought Hoover up beside her. Shaitan sidled nervously, his eyes rolling in his head and his ears flattening as he hissed a warning. Hoover reacted with typical nerves, but Tanner had him firmly under control.

He did know his way around horses, there was no question of that. He’d saddled and bridled a strange horse in less time than it took her to ready Shaitan. To be sure, Hoover was relatively docile, and Shaitan was high-strung. But there was no gainsaying the fact that he had a way with him. Hoover was responding almost as well as his overbred stablemate, moving with the slightest pressure from Tanner’s long legs, arching his head and almost prancing. Tanner looked as if he’d been born in the saddle.

But he wasn’t. He had been born in that cabin, with no one but Charles Tanner and Maude to help Marbella that night so long ago. She wondered if he knew.

“So why don’t you tell me,” Tanner drawled softly, “why you spend your life doing nothing in a hick town like Morey’s Falls?”

She looked over at him. He’d pitched his voice low, and Shaitan’s ears had come up again, accepting the interloper. Which just went to prove that Shaitan had no taste in human beings. He’d tried to bite Poor Lonnie’s hand off the last time she’d made the mistake of inviting anyone to go riding with her.

“Why do you think?” she countered.

“Well, if the Judge didn’t leave you money you’d have to work, and I haven’t seen any signs of that. Just your Lady Bountiful act for the peasants. But if he left you money I’d think you’d be long gone.”

“I’m intending to be long gone,” she said, stifling the irritation Tanner always managed to call forth. She was getting used to that annoyance, getting almost to like it. At least it proved that she was alive. “I don’t work because this is a very poor town. Any job I took would be taking food away from some family who needs it.”

“Did you go to college?”

“For a semester. The traveling got to be too much. I went to a branch of the University of Montana in Bozeman, and the drive was more than two hundred miles each way. My leg couldn’t take it.”

“You could have stayed there—come home during vacations.”

“The Judge didn’t think it wise for me to be gone so long.”

“You could have driven an automatic, like the monstrosity you own now.”

“The Judge preferred manual transmissions back then,” she said calmly.

“Back when he still wanted to own you.”

“He always wanted to own me,” Ellie said, surprising herself. The words were out, it was too late to call them back, and she might as well continue. “He just grew surer of me as time went on. Sure enough to buy an automatic transmission, at least.”

Tanner nodded. If he was startled by her sudden openness he didn’t show it. There was a speculative look in the back of his eyes, a curiosity he hadn’t yet put into words. Ellie could only hope he’d continue to be circumspect. She neither wanted to answer that question nor lie.

To her relief Tanner changed the subject. “It’s hard to believe Morey’s Falls is just a couple of miles away,” he said, looking around him with dreamy approval. They’d reached the edge of the meadow, and the beauty of it drifted into their senses. “It sure would be nice to forget it existed.”

Ellie made a noncommittal sound of agreement. It was even warmer than it had been two days earlier, and the wildflowers dotting the field were nodding in the soft breeze. The sky—the famed big sky of Montana—was cloudless, and the jagged peaks of the mountains surrounded them like a fairy ring. “We can stop and eat over by the waterfall,” she said. “There’s a pool of water there for the horses.”

“All right.” He was watching her, that mischievous, speculative expression on his face. “You mind if I take off my shirt? It’s hot today.”

She wanted to blush, to laugh, but managed to keep a calm, unruffled demeanor. “Go right ahead. Just don’t expect me to do the same this time.”

“Why not? There’s no one around to look, and I’ve already seen it,” he taunted lightly.

“Not up close, you haven’t,” she countered in a sober voice. “If you did, I’d never get rid of you.”

He threw back his head and laughed out loud, and the sound was wonderful on the soft summer air. Shaitan whickered nervously, but Ellie had him in perfect control. She grinned back at Tanner, fighting the sudden knot of sorrow that had tightened in her throat. It was such a beautiful day, a beautiful place, a beautiful time. Tanner was beautiful, too, with amusement dancing in his blue eyes and his thin, sexy mouth lit with a grin. And Ellie would have loved for life to have stayed that way, just a little while.

He reached up and began to unbutton his shirt. “Maybe I’m running the same risk,” he said.

“You strike me as a man who takes risks,” she said.

“And you strike me as a woman who doesn’t.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

He looked taken aback for a moment. He shrugged out of the shirt, tying it around his waist, and his dark skin glowed in the bright sunlight. It wasn’t the tan of beaches or sunlamps; it was the color of a man who worked long hours outside in the sun. His rough, callused hands and the long, corded muscles in his arms and chest attested to that. “So you are,” he said finally, and his tone was cool. “I’ll race you to the pool.” And before she had time to gather her bemused wits he’d taken off across the field.

Shaitan was the faster horse, but Tanner had the head start. He was already loosening Hoover’s saddle when she reined in. She slid off the stallion’s back and busied herself with the girth strap, all the time aware of him behind her. “Don’t come any closer,” she warned. “Shaitan won’t like it.”

Tanner stayed where he was. She didn’t have to turn to know the expression on his face. It would be calm, patient and slightly predatory. He could afford to wait. For a moment Ellie rested her head against Shaitan’s warm, black side, accepting his strength and comfort. And then she turned to face Tanner.

She didn’t know what she’d expected, she thought several hours later as they rode back down the narrow trail. Some sort of pass, perhaps. Maybe a full-fledged seduction attempt that would have been difficult, perhaps impossible to fight off. At least some sort of verbal come-on.

But once more Tanner had confounded her. He hadn’t so much as touched her, when part of her was longing to be touched. He’d smiled sweetly enough, and occasionally his cold blue eyes would smile, too. He’d drawn her out, in subtle ways she’d recognized only afterward, so that he knew her far better than she knew him. She told him of herself, he told her of things.

One of those things was the horse ranch, high up in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, where the sky was almost as big and blue as it was in Montana, where the pinion pines grew scrubby and the land rolled in a warm red color. He told her about the horses, about Orfeo and Hammer and Magda and Gypsy, of the foals with their long, spindly legs and the yearlings with their incredible grace. He told her of the rambling adobe ranch house and the people who lived there, of Melora and Red and Jimmy and Rafael. And he’d told her of Alfred, and for the first time Ellie heard love in his voice.

She hadn’t wanted to go back, so of course she’d been the one to suggest it. Tanner had agreed readily enough, so readily that paranoia began to mount in the back of her brain. It was a new and evil emotion, one she had no experience in fighting, and as they rode down the mountain she toyed with it, prodding herself with little jabs of self-inflicted torture.

He’d been turned off by the scars. Well, of course he had. She’d shown him on purpose, to try to force a little compassion from him. And he’d been horrified, for all he tried to hide it.

He’d kissed her the night before, kissed her as no one had ever kissed her in all her life. Given the perfect opportunity to follow up on that kiss, he’d made no move at all.

Maybe her obvious lack of experience had turned him off. Combine that with the scars and maybe he’d thought better of his pursuit. Maybe she’d misunderstood that pursuit; perhaps it had only been a reflex. The man was a tease, there was no question of that. Every woman who met him melted a little bit under those seductive eyes and that practiced smile. Because no one had ever dared flirt with her before, she’d probably just overreacted.

Ginger had left early the previous evening. Had she gone out to the cabin and assuaged Tanner’s loneliness? It would be just the sort of thing Ginger would do, but if so, why would Tanner have showed up so early that morning? And wouldn’t she have been able to tell?

She was getting neurotic in her old age. So Tanner had kissed her. Just because a man kissed her didn’t mean he wanted her. If Ginger had told him about her abortive love life, then he was simply being kind—

“What are you torturing yourself about?” he drawled, coming up beside her as the path widened once more.

She blushed again. “Just thinking.”

“Well, whatever it is you’re thinking about, stop it. It’s got to be something unpleasant.”

She sighed. “It’s not that easy.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t,” Tanner said, looking straight ahead.

Maude’s ranch was already in sight, their time together was ending, and frustration and despair raced around in Ellie’s heart. She wanted to reach out and put her hand on Tanner’s, wanted to pluck at the sleeve of his recently donned shirt. She wanted to turn in the saddle and ask him to ride away with her, back up to the meadow, across the mountains and never come back again.

“It’s late,” she said instead. “And we’ve wasted the day.”

“Have we?”

“We didn’t get any further on your quest. You don’t know anything more about this town and who the people are,” she pointed out.

“I know more about you. That’s something.”

She opened her mouth to refute his claim, then shut it again. She was being gloomy and emotional. She needed a good dose of sensible Maude to cheer her up.

Maude was waiting on the porch. “Doc’s been trying to find you,” she called out as soon as they were within hearing distance. “You’d best come in here and call him as soon as you can.”

The knot in her chest tightened further. Without a word she dismounted, leading Shaitan into his stall in the cool, dark stable and loosening his girth. She shut the door behind him and raced across the yard, feeling that doom was lurking over her head like a thundercloud. Weren’t things bad enough today, with the dead animals? What could Doc want?

* * * * *

Tanner watched her run. She managed pretty well without the cane. Before he left he was going to break the damned thing. All it did was remind her that she needed it. If she weren’t reminded, she wouldn’t need it—another simple equation.

He worked swiftly, efficiently, unsaddling Hoover, giving him a small drink of water and brushing the sweat from his coat. Shaitan was standing in his stall, deceptively docile, awaiting his beloved mistress. Tanner could see the sweat staining his beautiful black coat.

“Sorry, old boy,” he said softly, and Shaitan’s ears went back in alarm. “Your mistress would cut my heart out if I touched you.”

Shaitan snorted, a derisive sort of sound, and Tanner gave Hoover one last affectionate pat on the rump before leaving the stall. He stood outside Shaitan’s box, staring at the beautiful stallion, and a frown creased his face. “What would you do, boy?” he murmured in a low, beguiling voice that had magicked more than one restive stallion. “Would you take those nasty hooves of yours and try to trample me? I’m an old hand at dodging hooves. I bet you couldn’t do it.”

Shaitan’s ears had lifted slightly, but his eyes were still threatening. “Of course,” Tanner continued softly, “you’ve still got that nasty-tasting bridle in your mouth. And even if your mistress loosened your girth, that saddle must be hot and heavy. I could take that blanket off you and brush you down, and you’d feel wonderful. Besides, what have I got to lose? I think she’s already cut my heart out.” It was a low, seductive litany, and as always it was working. He opened the stall door and slipped in beside the stallion. Shaitan shied nervously for a moment, and his ears went back, but Tanner just continued his soft, soothing croon.

If they weren’t exactly friends when he finished, they were at least tolerant of each other. He stepped out of the stall, carrying the leathers and saddle with him, and shut the door behind him. “We’ll put you out to pasture later, old boy. In the meantime...”

“In the meantime,” said Ellie, her voice as cold as ice, “you can tell me what the hell you were doing with my horse.”

Chapter Twelve

There was nothing he could say. He just stood there, watching her, his face blank, the saddle and bridle unnoticed burdens in his arms.

She was quivering with rage, a rage he couldn’t begin to understand. Her face was pinched and white, her mouth a slash of pain, and he could tell that she was controlling herself with an effort.

“I told you not to touch Shaitan,” she said, her voice low, hurried, furious. “I told you to keep your hands off him. He’s had a hard time and he doesn’t like strangers messing with him. He needs to be left alone.”

“Are you talking about your horse,” he interrupted coolly, “or yourself?”

It was a good thing her hands were empty. If she’d been carrying her cane she would have gone for him, he knew it as surely as he knew his own name. But she wouldn’t hit him with her hands; she didn’t want to touch him. Instead she turned and ran, her limp barely noticeable, to her car. He stood in the doorway of the barn, watching as she wheeled out of the yard and tore off down the narrow driveway at top speed. She skidded as she pulled onto the main road, nearly losing control, but at the last minute the car responded, and he watched her race off down the highway.

Maude was waiting for him when he finished soaping the leathers and walked back out into the late-afternoon shadows. “You look like a man who could use a drink” was all she said.

He smiled at her. “You’re an observant woman, Maude,” he said. “Anything short of turpentine will do.”

“Maybe a cup of hemlock?” She was mounting the shallow steps of her front porch.

“I don’t feel that guilty. Ellie needs some shaking up every now and then,” he said.

“I don’t believe you.” She headed straight for one of the cupboards and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. “Not about Ellie needing shaking up. Any fool would know that. But I think you’re feeling guilty as hell.” She poured a generous splash into two glasses and turned to face him, her beady little eyes knowing. “Water or ice?”

“I like my hemlock straight.” He took the glass and perched on one of the stools. “Think she’ll be back?”

“It depends on what you did. If you made a pass at her she’ll forgive you. If you insulted her it’ll be over in a few minutes and she’ll be turning right around. If you were nasty she’ll be back even sooner.”

“I groomed Shaitan for her.”

“She won’t be back,” Maude said flatly. “The girl’s not exactly sensible when it comes to that animal. I don’t know why, and I don’t get anywhere when I ask. When she brought him here he was a real mess, scarred and bleeding. He’d savaged his owner and they were going to put him down when Ellie interfered. That’s Ellie for you, always going for the underdog.”

Underdogs like me, Tanner thought savagely, taking a deep, burning gulp of the whiskey. Another of her charity cases. “You’d think she’d be grateful I took care of him if she loves him so much.”

“Nope,” Maude said. “She’s been convinced that no one could touch Shaitan, even be around him without being hurt. You just wrecked that belief.”

Tanner shook his head. “Sometimes we have to learn things we’d rather not,” he said woodenly.

“And Ellie has. She’ll keep on, too. But it’ll take her some time to get over this one.” Maude drained her whiskey. “You want me to find you a ride back to your place? I don’t drive, but I could give Jamie a call. Or you could take my old car. I’m sure it still runs.”

“I can walk. I think I’d prefer to. I need some time to think. But I appreciate the offer and the hospitality, Maude.” He smiled at his hostess, noticing with surprise the sudden dampness around her eyes. What the hell would Maude have to cry about?

“Tanner,” she began, her voice low and hurried, “I need to tell you something.”

He braced himself for something unpleasant, but the revelation never came. They both heard the sound of the car pull up in front of the house, and Maude’s dark eyes widened with surprise.

Tanner kept the satisfaction from showing on his face as he waited for Ellie to walk in and apologize. He’d accept it graciously; he wouldn’t even tease her. He leaned back, feeling expansive, and then sat back up. He smelled the scent of musk moments before the door opened, and his face was impassive, hiding the twist of something deeper than disappointment in his gut.

Ginger Barlow was the last person he wanted to see. Maude didn’t look too welcoming, either. Ginger was as out of place in Maude’s homey kitchen as a peacock at a barbecue. Her blond hair tumbled in heavy curls over her shoulder, she was wearing tight white jeans and a hot-pink jersey that clung to her impressive breasts, and she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her pink lips were wreathed in a smile of welcome, and her eyes were on the make.

More than one woman had told him he had bedroom eyes. He looked at Ginger Barlow sashaying up to him and knew for sure that she had the female equivalent.

“Hi, there,” she said, her voice soft and breathy.

“What are you doing here?” Maude demanded, making no move to offer her a drink.

Ginger didn’t look affronted, clearly used to Maude’s rudeness. “I just passed Ellie a few miles back, driving hell-for-leather into town, and I thought I’d come out and see what had her in tears.”

“Tears?” Tanner echoed, the twist of pain tightening.

“Yup,” Ginger said cheerfully. “And Ellie doesn’t cry much. What’d you do to her?”

“Does your daddy know you’re parading around dressed like that?” Maude interrupted. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“My daddy saw me walk out the door, Maude, and he didn’t say a word. Why don’t you call him up and commiserate with him on my shameless behavior while I give Tanner a ride home?”

“Tanner doesn’t want a ride home,” Maude said fiercely. “He wants to walk.”

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Ginger said sweetly, “there’s a storm coming, and the Tanner ranch is more than ten miles from here.”

“He’s walked in the rain before.” Maude’s voice was stubborn.

Tanner had had enough of this. Right now he wanted to be home, alone, and the fastest way to get there was to take a ride with Ginger. He had no doubts about his ability to get rid of her. He just had to make sure that that was what he wanted to do. He’d be a fool not to take what she was offering so blatantly, but then, sometimes that was exactly what he was.

“I’d appreciate a ride,” he said, his voice lazy.

“But what if Ellie comes back?” Maude protested.

“Then you can tell her I found another ride,” Tanner said. He looked over at Ginger, positively quivering with eagerness. “You ready?”

“Any time you are, Tanner,” she purred.

* * * * *

Ellie stopped crying when she reached the town limits. Too many people were curious already—she wanted her face to be calm and pale when she stalked into her back door and slammed it. She pulled into her driveway, shoved the car into park and reached for the key to turn it off.

She let her hand drop as calm finally began to return. What was she so mad about? He did a kindness for an animal, and she threw a temper tantrum. Had she gone completely crazy?

There were reasons, of course. She’d been frustrated and on edge all day, waiting for the follow-up to the past night’s kiss, ready to combat it, and she’d never had the chance to practice her carefully prepared and tactful rejection. Doc’s phone call hadn’t made her feel any better. More animals had been found on some of the outlying farms, and several people had reported a Peeping Tom lurking outside their windows.

It was Charles Tanner all over again. But it wasn’t his son. If she was sure of anything in this life, she was sure of that. She’d been worried how she was going to tell him of the latest development, suffering from the accumulated stresses of the day, and seeing him able to win Shaitan over so easily had been the final straw. Of course he was absolutely right in doing it. But she couldn’t ignore one inescapable conclusion. If Shaitan, who was so murderously distrustful of everyone but Ellie, fell under Tanner’s spell, how could she resist the man herself?

There was a distant rumble of thunder, breaking through her abstraction, and she looked out the window into the darkening sky. They were in for a hell of a storm, and she’d left him out at Maude’s with no choice but to walk home. There was no getting around it—she owed him an apology.

Maybe she could call Doc and send him out in her place. She had a wicked headache right now and her knee was aching. She would have loved to have crawled first into a hot shower, then a warm bed, with a cold glass of wine.

But she’d always prided herself on being fair. It had been her fault that afternoon, not Tanner’s, and it was up to her to make amends.

Her pace back to Maude’s place was more decorous, now that her rage had vanished, leaving only guilt and embarrassment in its place. The sky was almost black, wind was whipping through the thick grasses, and in the distance she could see the forked lightning snake to the ground.

She recognized Ginger’s Camaro from a long ways off, and she felt a sudden tightening in her chest as she drew closer. They didn’t even see her. Ginger was laughing, her heavily made-up eyes flashing, and Tanner was Tanner, smoking, lids half-closed over his sleepy, sexy eyes. Ginger probably wouldn’t notice that those eyes were as cold as the north wind.

She stomped down on the accelerator, speeding past them in an immediate return of emotions too tangled to sort out. It was for the best, she told herself self-righteously, grinding her teeth and speeding. Ginger and Tanner were made for each other. Not that Ginger would like that narrow, lumpy little cot or a cabin with no doors and windows. Still, they’d probably manage just fine. Damn them, damn them, damn them.

* * * * *

The scent of Ginger’s perfume was overpowering in the closed car. Tanner lit a cigarette in self-defense and opened the window a crack, trying to keep the bored expression from his face as Ginger flirted archly. He saw the big black car coming, and he knew who it was. So much for Maude’s supposition.

Ellie had recognized the car, and she didn’t like what she saw. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. She drove by so fast, her face averted, that it would have been hard to recognize her if some instinctive part of him hadn’t known. She’d forgiven him his transgression with Shaitan. He wondered how she’d feel about Ginger.

“That was Ellie,” he said, stubbing out the cigarette, interrupting Ginger in midspate.

“Where?”

“The car that just drove past.”

“Did she see us?”

Was that guilt in her voice? Or vicarious excitement? “I expect so,” he said, controlling his need for another cigarette, controlling his need to tell her to hurry.

A small, satisfied smile lit Ginger’s face so swiftly that he might almost have imagined it. So it wasn’t guilt. “That’s too bad,” she lied. “Ellie won’t like it that I drove you home.”

“Why not?”

Ginger laughed, a throaty chuckle that was meant to be enticing. “Oh, I know Ellie very well. We’ve been best friends since childhood, and I know when she has her eye on someone. She finds you very attractive, Tanner. As do I.”

He swallowed his sigh of irritation. He knew he should express some sort of gratification, but right then all he wanted to do was get out of the car and wait for Ellie to come back down that road that led to nowhere. He didn’t even mind standing out in the middle of a thunderstorm. Anything was preferable to Ginger’s arch desperation. He’d had too many women like Ginger, too many empty nights filled with more emptiness, and he didn’t want the same hollow feeling. The town of Morey’s Falls already made him feel rotten enough. Ginger Barlow’s tender ministrations wouldn’t provide any sort of comfort, no matter how tempted he might be to believe so.

“You don’t need to drive me all the way home,” he said. “You can drop me off in town.”

“Heavens, I wouldn’t dream of it!” Ginger protested. “As a matter of fact, I wondered whether you were all that eager to get back to that depressing little shack. I know a place that has decent food and lots of privacy, out on Route 43.”

He’d seen the place. A motel and a diner—not his idea of romance. “Some other time,” he said. “I’ve got things to do.”

“Can’t they wait?”

“No.”

“Wouldn’t you like some company?” she asked, still trying to entice him, her artificially sexy voice like fingernails on a blackboard.

“No.”

She pouted the rest of the way home. Someone must have told her it was attractive, long ago. Maybe then it was. Right now it gave her a double chin, and her china-blue eyes were flat and opaque. He could see the little wheels turning behind them as she pulled up in front of the cabin, wondering how she was going to get what she wanted. The rain had started, fat, angry drops splattering the windshield of the Camaro.

“Aren’t you going to ask me in for a drink?” she said. “After all, I did drive you all the way out here. Come on, Tanner, you owe me something. And I’m lonely and bored and sick of everyone around.”

“Sorry,” he said, his voice cool. “I don’t have anything to drink.” It was a lie—he’d bought another bottle of whiskey that he’d barely touched the night before.

Ginger’s determined smile wavered somewhat. “Well, what about a cup of coffee?”

“Ginger,” he said, tempering the cruelty of his words, “I don’t have anything to offer you.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“I would. Thanks for the ride.” He opened the door and slid out into the rainy evening.

Ginger jumped out of the car after him, and his sigh of irritation was swallowed by the sound of the rain. “Wait just a minute,” she said, striding after him. “I’m not used to being turned down.”

“Well, life is full of new experiences.” He stood there in the rain, feeling it soak into his cotton shirt and run down his face. It had soaked Ginger’s pink T-shirt, clinging to her erect nipples, and he stared at her, feeling like a eunuch.

“Is it Ellie?” Her voice was raw, jealous, not the voice of a best friend at all. “You’re a fool, Tanner. You won’t get to first base with her. No one does, and certainly not the son of the murderer who crippled her for life. You’re wasting your time. Saint Ellie is going to die the way she was born, untouched, inviolate, and you...”

He didn’t want to hear any more. He crossed the small patch of ground that was rapidly turning into mud, caught Ginger’s wrist in a painful grip and dragged her back to her car. Opening the door, he stuffed her in, slamming it behind her, just barely missing her leg.

“Get the hell out of here, Ginger,” he said. “Or I’ll see if I can find one of my father’s guns.” His voice was low, deadly, and he managed to convince her. The tires spun in the mud for a moment, and then she was gone, tearing off into the darkening evening.

Two women storming away from him in one day, he thought, staring after her. What had happened to his usual expertise? He ran a hand through his wet hair and sighed. He was soaked to the skin, but at least it was a warm summer rain. Maybe he’d take advantage of nature’s shower and go find some soap. No one else was going to come after him—he’d alienated Ellie for good. He could only hope he’d done the same with the too-eager Ginger.

And what had she meant by those cracks about Ellie? Untouched, inviolate? Just how untouched was she? Hell, the woman was in her early thirties, she’d been married. She wasn’t wildly experienced, but she couldn’t be...

“No,” he said out loud, dismissing the notion as completely absurd. He was willing to believe a lot of strange things, but the notion of Ellie Lundquist as a thirty-year-old virgin was too much to contemplate. Instead he headed for clean clothes, resigning himself to a quiet night with too much to think about.

* * * * *

Ellie couldn’t eat anything that night. She could barely bring herself to turn on the lights. Instead she curled up in bed, willing the night to close down over her and shut out the pain and anger and confusion that were tearing her apart.

It worked for a few hours. When she woke it was past eleven. She felt hot, sticky and unutterably depressed. The rain was still falling outside, a steady, relentless downpour that should have been soothing, and the house felt cold and damp.

The shower she took did little to warm her. She picked at her food, took a desultory sip of white wine before pushing it away, then she sat in the kitchen and tried to think of excuses to call Doc.

She’d be a fool to do so. Ginger wouldn’t be there. Ginger didn’t take no for an answer, even if Tanner was the sort of man to give that answer. They’d be together, while Ellie sat alone and miserable in her mausoleum of a house.

Why did she stay? She didn’t really have to wait until the Fourth of July. She could pack her bags and go now, right now. She didn’t have cash, but she had credit cards, and the tiny bank in Morey’s Falls had a bigger branch in Bozeman where she could draw enough money for her needs. Then she’d never have to see Tanner again, never have to deal with Ginger’s gloating.

She was being stupid and childish. She’d promised herself she’d stay till the dedication, and stay she would. She wasn’t going to let Ginger’s sexual desperation or Tanner’s disturbing presence stop her from doing exactly what she’d planned to do.

She took another sip of her wine, but it tasted vinegary. Maybe she wouldn’t feel so bad if she knew what she was missing. The books she’d read made lovemaking seem miraculous, splendid, the center of the universe. The attempted reality had been hideously uncomfortable and embarrassing. It was probably somewhere in between. One probably just ignored the less pleasant aspects and enjoyed the snuggling part of it. But damn, it had been so long since someone had held her. Longer than she could remember.

Well, let Tanner and Ginger enjoy each other. If the only men Ellie had ever tried to make love with had failed to perform, it had to be a lack in her, not them. And she absolutely couldn’t bear to see the look in Tanner’s blue eyes when he discovered it.

She watched the hands move slowly, inexorably around the electric clock in the kitchen. She listened to the somber, depressing tones of the grandfather clock in the hall chime each quarter hour. She didn’t realize till half past twelve that she wasn’t going to sleep until she found out for certain.

All the houses around her were dark when she climbed into the Buick. She crept along the empty streets, heading out toward Doc’s house, feeling like an immature teenager. She was halfway there when she changed her mind. The Barlow house was one of the few in town that boasted a two-car garage. She’d have to get out of the car, creep over and peer in the window, and that was sinking too low, even for her.

She was halfway out Route 5 before she realized what she was doing. She told herself she should turn back, but kept on driving. Route 5 went nowhere—there was no way she could pretend she just happened to be driving out that way. It didn’t go much past Tanner’s place—she’d have to turn around within hearing distance of the cabin. If he left the bed and Ginger and looked out the hole where the front door had been he’d see her driving by like the neurotic female she was.

But she no longer cared. She was chilly, even in her thick cotton sweater and baggy jeans. She was exhausted, and her head still ached. But whether it was a rational, mature act or not, she had to find out if Ginger was spending the night with Tanner.

At first the cabin seemed dark as she slowly approached it. She was about to drive past when she saw the pale glow of lantern light through the windowless opening. There was no Camaro parked outside.

Ginger could have already left, she warned herself, pulling in and turning off the motor. Tanner had every right to be furious with her—he’d probably order her off his land. He might very well be relaxing after his exertions with Ginger, and her presence would be at best embarrassing, at worst, an unforgivable intrusion. She didn’t care.

The ground was muddy beneath her feet, and the rain was a steady, warm drizzle. She barely noticed it—her hair was still half-damp from her shower and hanging around her shoulders. She ignored the pounding of her heart, the twisting of her insides, the nervous dampness of her palms. Holding her breath, she walked slowly toward the warm glow of what had once been the front door of Charles Tanner’s cabin.

Chapter Thirteen

p;

He was lying on the narrow cot, wearing faded jeans and a blue flannel shirt unbuttoned around his tanned chest. His feet were bare, his hair damp, and there was a glass of whiskey on the floor beside him. She couldn’t see his eyes in the shadows, but she could recognize the tension in his body as he watched her step inside the meager shelter of the cabin.

And then the tension in him vanished, leaving only a slight wariness. “Thank God,” he said. “I was afraid you were Ginger.”

If she hadn’t still been feeling guilty she would have turned and left at that remark. “Why were you afraid?”

“Because she’s damned hard to get rid of,” he said frankly. “I underestimated my powers of attraction.”

If she hadn’t hurt so much she would have smiled. “When did you get rid of her?” she asked, not caring if she was giving away too much of what she’d rather keep hidden.

Thank heaven, he didn’t smirk. He didn’t even smile. “I didn’t let her in the cabin.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. You could have done it in the car.” Now she was shocking herself by her outspoken misery.

“Ellie,” he said, “she drove me home and I sent her away. Immediately.”

“Did she want to go?”

“Not particularly.” He pulled himself into a sitting position, leaning against the rough wall. “But she went. Does it matter?”

She didn’t move. Her heart was pounding, a heavy slamming against her ribs, and she felt cold and hot at the same time. She was on the precipice, at the edge of a momentous decision, and if she had any sense at all she’d turn around and run, rather than take that final step.

She’d been sensible all her life. “Yes,” she said. “It matters.”

His sigh was a quiet sound in the cabin, a strange, whispery counterpoint to the steady beat of the rain on the tin roof. It was a sound of sorrow and resignation, of acceptance and delight.

“You’re complicating things,” he said.

“I know.”

“Things are already complicated enough.”

“I know,” she said. “Should I leave?”

He considered it for a moment. “It would be better for you if you did.”

It wasn’t what she wanted, but she no longer knew how to tell him that. Without a word she turned to go, when his voice stopped her.

“Come here, Ellie,” he said, his voice a sinuous thread of sound on the night air. She turned back, and saw that he was holding out his hand to her.

She put her doubts, her fears, her reservations in a box and shut the lid. Moving across the room, she took his hand in hers and sank to her knees beside the narrow cot.

“I’m sorry about this afternoon,” she said, her voice low and hurried. “You were right and I was wrong. I’m neurotic and possessive about Shaitan, and I don’t know if I can explain this properly. It’s just that...” She took a deep, steadying breath. “I’ve always felt that I don’t belong to myself, that I belong to this town, that everyone has a piece of me. The one part of my life that belonged wholly to me was Shaitan. As long as no one could touch him, no one could go near him, he was mine, a part of me no one else could have. When you were able to touch him I knew he wasn’t mine anymore.”

She was close enough to see his eyes in the deep shadows, but she didn’t look. She was feeling too miserable and guilty to raise her gaze from the faded quilt that lay beneath him on the cot.

His hand was warm and dry and strong in hers. “He’s still yours,” Tanner said. “You just have to make room for me.”

She smiled ruefully. “With Shaitan.”

“Shaitan’s already accepted me. I’m talking about you.”

She looked up then, directly into his eyes. Why had she ever thought they were cold? They were the blue of the big sky of Montana, clear and bright and glorious. She didn’t say a word; she didn’t know what to say. She just looked at him, and after a long, silent moment he tugged at her hand, and she went willingly, into the narrow cot beside him.

His skin was warm, almost hot to her cool, damp hands. She lay there passively, letting him arrange her against his body, the two of them pressed against each other, his arms wrapped around her, her face pressed against the smooth flesh of his shoulder. The flannel shirt was soft beneath her ear, and she could feel the whisper of his breath on her damp hair, the steady beat of his heart next to hers, the subtle throb of pulses that were either his or hers.

His hands were gentle on her, pushing the thick hair out of her face, easing her against him. “Relax,” he whispered. “I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to do.”

She let out her pent-up breath, not even realizing she’d been holding it, and softened her body against his. “I’ve never done this before,” she confessed, her husky voice as quiet as his. The flickering light from the kerosene lamp was fading as the wick soaked up the last traces of fuel, and the shadows that closed around them were friendly ones. For the moment the memory of Charles Tanner was gone.

He was stroking her hair, and at her shy words his hand stopped for a moment, then continued the steady caress. “You’re not in the habit of climbing into bed with strange men in the middle of the night?”

She’d come to the inescapable conclusion that he was going to find out sooner or later. “I’m not in the habit of climbing into bed with anyone.”

“Dear God,” he said, and she didn’t know whether it was a prayer or a curse. “Not even the Judge?”

“Not even the Judge.” It was easier to talk in the semi-darkness, her face hidden against his skin, his arms warm and hard and safe around her. “That wasn’t supposed to be part of our marriage agreement.”

He seemed to know intuitively what she was leaving out. “But he changed his mind?” he asked.

He might as well know the whole sordid truth. “Yes,” she said. “But it didn’t do any good. He couldn’t—I mean, he didn’t—” She was getting agitated, and his hands kept up their hypnotic, soothing caresses.

“I get the idea,” he said wryly. “And there hasn’t been anyone else?”

She never considered lies or evasions. “There was Lonnie,” she confessed in a low, miserable voice.

“Well, then,” he said, and then stopped. He must have felt the tension in her body. “What happened with Lonnie?”

“The same thing.”

Tanner let out a sigh, and Ellie unconsciously did the same. There was nothing worse for him to know, it was all out in the open. “Poor Lonnie,” he said absently, his lips brushing her forehead. “He really can’t do anything right.”

He smelled like the rain. Like warm male flesh, and whiskey and the faintest tang of kerosene. She closed her eyes, pressing her face against him, drinking in the scents and textures of the night. “Tanner,” she whispered, “would you hold me? Just hold me tonight, and nothing more?”

His hand didn’t stop its rhythmic stroking of her hair. “I’ll do anything you want me to,” he replied, his voice low and rumbling beneath her ear.

She believed him. She trusted him, more than she had ever trusted anyone in her life. It didn’t matter that they were wedged together in a narrow cot in the deserted cabin that had seen one man’s descent into madness. It didn’t matter that he clearly had been through half the women west of the Rockies, and that there was no foreseeable future for them. Nothing mattered but the surprising comfort of his arms around her, the feel of his long legs entwined with hers, the heat of his body warming the chill that seemed to emanate from the very marrow of her bones. Nothing mattered but Tanner.

* * * * *

He was amazed how little time it took her to fall asleep. He was amazed at how comfortable he was, how relaxed with her surprisingly delicate body in his arms, despite the narrowness of the cot, despite the very normal pulse of desire vibrating through him. He lay there, at ease, watching the light burn lower and lower in the kerosene lamp he’d unearthed from behind the cabin.

He didn’t want the light to go out. He liked watching her shadowed profile resting so trustingly against his chest, he liked looking at her legs stretched out with his, he liked the sight of her hand curled up in his shirt.

The rain was slowing its relentless downpour. The lamp flickered and went out, the cabin was swathed in darkness, and instead of seeing her he could feel her, the softness of her skin and the seeming weightlessness of her body. He could smell her, the faint scent of flowers that clung to her, and he could hear her, the quiet, steady breathing of someone deeply asleep.

He waited for the familiar restlessness to wash over him. He’d long ago lost count of the number of women he’d bedded. It wasn’t a fact he was proud of. And of all those countless, some of them faceless, women, he had never slept with one of them. Once the act was completed, whether it was adequate, boring or sublime, and his partner had drifted into sleep, he’d taken his leave.

He’d figured it out once, when the lady of the moment, one who’d stayed around longer than usual, had pointed out his dereliction. He knew it was like his reluctance to shake hands. Making love was something natural, mutually pleasurable and temporary. Falling asleep with someone, sleeping through the night next to her, was an act of trust and faith, one he wasn’t going to make.

Ellie sighed, dropping her head lower on his chest, and her hair tickled his chin. He could get out of the bed easily, he knew it. She was deeply asleep, and it wouldn’t take much of an effort to untangle himself. He had a sleeping bag he could spread out on the floor, or he could even head outside. The rain had almost stopped by now, and he wasn’t unused to sleeping on the wet ground.

But the odd thing was, he didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to escape from Ellie Johnson Lundquist. In this narrow bed there was still room behind him, if he wanted to back away. Instead he slid his hand up inside her cotton sweater, gently cupping the soft round swell of her breast. She sighed again, pushing against him in unconscious longing, her nipple hardening instinctively against his fingers. And with that small victory he fell asleep.

Somewhere in the night the rain had stopped. Somewhere in the night the moon had risen, sending faint tendrils of light through the open doorway of the cabin. Tanner awoke, slightly disoriented, his body very still.

Ellie slept on, wrapped around him. He didn’t move, he scarcely breathed as his body resettled itself against hers. He didn’t wear a watch, and tonight neither had Ellie, so he had no idea what time it was. It didn’t matter. There was nowhere else on earth he would rather be, day or night, dawn or dusk.

And then he heard it again. The unmistakable rustling of the bushes out back behind the cabin. The stream had swollen in the downpour, and the rushing water almost masked the sound of careful footsteps. Almost.

Tension raced through his veins like fire. Someone was outside, watching. Someone with a gun?

There were no animals here, but maybe whoever it was had already graduated to humans. There were more than enough people around who owed Charles Tanner revenge. People whose sons had been killed. Would it make some twisted kind of sense to kill Charles Tanner’s own son, fifteen years later, a posthumous evening up of the score?

He could smell the whiff of tobacco. Tomorrow when he went out he’d find a crumpled butt outside his window. If he waited that long. If he got up right now he wouldn’t have to wait to find out who was behind this macabre game of repeating history. He was used to being silent in the wilderness—he had no doubt at all that he could sneak up on his watcher before he was even aware he was being stalked in return.

But he wasn’t going to do that. For one thing, he didn’t know what he’d find lurking behind his cabin. Forcing a confrontation would mean involving Ellie, and he wasn’t convinced of his ability to keep her safe.

For another, a tiny, twisted part of him was afraid of what he might find. Maybe his father was out there, maybe he’d never died. Or maybe no one was out there at all; maybe Tanner had gone crazy just like his father and was imagining things. Or perhaps half the town of Morey’s Falls was there as a lynch mob.

But most of all, he didn’t want to leave Ellie. He didn’t want to risk waking her, risk having her panic and leave him. Right now he was willing to shut his eyes to the watcher in the trees, to the evil that lingered outside the cabin, and hold on to the goodness within his arms. Whether he’d regret that choice sooner or later didn’t matter. The choice was made.

When he awoke again it was bright daylight, and he was alone. He sat bolt upright, instantly awake, dimly aware of a sweeping sense of desolation, of a sharp aloneness such as he’d never felt before.

“Thank heavens you’re awake,” Ellie said from the open doorway. “I would kill for a cup of coffee, and there was no way I could start a fire, much less figure out how you could work that contraption of yours.” She gestured toward the dismantled coffee maker.

He couldn’t read her mood. Or maybe he was afraid to. She was looking across at him, smiling, her hair a tangled cloud around her face—and he could see no regrets, no hesitation in her eyes.

“You could have left.”

“You know, I considered that.” She advanced into the room, brushing her hands against her jeans. “I thought I could drive over to Addie’s and beg a thermos of coffee from her, bring it back and… Oh,” she said suddenly, her eyes going blank. “You didn’t mean come back.”

“I don’t know what I meant.” This was coming out wrong, but he was wary, too wary. He swung his legs out of bed, watching her.

Color had stained her face, a soft blush spreading across her cheekbones. “I’m sorry. I suppose you want me to leave. I don’t really understand the etiquette in these situations, and I mishandled…”

He’d reached her by this time, and it was the easiest, most natural thing in the world to pull her into his arms and kiss her as he’d wanted to the night before. If he’d expected opposition he found none. She slid her arms around his waist, pulling him closer, and tilted her head back, her mane of hair hanging down over his arm as he tasted the sweetness she offered so willingly.

It was beguiling, the innocence and enthusiasm in her untutored mouth. He kissed her slowly, lingeringly, giving her time to get used to the contours of his mouth, the dampness and texture, before using his tongue. He loved her little start of surprise at his intrusion, the acquiescence, the growing boldness as her tongue touched his.

Her hands tightened on his waist, digging in slightly, and if his mouth hadn’t been busy he would have smiled. Instead he encouraged her, teasing her, his mouth sliding wetly over hers, lips nibbling, touching, biting, tongues dancing against each other.

A distant part of his brain wondered if she could feel how he wanted her. If, with her limited experience, she could sense his desire. She was pressed up against him, her hips rocking gently against his, and if her mind didn’t know, her instincts certainly did. He groaned, deep in the back of his throat, and broke off the kiss.

“No, I didn’t want you to leave,” he said, his voice a ragged growl of frustrated desire. He kept his arms around her, kept her held against his fully aroused body. Her eyes were smoky and slightly dazed as they looked into his, and her mouth was damp and swollen from his kisses.

“I don’t want to go.” She stood then on tiptoe, her body rubbing against his, and the gentle friction was agonizingly erotic. She pressed her mouth against his, seeking him, and he was lost. Without even realizing what he was doing he scooped her up in his arms, never breaking the kiss, and started back across the cabin to the narrow bed.

Reality intruded seconds before he would have dropped her onto the cot and covered her body with his. Slowly, reluctantly his mouth left hers, slowly, reluctantly he set her down, every nerve in his body screaming with frustration. “No,” he said, taking a step back from her, knowing if he kept touching her he wouldn’t be able to stop.

“No?” she echoed, uncertainty clouding her eyes.

“Not here,” he said gently. “Not now. I don’t want to make love to you in Charles Tanner’s bed, worrying whether your friends or townspeople are going to walk in on us at any moment.”

It was her turn to be frustrated, and if his body hadn’t been crying out in need he would have laughed at her expression. “I don’t mind        “

“I do.”

“But when?”

He wanted to kiss her again, but he didn’t dare. He wanted to soothe the taut lines of her shoulders, but he didn’t dare. “When it’s right,” he said, his tight voice belying his certainty.

She looked around her, at the weather-stained walls and shabby, broken furniture and sighed in reluctant acceptance. “Soon?” she inquired, like a child asking for an ice cream cone.

This time he did laugh, breaking some of the tension that held him in thrall. “Damned soon,” he said fervently, still not daring to touch her. “Come on, Ellie. We’ll go out for coffee.”

Chapter Fourteen

This town was having a dangerous effect on him, Tanner thought several hours later. Never in his life had he turned down what was so freely offered. There had been Ginger, warm and lush and willing, with no strings, no commitments, and he hadn’t even been interested.

And that morning there had been Ellie, sweet and eager in his arms, and he’d wanted her so much that the pain of it was a raw ache in his gut. For some reason he’d decided to be noble. Normally he wouldn’t have cared whether anyone had walked in the door. Normally he wouldn’t have cared where or when.

But he cared with Ellie. He wanted to make it right; he wanted to make it perfect. And tumbling her on Charles Tanner’s bed wasn’t the way to do it, even if right then he was regretting his decision.

He slid down a bit on the wide leather seat of Ellie’s Buick, squinting into the sunlight. She was taking a long time in the grocery store, but at least the good citizens of Morey’s Falls hadn’t noticed him lounging there. She’d parked on a side street, he didn’t know whether by accident or design, and not a single pedestrian had walked by.

He looked over at the window of the Morey’s Falls Gazette. Sunlight was reflecting off the streaked glass, but he thought he could see the figure of a man inside. Poor Lonnie, indeed. He could almost be grateful to the guy. Not that he usually cared one way or the other about virginity, but some small, irrational part of him liked the fact that he would be Ellie’s first. He had every intention of being her best.

That same small, irrational part of him wanted to carry the notion one step further. To be Ellie’s one and only. He knew that was a stupid fantasy. Ellie belonged to Morey’s Falls; he belonged to a horse ranch in New Mexico. He could just imagine her reaction to the idea of bearing Charles Tanner’s grandchildren.

What in the world was he thinking of? Never in his life had he seriously considered having children. Never in his life had he even thought about one woman and marriage and happy ever after. He sure picked the strangest times to get conventional. And with the least likely of women.

He reached in his pocket for his cigarettes. The pack was crushed—it had taken him longer than usual to smoke them, which was another strange sign. For some reason he put them back, thinking back to the night before.

He should have gotten up, risked waking her, risked everything. Outside the cabin, by the windowless hole in the rear wall, were clear, recognizable footprints. The rain had left the ground soggy enough to hold the general shape of a print. He could tell it was an average size man or a big woman, and the tread wasn’t deep, probably made by some sort of running shoe. The crumpled cigarette butts lay scattered in a pile, shredded almost past recognition. There were at least three there—the watcher had stayed a long time, staring into the moonlit cabin, staring at the people in bed.

Where the hell was Ellie?   Tanner reached for the door handle and found he was looking up into Lonnie Olafson’s pale, bespectacled gaze.

He was definitely Ellie’s type, all right, Tanner thought for a fleeting moment. Those bland, yuppie good looks, the creased pants and striped oxford shirts were more her style than his own faded flannels and denims and too-long hair, and those pale-rimmed glasses made the editor look downright studious. Poor Lonnie.

“Howdy,” he said, pushing open the door but staying where he was. Lonnie was wearing running shoes, but they were spotless, no sign of mud on them. Anyway, half the town probably wore running shoes, particularly if they were out for a night of voyeurism.

“This is Ellie’s car,” Lonnie said.

“Yes,” said Tanner, waiting.

“Where is she?”

“In the store. Why?”

Lonnie squirmed a bit. There was no noticeable hostility in him, despite the fact that he must know Tanner was well on his way to succeeding where he had failed. “I guess you haven’t heard about last night,” he said.

Tanner felt his nerves tighten. “What happened last night? More animals killed?”

“No,” said Lonnie. “Someone desecrated the graveyard.”

Tanner’s response was a short, heartfelt obscenity. “Do they have any idea who?”

“Same person who killed the animals, I expect,” Lonnie said. “Dave Martin is running around like a three-legged dog with fleas, and the townspeople are pretty upset.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, you can’t blame them. It was bad enough, losing kin like that, but then to find their graves messed up is more than a lot of people are willing to accept.”

“You mean only the graves of the massacre victims were touched?” Tanner asked, already knowing the answer.

“You got it. Red paint spilled over each tombstone and cross, all in the town graveyard. And none of the other graves were touched.” Lonnie brushed a careless hand through his boyish mane of hair. “Except, of course, your father’s grave.”

Tanner stared at him in amazement. “My father’s buried here?”

“Where else would he be buried? He has a corner all to himself in the town cemetery. People usually ignore it, but whoever it was didn’t last night.”

Tanner was getting the oddest feeling that Lonnie was enjoying all this, enjoying making Tanner squirm. Maybe it was his only form of revenge for Ellie. “What did they do to his grave?”

Lonnie smiled sweetly. “You know those plastic flowers and wreaths people use to decorate cemeteries? Davidson’s Market does a big business in them right before Memorial Day. Well, every single bit of fake flowers was taken from the graves and piled on your daddy’s corner. It looks like the gaudiest funeral this side of Salt Lake City. I imagine it’s the first time anyone’s ever put anything on your father’s grave. Apart from spit.”

He could see the hostility now, just dancing in the back of Lonnie’s pale eyes. “Well, then,” Tanner drawled with just the right note of insolence, “I guess I owe someone a debt of gratitude now, don’t I?”

Lonnie nodded, accepting the open warfare. “I wouldn’t be in any hurry to repay that debt if I were you,” he said. “People are a mite upset right now. They’re doing a good business in rope down at the hardware store. Heaven knows, there’s more than enough plastic flowers to go around.”

Tanner looked down at Lonnie’s feet again. The running shoes were so clean they might have been freshly washed. They looked damp, but the streets of Morey’s Falls were still wet from last night’s downpour. While Tanner would have liked nothing more than to have pinned the latest occurrence on the man in front of him, he had no reason to. And Lonnie’s history of cowardice and ineptitude didn’t make him a likely possibility.

He smiled then, and Lonnie took a nervous step backward. “I think the flowers will keep,” Tanner said softly. “Nice seeing you, Lonnie.”

Ellie’s hands were empty when she finally reappeared from the grocery store. Her limp was more pronounced, and the sunlight had gone from her eyes. She slid into the driver’s seat without a word and started the engine, backing into the empty street with far more concentration than the simple act required.

“I gather we’ve got more trouble,” he said, watching as she drove blindly out of town.

She glanced at him, startled. “How’d you know?”

“For one thing, you’re acting like you’ve seen a ghost. You went in to get some groceries, you came out a long time later without your purse.”

“Damn.”

“Apart from that,” Tanner continued, “I had a little visit from Lonnie Olafson while I was waiting for you.”

“Double damn.”

“Indeed. He says the townspeople are buying rope.”

She cast him a quick, worried glance. “He’s probably lying. The only one who’s a little…irrational on occasion is Pete Forrester.”

“Pete’s Fireside Cafe,” Tanner supplied.

“Exactly. But while people like him and feel sorry for him, they’re not about to go out and form a lynch mob on his say-so.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said. “You want to tell me where we’re going at sixty-seven miles an hour?”

She looked startled, immediately slowing her pace. “I don’t know. I just wanted to get away.”

So did he, damn it. But he couldn’t. Not yet. “I think the best place for you is your house,” he said after a moment. “You haven’t had anything to eat yet, you’re still looking tired, and driving around with me is asking for trouble. We’ll drive back to your house, I’ll check the place out and make sure it’s safe, and then I’ll leave you to have a nap.”

“Where will you go?” she asked in a forlorn little voice, already slowing to turn the car around.

“I want to go talk to Doc.”

“You think he’ll have some idea who might be doing this?” Ellie questioned, and for a moment he wanted to kiss her. Not for an instant had she suspected that he might be the one who was doing these things. Or if she had, she’d clearly dismissed that suspicion the moment she’d had it.

“He’ll probably have as good an idea as anyone. He’s just about everyone’s doctor around here, isn’t he? He should know who’s depressed, who’s been acting weird, who’d be capable of going off the deep end.”

“Maybe,” she said, but the doubt was clear in her voice.

“You don’t think he’d know?”

“Well, people don’t, do they?” she countered. “Everyone thought Charles Tanner was just a little bit eccentric. When you read about other mass murderers you hear that they appeared perfectly normal. There just doesn’t seem to be a way to tell.”

“There will be this time,” he said grimly.

“You think there’ll be a ‘this time’?” she asked, her voice raw. “You think someone’s going to get a gun and do what Charles Tanner did?”

He could hear the faint trace of panic in her voice. “I don’t know.” He wished he could comfort her, soothe her, but he didn’t want to lie. “All I know is the only way to be safe is to be careful.”

She shivered in the hot June sunshine. “It can’t happen twice,” she said. “It just can’t.”

He only wished he could be as certain.

* * * * *

The house felt cold and dark and empty without him but Ellie knew that it only seemed that way to her. It was unseasonably warm outside, in the eighties, and that heat penetrated even the sullen reaches of the Judge’s house. Bright sunlight poured in every available window, flooding the usually dark rooms, and the house wasn’t empty. There were ghosts all around her.

He’d bullied her into eating some soup. She hadn’t wanted to, but he’d ignored her, heating the Campbell’s Turkey Noodle on the old gas range and standing over her until she finished it. She found herself enjoying the soup, enjoying him. No one had ever looked after her, harangued her into doing something that was good for her, prodded and pushed and browbeaten her into taking care of herself.

She’d finally relaxed when he’d disappeared outside, only to come back a few minutes later with his handful of shredded cigarette butts and his eyes opaque.

“These were outside your bathroom window,” he announced, dropping them on the scrubbed wood table in front of her. “Do you have any idea whose they are?”

She had stared at them as if they were dehydrated cobras, waiting to come to life and strike. “Outside my bathroom?” she echoed, aghast.

“I’m sure he would have preferred your bedroom,” Tanner said, offering cold comfort. “But you sleep on the second floor, don’t you?”

She’d been hoping to show him her second-floor bedroom. Looking at the shredded paper in front of her, she suddenly lost her appetite for a romantic interlude. “Yes,” she said dully. She poked at the stuff. It was in varying degrees of decomposition. Clearly her watcher had spent more than one night peering in her bathroom window. She looked up into Tanner’s expressionless face. “Didn’t you find one of these at the base of the memorial?”

“And outside my cabin. Whoever it was was there last night, while you slept.”

“Weren’t you sleeping?”

“Not all the time.” He seemed to hesitate. “Those cigarette butts are crumpled just the way my father used to crumple them.”

She fought back the frisson of horror that swept down her backbone. “How do you know that?”

“Doc mentioned it when he saw me do the same thing. It’s not uncommon. People are taught it in the army. People do it in the wilderness. It’s so they don’t leave a trace. I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been looking for it.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t you? No, of course it wasn’t.” She answered the question the moment she asked it. She answered it too late.

Tanner was looking at her strangely, the warmth gone from his eyes. “I’m not sure of anything,” he said. “Or anyone.” He turned and headed for the back door.

“Take the car,” she offered, knowing right then he wasn’t going to take anything from her.

“Lock your doors,” he said in response, and closed the kitchen door quietly behind him.

She got up and watched him leave. He skirted the Buick parked in her driveway, heading north toward Doc’s end of town. The Barlow house was only a mile away; it wouldn’t take Tanner more than twenty minutes to walk there, if that. As long as no one pulled up beside him, as long as Pete Forrester kept his distance.

She reached out to open the door, to follow him, then stopped. He wouldn’t thank her. She’d already been less than tactful, and right now he needed some fresh air and time alone. She’d do as he said, she’d go upstairs and take a shower and a nap. By the time she woke up he’d be back, maybe with information, at least in a better mood, and the two of them could figure out what to do.

One thing she wasn’t going to do was lock her door. It would be giving in to cowardice and terrorism, and once she started, she doubted she could stop. It had taken everything she had in her to learn to walk without peering over her shoulder, listening for the sound of an M-l being readied, looking for snipers in every flowering bush and tree. But she’d triumphed, and she wasn’t going to let anyone drive her back into paranoia.

Another thing she was never going to do again was use the downstairs bathroom. She didn’t have that much time left in this gloomy old house. For the days remaining she could just climb the extra flight of stairs to the second-floor bathroom. Her knee could use the exercise.

In the meantime, for no reason whatsoever, she was going to change the sheets on the big double bed upstairs, even though she’d changed them two days earlier, and see if she could find that pretty eyelet and cotton nightgown Maude had given her. And maybe Tanner would return in a better mood.

* * * * *

“Son,” Doc said wearily, “I just don’t know.”

They were sitting out on his back porch, each with a cold bottle of beer, staring out into the heat-soaked landscape that stretched in a flat plain up to the foothills. Wildflowers dotted the thick grasses, and for a moment Tanner remembered that hidden meadow up in the mountains, and a woman riding bareback in the hot summer sun. He wished to God he’d never come down that mountain.

“What about Pete Forrester? It sounds like he’s not completely sane,” Tanner said, taking a deep gulp of the Coors.

“Oh, Pete’s sane all right. He’s just violent and bitter. The one thing he wouldn’t do is sneak around. He might try to force a shoot-out on the main street, or get a crowd riled up enough for a lynching, but he wouldn’t go peering in windows and shooting animals. Neither would most of the people I know, people who took the massacre particularly hard.”

“What about someone like Lonnie?”

Doc shook his head. “I’d find that hard to believe. A boy like that, who’s never had the gumption to do more than sit in his father’s newspaper office, would hardly be the type to start terrorizing everybody. Besides, why now?”

Tanner set his beer down. “What about you?”

He had to give Doc credit—he took it well. He just turned and fastened those world-weary eyes on him. “Now why would I want to do a thing like that? These people are my friends and neighbors. I brought a goodly number of them into the world. Why would I want to hurt them?”

“I don’t think these things are directed at the townspeople. They just started a couple of days ago, the moment I got into town. I think they’re directed at me.”

“Your ego’s not hurting you much, is it?” Doc inquired kindly. “Must be kinda hard, carrying something that big around with you. What do you think I have against you?”

“Ellie.”

The name hung between them like a tangible thing. A dozen emotions swept over Doc’s face; anger, denial, embarrassment and eventually a reluctant resignation. “You see too damned much, Tanner,” he said finally. “Does she know?”

“I don’t think she has any idea.”

He sighed, draining his beer. “Keep it that way, will you, son? It’s just an old man’s foolishness. She’s my daughter’s best friend, and she thinks of me as the sort of father she never had. I’d hate for anything to hurt that.”

“I won’t say anything.”

“Thanks. And trust me, Tanner. There’s a part of me that’s jealous as hell of you, but there’s another part of me that’s grateful.”

“Grateful?”

“Ellie’s a fine woman. She’s wasted here, wasted in a town where people can’t stop looking backward. She needs someone like you to shake her up, get her out of here.”

“I think you’re jumping to a lot of conclusions.”

“Maybe I am,” Doc said. “Maybe that’s my right. All I know is, you’re good for her. And I wouldn’t do anything to interfere with that, no matter how jealous I am.”

Tanner leaned back in the chair, reaching for a cigarette, then thinking better of it. If he had one, Doc would want one, and he’d already started taking part in Ginger and Ellie’s conspiracy to keep Doc’s blood pressure down. “If it’s not Pete or Lonnie or you,” he said, “who is it? Are you sure my father died that day?”

A spasm of pain crossed the older man’s face. “I’m sure. I signed the death certificate.”

“You signed a lot of death certificates that day,” Tanner said brutally. “You saw a lot of death. Are you absolutely certain?”

Doc reached over, took the cigarettes out of Tanner’s breast pocket, and helped himself. “I told you, I’m certain. And I’ll tell you something else, something I’ve never told a living soul. You’re the only one who might understand. When I examined your father he had the strangest look on his face. For twenty years he’d been plagued by misery and despair, and for the first time since the war he looked almost happy. It wasn’t because he’d killed sixteen innocent people, either. It was because he was finally at rest.”

Tanner took the pack back and lit Doc’s cigarette and his own. He noticed absently that his hands were shaking. “All right,” he said. “I believe you. He’s really dead. That leaves one other possibility.”

Doc blew out a long, pleasurable stream of smoke. “Who?”

Tanner grimaced. “Me.”

Chapter Fifteen

Ellie knew she’d been a fool to lend her neighbor the car. Mrs. Martinez would have been willing to wait until her teenage son came home—Ellie didn’t have to strand herself without transportation just to prove she was still a good person. She didn’t have a thing to eat in the house, and Tanner would be hungry when he finally returned. She could always make an omelet, but Tanner didn’t strike her as the sort of man who’d be content with an omelet.

The market was only a few blocks away. She seldom walked there. While the distance wasn’t bad, carrying food back put too uncomfortable a strain on her leg. She preferred her walking to be recreational and therapeutic, rather than practical.

Tonight she might have no choice. It was almost five. The heat had scarcely abated, and the soft breeze blowing through the open windows of the old house stirred up memories and longings that were better left buried.

Of course, there was no guarantee that Tanner would be back that night. With Tanner there were no guarantees whatsoever, as she kept reminding herself. That lack of a safety net was beginning to matter less and less.

She moved to the tall bank of cupboards that lined the back wall, staring into the uninspiring depths. Maybe the two-year-old box of Bisquick might provide something edible. She was busy perusing the back of the package when she heard the car drive up. Mrs. Martinez was back sooner than she’d expected. There might just be time to get to Davidson’s Market.

It wasn’t Mrs. Martinez’s squat bulk on her back porch, nor the Buick in her driveway. It was Ginger Barlow, wearing too much makeup, too much perfume, with a defiant glitter in her pale-blue eyes. For an odd, irrational moment Ellie wanted to slam the door in her face, lock out whatever unpleasantness Ginger seemed determined to bring in. But of course she didn’t. Saint Ellie, she mocked herself, holding the door open for her friend.

“Has Tanner got your car again?” Ginger asked abruptly, in lieu of a greeting.

All Ellie’s misgivings were proving true. “Mrs. Martinez borrowed it,” she said gently. “You know the trouble she has with her old Vega…”

“I’m not here to talk about Mrs. Martinez,” Ginger said, setting her ample hips down on a kitchen chair and fixing Ellie with a determined gaze.

Ellie sighed. “I didn’t think you were. I don’t suppose it’ll do any good to tell you I don’t want to discuss it?”

“No good at all.”

“In that case, can I get you some coffee?”

“All I want,” said Ginger sternly, “is your undivided attention. Sit down, Ellie, and I’ll tell you a few things you need to know about the man you’ve been spending all this time with.”

And with a sense of deep foreboding, Ellie sat down to listen.

* * * * *

“Don’t be crazy, son,” Doc said. “Who’d know better than you whether or not you were out killing animals and peering in people’s windows?”

“It just struck me,” he said slowly. “My father was crazy—you certainly can’t argue that.”

“I suppose not,” Doc said reluctantly.

“And I’m his son. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt about that, either. So what if I inherited his craziness? What if I’m going out at night, doing things and just not remembering? Maybe my father didn’t remember the things he did, maybe he just thought he was sleeping. Maybe…”

“These are crazy fantasies. You didn’t strike me as the neurotic type.”

“I come by it honestly.”

“The hell you do,” Doc exploded. “Your daddy was crazy, and I don’t deny it. But it wasn’t hereditary, it wasn’t inbred, it wasn’t anything more than a sensitive man reacting to impossible circumstances. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to kill seventeen people, even in a war, and then live with the consequences, you might go a little crazy yourself. Then again, you might not. I’d be willing to bet you wouldn’t. You’ve got more resilience than your daddy ever had. He couldn’t bend, he couldn’t accept the way things were. And people who can’t bend, break.” He stubbed out his cigarette and looked wistfully at Tanner’s breast pocket.

Tanner ignored the unspoken plea. “I just hope you’re right.”

“Listen, Tanner, you have enough enemies around. Don’t add yourself to the list,” Doc said earnestly. “And for heaven’s sake, give me another cigarette. Who knows when Ginger’ll be back and get on my case again?”

Tanner made no move for the cigarettes. “Where is Ginger?” He’d been more than grateful not to have seen her. She’d made it clear the night before that she wasn’t the sort who appreciated being rejected, and while he didn’t fancy any sort of confrontation, her absence made him more than a little uneasy.

“‘Fraid my daughter’s not too fond of you right now.” Doc said easily. “Don’t worry about it. I brought the girl up the best I could when her mother took off, but I’m afraid certain things just didn’t stick too well. She wants what she wants, and she doesn’t take no for an answer.”

“Sometimes she has to.”

“Well, that’s true. But she doesn’t have to like it. When you came in the front door she headed out the back. Said she was off to visit Ellie.”

He should have known, Tanner thought. He should have listened to his own inner misgivings. “I’d better be getting back,” he said abruptly, rising to his feet.

“Back where?”

“Back to Ellie’s.”

Doc nodded. “I thought so. Maybe I’d better give you a ride. I love my daughter, but she’s got the devil of a tongue, and I wouldn’t put it past her to twist it around some things that weren’t strictly true.”

Tanner didn’t even hesitate. “Let’s go.”

* * * * *

Ginger didn’t see or hear him walk in the kitchen door. Ellie did. He moved silently, gracefully, and she could see how he could survive unnoticed in wilderness areas that boasted such unfriendly critters as wolves and grizzlies. Right now Ellie wasn’t sure that Ginger was any less lethal than her four-legged kin.

“I’ve got bruises, Ellie,” Ginger was saying. “The man was an animal, all over me. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. I think he’s—he’s a little crazy.”

The pause was good, Ellie thought cynically. Very effective. She moved her gaze from Tanner’s still, opaque eyes to Ginger’s wide blue ones, and shivered. The scary thing was, Ginger was beginning to believe what she was saying. Another time, another person, and Ellie would have believed her, too.

“I don’t remember,” she said carefully, “that you have too much practice saying no.”

“Oh, I admit, I was attracted to him,” Ginger said, pushing her mane of streaked blond hair back over her shoulder. “Who wouldn’t be? There’s that air of danger, that sexy mouth, those eyes of his. But it didn’t take me long to realize that he’s no good, as cruel and rotten as his father ever was. You may not realize it. He’s been all sweetness and light to you and his dear old granny. But I saw…”

Ellie had groaned in sudden dismay as Tanner stiffened in the kitchen doorway. Ginger finally came out of her self-absorption long enough to realize they weren’t alone, and her face froze as she took in Tanner’s still figure.

“My dear old granny?” he said finally. “I didn’t realize I had any kin left around here.” His voice was cold and empty. “At least, none who would acknowledge me. I guess I was right about that.”

“Tanner, it wasn’t that she wouldn’t acknowledge you,” Ellie said desperately, rising from her chair and knocking it over in sudden clumsiness. “She was afraid you wouldn’t forgive her for not helping your mother.”

“She was right,” he said coolly. “I presume we’re talking about Maude?”

“She’s a foolish old woman who can’t see you for what you are,” Ginger broke in spitefully.

Tanner smiled, his cold, gentle smile. “She sees through you clear enough.” He glanced back at Ellie, who was momentarily speechless with misery. “But I’m not sure your friend does.”

She opened her mouth to say something, to assure him that she hadn’t believed a word of Ginger’s lies, when the back door opened behind Tanner and Dave Martin bulldozed his way in, followed by Doc Barlow.

“There’s been an accident,” Doc announced, forestalling Martin. “I’ve got to get back to the house. Mrs. Martinez will need a few stitches, but it sounds as if she’s okay. I could use your help, Ginger.”

Ginger hesitated. “Coming,” she said finally, her voice sulky. She skirted Tanner, holding her body away as if the air around him might be contaminated, managed a tiny sashay for an unappreciative Dave Martin, and headed out the door. “Remember what I told you, Ellie,” she called back over her shoulder.

Tanner hadn’t moved. He leaned back against the counter, his arms crossed, prepared to listen. If it hadn’t been for the savage look in his eyes, Ellie might have been fool enough to think he was at ease.

“What happened to Mrs. Martinez?” she asked, dread and despair filling her. “I lent her my car this afternoon. Is she badly hurt?”

“Your car lost its brakes,” Dave announced. “With a little help from someone who knows his way around cars. Doc’s right—she’s okay. She was only going about twenty-five, and she just skidded off the road. Probably won’t even need those stitches. What I want to know, Ellie, is when you last drove that car, and who else has been driving it? And I want to know, mister,” he turned and glowered at Tanner, “where you’ve been all day, and whether you’ve got any witnesses who can swear to your alibi.”

Tanner moved then, and for a moment Ellie held her breath, afraid of what he might do. But he merely headed for the door, ignoring Martin, ignoring her.

“Wait just a damned minute!” Dave was heading out after him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Tanner paused on the back porch, and Ellie thought she could see desolation and resignation in his eyes before his face once more grew impassive. “As far away from Morey’s Falls,” he said, “as my legs can carry me.” And he headed down the steps into the early evening light.

* * * * *

He’d gone. Ellie knew that, and she couldn’t blame him. She’d lied to him, or at least been party to a deception. She hadn’t told him Maude was Marbella’s mother. Maude had begged her not to, wanting a chance to get to know him, get close to him before he found out that she was one of the people who’d turned their backs on his mother when she was desperately in need. Ellie had helped give her that chance, and now it looked as if she’d destroyed her own in doing so.

Dave Martin had stood at her back door, shouting after Tanner’s retreating figure, and there’d been no way she could thrust him out of her path and go after Tanner, to try to explain. She’d stood there, trapped in her own kitchen, and watched him walk away, as he’d walked away so many times in his life.

The sun set late in Montana in June. It was ten o’clock, and the sky still held enough light to see Morey’s Ridge in the east. Ellie sat in her bed, among her clean, ruffled sheets, the cotton lace nightgown around her, and looked out into the twilit sky. How far would he make it tonight? Would he have gone back to the cabin for his pack, for food, or would he have just kept going?

If only she’d had a chance to tell him she trusted him. If only she’d had a chance to shut Ginger up, to silence Dave Martin, to run after him into the darkening shadows of the Montana night. Instead, there she was, left alone in her virgin bed, and he was somewhere up in the wilderness, moving away from her forever.

At least it was an unseasonably hot night. If he’d gone without his pack he’d be all right. But Tanner was too sensible for that—he would have gone back, packed everything up and been gone within an hour. He’d get quite a ways before it grew too dark to see. Would he reach the secret mountain meadow where they’d first met?

Ellie punched the pillow, squirming around in the bed. She could always drive out to his house to be certain. Within an hour of the accident people had called, offering her the use of their cars. The town pet was being taken care of again, she thought savagely. And they wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Right now she had Addie Pritchard’s ancient Ford pickup sitting in the driveway, and Merrill Talbott’s son’s Toyota parked in front of the house. She’d turned down half a dozen other offers, from Lonnie’s aging BMW to a 1943 Studebaker that ran better than half the new models in town.

But she didn’t have to drive out Route 5 to Charles Tanner’s old place to know he was gone. She’d seen it in his eyes, in the line of his body, in the angle of his proud head as he walked out her door without a backward glance. He was gone, and she was left behind.

She leaned back on the soft feather pillow and shut her eyes. The moon was three-quarters full, shining in her window, gilding the tall, dark Victorian bed where she’d slept alone for almost fifteen years. The same moon was shining down on Tanner. Up in the mountains that same moon might be shining on someone else, someone evil, someone out with a gun or a bucket of red paint, someone out to spread pain and terror.

Her eyes shot open again, and a small, whimpering sound escaped the back of her throat. She didn’t want to lie there while Tanner moved farther and farther away from her. She didn’t want to lie alone ever again.

Throwing back the light cotton sheet, she climbed out of bed. She’d been passive for too long. She might not be able to find him, but she wasn’t going to stay there in her big dark house and let him go without a fight.

She didn’t bother changing—she just threw on an old pair of pants and a sweater over her nightgown while she made her plans. She would take Addie’s pickup and drive out to Maude’s place. She’d taken Shaitan out for moonlight rides before, and the high-strung stallion had picked his way sure-footedly along treacherous mountain paths without a stumble. He could find his way back to that meadow, even without the bright moon pouring down.

She had to accept the fact that Tanner might not be there, might already have headed higher up the mountain, beyond her reach. She’d accept that, if she had to. And while she didn’t know Alfred’s last name, or the town in the Sangre de Cristo mountains where Tanner would be heading, given her usual determination she’d find out both. And sooner or later she’d find Tanner.

Shaitan greeted her appearance in the old barn with a whirrup of approval. The farmhouse had been dark, with Maude in bed, and while Mazey and Hoover expressed forlorn displeasure at being left behind, they responded gratefully to being let out to pasture.

She didn’t bother with anything more than a bit and bridle. She dumped her sweater and jeans in a corner of the barn and scrambled onto Shaitan’s back. Her white cotton nightgown shimmered in the moonlight, flowing over the stallion’s black hide as she headed him toward the mountain trail east of Maude’s property. Her chestnut hair hung down her back, and her feet were bare in the warm night air. Wiggling her toes, she started up the mountain.

* * * * *

Morey’s ridge was still and silent above him. Darkness was descending, the late, streaky darkness of June in Montana. There was a soft, damp breeze ruffling the trees around him, smelling of yesterday’s rain, tomorrow’s flowers, the earth and the mountain and the clear stream at the edge of the meadow. The moon was a shimmering, fat crescent in the sky, with starlight spilling out around it, and Tanner took a deep, heady breath of the night air, letting the anger drain from him.

He’d been prepared to walk all night, up and over that mountain, moving into the wilderness, as far away from that cursed little town as his energy and stamina could carry him—as his personal devils could drive him. He’d left Ellie’s house four hours before, loaded his pack and taken off with only a few grateful souls to see him on his way.

How would they feel, he thought, when animals were found slaughtered and Tanner’s son was long gone? When the graves were still desecrated, the cars still sabotaged, the eyes still watching…?

That had slowed his headlong pace up the mountain. He’d left Ellie. Ellie, who had watchers peering in her window, Ellie, whose car had been tampered with. What if she’d been driving? What if she’d been zooming along at sixty-seven miles an hour, as she had earlier today?

He didn’t even know if she’d believed Ginger. He didn’t know if she’d listened to Dave Martin—chances were she hadn’t. And he didn’t blame her for not telling him about Maude. In the short time he’d known her, he knew Ellie wasn’t one to break a confidence. If Maude wanted to keep her identity a secret, Ellie wasn’t the one to break that secret.

He slipped the pack from his back and stretched his cramped muscles. The meadow looked different at night. Dark and mysterious, with moonlight silvering the aspens, turning the dew-damp grass to sparkling diamonds. The night was warm, waiting.

Waiting for what? It had to be close to eleven—the sun had set a little over an hour earlier. It was too late to head back down to town. He’d bed down here for the night, and the next morning he could decide.

Except that the decision had already been made. He wouldn’t leave Ellie in the midst of that mess. It was as good an excuse as any, he mocked himself, untying his sleeping bag and spreading it out over the thick carpet of grass and wildflowers. He knew, deep in his heart of hearts, that that was what it was. An excuse. Just a few days had passed, and he was too far gone. He couldn’t leave Ellie at all.

The pool was shallow enough to hold some heat from the long, sunny day. He stripped off his clothes and soaked his tired body, then climbed back out. It was warm enough not to wear his shirt, so he just pulled on his jeans, zipping them but not bothering with the snap. He squatted down by his pack, looking for the dried trail mix he always kept handy, when he heard the sound of her horse. And knew what he’d been waiting for.

He rose slowly, standing very still, watching her approach. She’d given Shaitan his head, and the big black stallion was picking his way carefully through the dense summer grasses. The soft breeze was blowing toward Tanner, and it wasn’t until they were close that the horse picked up his scent. The ears went back, the head went up, and Tanner held his breath.

And then Shaitan let out a small, quiet whicker of greeting as he continued toward Tanner’s waiting figure. Ellie was watching him, but even in the bright moonlight he couldn’t read her expression. It was enough that she’d come.

She was wearing something long and white and flowing, and her thick dark hair hung down her back. Her long, pale legs hugged the barrel of the horse, and her feet were bare. Her hands were light on the reins, letting Shaitan lead her. And Shaitan led her straight to Tanner.

Chapter Sixteen

She could see Tanner standing at the edge of the meadow, near the clear mountain pool. He was watching her approach, and if the bright moonlight silvered his blond head and cast a tall, eerie moon shadow behind him, it failed to illuminate his expression. He didn’t move. He simply waited.

Shaitan was apparently unaffected by her doubts. He moved ahead, trusting in the man even as Ellie still struggled with her thoughts. Maybe she was the last person he wanted to see. Maybe she’d been a fool to come searching for him. Maybe she should quickly kick Shaitan into action and race back down the mountain.

It was unseasonably warm for a late-June night. Tanner’s pack was lying on the ground, his sleeping bag unzipped and spread out on the grass. She’d let Shaitan get a little closer, just close enough to read his expression. If it wasn’t welcoming, she could leave.

His dark-blond hair was wet and slicked back away from his face. His mouth was a narrow line, thin and unsmiling, and his cold blue eyes were in shadow. Ellie could feel the dampness in her hands as they held the reins, feel the trembling in her knees. Somewhere in the distance an old owl hooted, and overhead a million stars warred with the bright moonlight to flood the field with light. Shaitan reached the end of the field, reached Tanner, and stopped complacently, as Tanner lifted one strong, tanned hand to stroke the skittish stallion’s sleek black neck. The man raised his head then, to look directly into her face, and his eyes glittered in the darkness.

Ellie didn’t move. Fear was supposed to be a cold, hard lump in the chest. Her fear was a blaze of fire burning deep inside, much lower down. She didn’t say a word, and neither did he. He merely stood there, his strong hand stroking Shaitan’s neck. And then he moved closer, and his hand left the horse, reaching to catch her bare ankle in his long fingers.

His flesh was hot, hers was cool. He slid his hand up her calf, up to the ruffled hem of her lacy nightdress. Before she realized his intent he’d pushed the material away, exposing her bad knee. His mouth followed his hand, tracing the line of scars that stretched along her leg.

She heard a quick, shocked intake of breath, and vaguely realized it was her own. And then his hands were reaching up, encircling her waist, and he was lifting her down, down from Shaitan’s high back, her body sliding against his, her skirts bunching up around her thighs, his warm, bare shoulders damp beneath her trembling hands.

When her bare feet at last touched the ground she was wrapped in his arms, her hips against his, her breasts beneath the thin barrier of cotton pressed up against his hard, muscled chest, her arms clinging around his neck as if to a lifeline.

He looked down at her, his blue eyes dark in the moonlight, and belatedly Ellie realized it wasn’t just fear burning deep inside her. It was desire, pure, simple and overwhelming.

She opened her mouth to say something, she wasn’t sure what. To tell him that she loved him, to tell him not to worry. But he gave his head an imperceptible shake, and his lips covered hers, stopping the words before they could be formed.

His mouth was warm, wet, seeking hers, heating her chilled heart, burning her lingering fears away. His hands reached up and held her head still, as his mouth brushed back and forth across her lips, dampening them, arousing them, so that unconsciously she was seeking him with her mouth, trying to catch him long enough to hold him.

And then he deepened the kiss, holding her still as his tongue plunged into the willing darkness of her mouth. He kissed her long and hard and deep, taking his time, until they were both trembling and breathless in the moonlit air.

He moved away for a moment, and she watched in sudden panic, afraid he was going to send her away after all, but instead he slipped off Shaitan’s bridle, dropping it in the long grass, and slapped the big horse on the rump. Shaitan moved away, toward the fast-running stream, and began placidly to lip the long grass.

Tanner took a few steps that brought him back to her waiting side. He scooped her up in his arms, effortlessly, as his mouth once more took possession of hers. But there was a difference this time, a joyful, almost lighthearted acceptance that burned through her nerves and shattered them. Past failures were fast disappearing. She was alone in the moon-drenched meadow with the man she loved.

The sleeping bag was soft beneath her back. The night smelled of wildflowers and Montana grassland, of blue sage and June nights and Tanner. As he loomed over her she smiled up at him, a brave, tremulous smile, and reached out to pull him closer.

His fingers were deft on the row of tiny buttons that traveled down the front of her gown. He bared her breasts to the moonlight, and then, shockingly, put his mouth on one, while he cupped the other in his big hand.

She made a small, whimpering noise, half panic, half pleasure, and her hands clutched his shoulders. “Tanner,” she said, her voice husky in the still moonlight, the first words to break the silence. “Wait,” she pleaded. “I’m frightened.”

He raised his head to look down at her. “I know,” he said softly, regret and determination in his voice. “I know.”

“Couldn’t we just...”

“No,” he said, pushing the nightgown off her shoulders and down her legs, ignoring her half-hearted attempts to stop him. She lay there naked in the moonlight, and fear was beating all around her. “We’re not going to spend another night locked chastely in each other’s arms,” he said. “We’re not going to lie here and neck until you run away. We’re going to make love, here, tonight, on this mountain.”

His breath was warm and sweet on her upturned face, his expression implacable. “What if I say no?” she asked. “Will you force me?”

It was a very small, very wry smile that danced around the corners of his mouth and lit the cool depths of his eyes. “I’ve never forced a woman in my life,” he said gently, “and I’m not about to start with you. If you say no, I’ll let you go. But you have approximately sixty seconds to make your choice. Once it’s made you can’t change your mind.”

“You’re pushing me,” she cried.

“Damned right. I’m pushing you off your pedestal and bringing Saint Ellie down among the living,” he said. “Yes or no, Ellie. The time is now.”

If only he’d kiss her again, kiss her so she wouldn’t have to think. But he held himself away, watching her, the warmth of his body lying alongside of her, his jeans rough against her silky skin.

A thousand doubts and questions sang in her mind. She ignored them. Slipping her arms around his neck, she pulled him over her. “Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

It was nothing like the books she’d read, nothing like her limited, fumbling experiences. Tanner took his time, slowly, languorously learning her body, discovering what tickled, what aroused her, learning almost by instinct just how to caress her small, sensitive breasts, learning just the right amount of pressure, enough to make her gasp and cry out, not enough to hurt. Until the pleasure became so exquisite that it was a pain of its own.

She learned him too, the shape and texture and contours of him, of places that had been a mystery to her, one that became even more awesome as it grew familiar. She learned the taste of him out of pleasure and her own desire, and learned the joy of his barely controlled response.

When the time came she was barely aware of it. He entered her, pulling back, pushing forward, gently rocking against her, until she was wet and slippery with longing. When she was ready, when he was ready, he braced his arms around her and increased the pressure, pushing all the way in till he rested, deep and tight inside her.

She lay beneath him, accustoming herself to the strangeness of it all, the tiny shivers of delight that were dancing through her body, the mild trace of pain that was rapidly receding into a haze of pleasure.

He lifted his head up to look at her, and she could see the film of sweat bead his forehead, the barely controlled passion that he was keeping in check. “Are you all right?” His voice was hoarse, strained. “Did I hurt you?”

She smiled up at him dizzily. “I’m fine,” she whispered. “Just... fine...”

His answering smile was lopsided. “There’s more to it,” he said. “Lots more.” And he began to move. His hands reached down, caught her legs and pulled them up around him, settling in against her. She’d scarcely gotten used to him when he pulled away, then pushed back again, the relentless ebb and flow of love and desire washing over her body. She began to shiver in anticipation of some distant, unapproachable delight, and she felt Tanner, slippery with sweat, tremble in her arms. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t know what for. For the moon, still shining down on the entwined lovers? For the stars, glittering in the sky beside their sister moon? Or cry for herself, lost and seeking, shivering and reaching and aching and longing?

Her head thrashed back and forth in mute negation of something she couldn’t begin to understand. She wanted to tell him to stop, it was useless, it was more than she could bear. He thrust all the way into her, holding her with the pressure of his hips, and his hands caught her head, holding her still.

“Not without you,” he muttered obscurely. And setting his mouth on hers, he reached down between their sweat-slick bodies and touched her.

Her body arched, convulsed around his. Her mind, her emotions shattered, like the thousand stars of the Montana night, and she was gone, lost, floating, and Tanner was with her, his strangled cry swallowed in their last, desperate kiss, his body rigid in her arms.

It was a long time before either of them could speak. Ellie lay beneath him, listening as their hearts hurtled against each other, as their breathing rasped into a labored silence, as the stray tremors danced across her moon-silvered flesh. She looked up into the vast canopy of the sky, and watched a star fall in a blaze of light. She felt the warm breeze lift Tanner’s hair and toss it against her flushed face, heard the distant, peaceful sound of Shaitan drinking from the mountain stream. She wanted to lie forever beneath Tanner’s strong, protecting body. But she knew there were no forevers for her. Not with Tanner.

He moved, pulling away from her, his hands still possessively on her. She started to speak, but he put his fingers against her mouth.

“Don’t,” he said, his voice as husky as hers. “No clever remarks, no jokes, no demands, no vows of undying love.”

He looks as though he’s in shock, Ellie thought. There was little doubt she looked exactly the same. Slowly she nodded, and he moved his hand from her mouth. Not before she had a chance to kiss his fingers.

He pulled her into his arms again, rolling onto his back and bringing her with him. “Hold me,” he muttered, his words an unconscious echo of her own plea the night before. “Just hold me.”

And thoroughly content, Ellie held him close against her, slowly relaxing into sleep.

* * * * *

It was the longest night she had ever spent; it passed in the wink of an eye. The moon was sinking lower in the sky when they awoke in the darkness, and they made love again, more slowly this time, drawing it out until they were both shaking and crying and shivering and dying with the wonder of it. Tanner even tried to talk her into swimming in the icy mountain pool, promising to warm her up afterward. When she was still hesitant he lifted her up and chucked her in, and when she emerged, sputtering and furious, he turned that heat and fury around, into a fiery passion that left them too stunned and weary to move.

The sun rose early, not much after four o’clock that close to the summer solstice. They lay on the rumpled sleeping bag, the smell of crushed wildflowers filtering through their dreams, and watched the color streak across the sky as one by one the stars disappeared.

“You know,” she observed in a lazy, sleepy voice, “I never realized what I was missing. If I’d known, I would have done something about it earlier.”

“It isn’t always like this.” Tanner’s voice was a deep bass rumble beneath her ear. She had her head on his chest, and her hand was drawing lazy circles on his smooth, sun-darkened skin.

“Isn’t it?”

“Take it from a man who knows,” he murmured.

Ellie giggled. “I just did, didn’t I?”

He laughed, and the sound was soft and comforting in the night air. She sighed peacefully, snuggling closer. There was just the faint trace of early-morning chill in the air, but she didn’t mind. Nothing short of the legendary Montana winters would have made her put her nightgown back on. “Were you really leaving?”

“No. I changed my mind halfway up here, but I thought I’d like a night without someone watching me.”

“I can always shut my eyes.”

“Not you, woman,” he said lightly.

“Why did you change your mind?”

“Too much unfinished business.”

“Was I part of that unfinished business?” Her question was delicately phrased. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer, whatever it was.

“Yes.” he said.

“Am I finished now?”

He reached down and put his hand under her chin, tipping her face up to his. “I don’t think I’ll ever be finished with you,” he said softly, and then a spasm of pain crossed his face. “Damn,” he swore. “Why the hell did I say that?”

“Tanner...” She half rose, but he pushed her back down, hiding her face against his chest.

“Don’t say it,” he said bitterly. “I don’t want to hear it. For God’s sake, don’t tell me that you love me.”

She stayed where she was, her face pressed against him, inhaling the rich, earthy scent of him. “Why not?” she asked quietly.

“Because I don’t need your love. I don’t want it, I don’t want the strings and ties and responsibilities of having you love me.”

She pulled away from him, sitting up, wrapping her arms around her bent knees. She was bone weary, physically and emotionally, and a part of her wanted to scream and cry at him.

But the greater part knew better. She looked down at him, at his stubborn, beautiful, beloved face, and carefully wiped all expression from her own, leaving only mild regret. “Sorry, Tanner,” she said softly. “The warning comes too late.”

“Ellie...”

“Shut up, Tanner,” she said a little fiercely. “Stay as long as you can, walk away when you have to. In the meantime—” she took a deep breath “—there’s nothing you can do about it. I love you, and there’s no changing it.”

“Until you look at your knee and remember whose son I am,” he said, still stretched out on the ground, apparently at ease. But even in the dawn-lit shadows Ellie could see the tension threading through his strong body. “Do you realize you never refer to him as my father? He’s always Charles Tanner. Well, he was my father, Ellie. He sired me, even brought me into the world, and he killed thirty-three people. At least seventeen in Korea, and another sixteen here in Montana. He ruined your life, Ellie, and I’m all he left on this earth. Do you really think you love me?”

She slid forward on her knees, leaning over him, her chestnut hair hanging down in a curtain around their faces. “I’m afraid so, Tanner,” she said. “Charles Tanner, Jr.,” she added for emphasis. “And while you can try your damnedest to convince me otherwise, I’ve waited thirty years for you. It’s going to take more than a harmless old ghost like your father to stop me.”

“Harmless old ghost…?”

“That’s all he is, Tanner. He’s dead, long gone. Pain and evil live on, but your father’s dead, his goodness and evil dead with him. Someone else is doing things, but it has no connection with you.”

“Does that mean I could leave?”

She bit her lip. “You can always leave,” she said evenly. “I wouldn’t hold you against your will.”

“And what if it’s not against my will?”

“I don’t think you know what you want,” she said.

He reached up and brushed her cheek with one hand, sweeping it under her mane of hair. And then he was pulling her down, down to him, and his mouth was waiting for her. “Yes,” he said, “I do.” And right then she believed him.

* * * * *

They made their way slowly down the mountain. Neither of them wore a watch, but the early-rising sun had been up a couple of hours, putting the time somewhere between six and seven. Tanner rode Shaitan astride, with Ellie draped sideways across his lap, partly for the horse’s comfort, partly for her own. A long, soaking bath, she promised herself. She was sore in places she hadn’t realized existed, and her face was flushed from the rough stubble that adorned Tanner’s lean cheeks.

Tanner was still very quiet, as he had been since dawn. She hadn’t convinced him, Ellie knew that. Nothing would convince him, nothing except time. She could only hope they had enough of that scarce commodity.

In the meantime, she swore to herself that she wouldn’t push him. She wouldn’t tell him again that she loved him, wouldn’t throw herself at him, wouldn’t make a nuisance of herself. She’d be patient, as she’d learned so well to be. She’d waited thirty years to find the right man. She could wait a while to be sure of him.

Maude’s remote farm was in sight before he spoke. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“About Maude? I promised her I wouldn’t. She still feels guilty about Marbella. She figured you wouldn’t talk to her if you knew who she was.”

“My mother hardly mentioned her, but when she did it was with love. It always sounded like it was my grandfather who was the problem.”

“It’s true,” Ellie said. “But Maude loved him.” She hesitated. “Ginger will have called her and told her, you know. She’ll be in the house, waiting to see what you’re going to do.”

He sighed. “I know what you want me to do. You want me to go in there and tell that old woman that Marbella forgave her.”

“Only if it’s true. Maude will see through it if it’s a lie.”

“I’ll go,” he said. “If you promise to let me ride Shaitan.”

“You are riding Shaitan,” she pointed out.

“Alone. Fast. With a saddle.”

“Personally, I like it this way,” she murmured. “But you’ve got yourself a deal. Just make sure she makes some coffee while you’re having your family reunion. I need something to get me going.”

“Tired, are you?” he inquired solicitously. “These busy nights.”

She smiled up at him, rubbing her already abraded cheek against his chest. “I’ll survive.”

It was the wrong thing to say. She could feel him stiffening, and there was nothing she could do to make it better.

“I expect you will,” he said in a distant voice. “You have a history of it.”

“And a future,” she said firmly. But deep inside, she wondered if there’d ever be a future for them. At that moment the odds didn’t look too good.

Chapter Seventeen

Ellie spent as much time as she could brushing down Shaitan’s sleek coat, feeding and watering him before turning him out to pasture with his two stablemates. He spent far too much time in the barn as it was, but she didn’t dare pasture him if she couldn’t be sure she’d be around to get him back in during the storms that terrified him. Jamie was useless around him—it was all the teenage boy could do to feed him without fainting in terror.

Things would be better when she could find a place where she could keep the horses. While her half-formed fantasies had usually involved city life, she knew deep down inside her that she could never be happy surrounded by the noise and bustle of a big city. She needed mountains, she needed wide, open spaces, she needed big blue sky and room to breathe. Most of all, she needed Tanner.

However, dwelling on that thought would get her exactly nowhere. One day at a time, Doc had taught her when she was trying to get off the painkillers that had numbed her to life. One day at a time, and maybe, just maybe it would work out.

Her cotton nightdress was definitely the worse for wear. She stripped it off, pulling on her faded jeans and sweater, accepting her lack of underwear with equanimity. She crumpled up the nightgown, about to toss it into the trash, then thought better of it. Smoothing the soft, torn cotton with a gentle hand, she put it back in the bag that had held her clothes and stashed it back under the workbench.

Maude’s dark, snapping eyes were rimmed with red, and the smile she gave Ellie when she walked in the door was bordering on the tremulous. Not that there was ever anything that tentative about Maude. But whatever had passed between Tanner and his grandmother had apparently been satisfactory to both parties. At least as far as Ellie could tell. Tanner had that distant look about him, his blue eyes unreadable in the morning light as he sat there sipping coffee from an enormous blue mug that was chipped and cracked and oddly familiar looking. With a start Ellie recognized it. It had belonged to Jacob, Maude’s husband, and he’d used it every morning. When he died, Maude had put it away, and this was the first time Ellie had seen it in all those years.

“I wondered what was keeping you,” Maude said in a voice slightly hoarse from tears, both shed and unshed, as she handed Ellie a cup of inky-black coffee. Ellie doubted she’d even spared her a thought. “I was telling Tanner here that you can take my old car until yours is ready. It’s got to be better than that old pickup of Addie’s. I’m willing to bet it runs fine. You know I don’t drive anymore, and Jamie can take me out in his rattletrap if need be.”

“Thank you, Maude.” She could feel Tanner’s eyes sweeping over her clothes, could sense his hidden amusement. “You might tell Jamie I fed Shaitan and put him out to pasture. If he’s feeling particularly brave he could try to bring him into the stall; otherwise I’ll come back out later.”

“I can do it when I ride him,” Tanner volunteered casually.

Maude’s eyes sharpened. “She’s gonna let you ride him? That hell-born baby of hers?”

“So she promised.” Tanner’s eyes met hers over the chipped blue mug, the faintest trace of a challenge in them, and any lingering doubts Ellie had slipped away.

“So I promised,” she agreed.

“God almighty, it must be love!” cackled Maude.

Tanner choked on his coffee.

* * * * *

Ellie couldn’t help it, Tanner thought as he drove toward the wide main street of Morey’s Falls. Try as she might, she couldn’t keep the light from her eyes. Try as she might, she couldn’t keep her soft, slightly swollen lips from curving into a smile. Even his brooding silence didn’t daunt her. The woman was simply, unequivocally happy.

It had been a long time since he’d had that effect on another human being. He was used to making people suspicious and miserable, resentful and frightened. When Ellie didn’t think he’d notice, she looked at him as if the sun rose and set within him. It was an addictive, dangerous thing, and he knew he had to do something about it while he still could.

“Can we stop by Davidson’s Market on our way home?” she asked, trying to keep a somber expression on her face and failing. “I have to get my purse, and I’m out of essentials.”

“Essentials?”

“Milk, bread and Tab. All the necessities of life,” she said.

He should have known better. He did know better, but he drove straight on into the center of town without a word. He’d never been one to avoid a confrontation, and if one was brewing, they might as well face it. Maybe Ellie would see the light without having to be shown it.

It was just after ten o’clock on a sunny, late-June morning. The wide sidewalks of Morey’s Falls were unusually crowded, and the faded, gloomy-looking people looked a little dazed by the glorious sunshine. They looked even more dazed at the sight of Tanner driving Ellie Lundquist in Maude Gilles’s ancient sedan.

Ellie had her hand on the door before he’d even pulled the car to a stop, directly in front of the market. “Can I get you anything?”

“Don’t you want me to come in?”

She looked startled. “Of course,” she said, and he believed her.

“Never mind. Get me a carton of cigarettes.” He handed her a crumpled wad of bills.

Her eyes danced. “I shouldn’t. I gave up my cane; you can give up those coffin nails.”

“Get me the cigarettes, woman,” he ordered in a mock snarl, “or you’ll be in real trouble.”

“Maybe,” she said, dancing away from him without taking the proffered money.

She practically skipped into the store, he noted sourly. And the people on the sidewalks stared—first after her, then back to him, sitting in the car, then back toward Ellie. Tanner’s instincts, never relaxed, started working overtime.

He counted to one hundred, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He counted, again, this time in Spanish. Still no Ellie. The looks he was getting from the passersby were growing more hostile, and the small crowd, instead of thinning, was growing larger.

It was an unbelievably beautiful day. The big Montana sky was like a canopy of blue overhead, the mountains were sharply outlined in the distance, the green of early summer making the town seem prettier than it really was. But Tanner was beyond noticing. There was trouble, real trouble, and Ellie was in the middle of it.

The people scurried out of his way as he strode across the sidewalk to the fancy glass door of Davidson’s Market, but he could hear the undercurrent of resentment, feel the hostile eyes at his back. He ignored them, pushing the door open, and then he stopped still, just inside the store.

Ellie was standing up against a row of canned vegetables, and the light had gone from her eyes. Her hands were clutched tightly around her purse, her mouth was pale and set, and her face was white with strain. The signs of his lovemaking were clear as day, to him at least: the slight reddening of her soft skin from his beard, the tiny bite mark on the side of her neck, that slightly out-of-focus look she still carried despite her defiant stance.

No one noticed him enter. He was partially obscured by a tall shelf of baked goods, and he stood there, watching. One huge, threatening man stood directly over Ellie, but there was a semicircle of six or seven people surrounding her, baiting her. They should have torches and pitchforks, he thought for one bizarre, abstracted moment. Or at least come equipped with a large red letter A.

“There’s a word for women like you,” the big man was saying. He was so close to her he was spitting in her face with each angry word.

“There are lots of words for women like me,” Ellie replied, her voice even despite the strain. “Start with human.”

“I’ll start with traitor,” the man thundered. “And then go on to trash, cheap, no-good, murdering…”

“Your vocabulary’s very nice, Pete,” she said; though Tanner could hear the quaver in her voice he doubted anyone else could. “But I’m not a murderer, and neither is Tanner.”

“He’s the spawn of a murderer, and you turned your back on everyone that loved and cared for you all these years when you shacked up with him.”

“Pete,” Ellie protested.

“You betrayed us,” a woman spoke up, her voice unfamiliar to Tanner. “You betrayed the Judge, you betrayed your father and you betrayed yourself.”

Very good, Tanner applauded silently. That was better than anything he could come up with to drive her away. Let her take a little bit more, and then he’d get her out of there and finish the job. Maybe it would be enough to get her out of this godforsaken town altogether, to someplace where she could live life without having to be a saint. To someplace where she could find a man she could really love, and not have to throw it away on a loser like him. If that thought was acid eating away at his innards, it was no more than he deserved. He never should have touched her, and now he was paying the price.

But Ellie was paying a higher price. Tanner had seen a mountain lion take down a sheep once. He’d known better than to do anything but sit there, absolutely still, until the blood lust had passed, but he’d seen the desperate, cornered look in the sheep’s eyes, knowing the end was coming, too stupid to be anything but brave.

And there was Ellie, with the same, stupid courage. He should let them torment her just a little bit more, but he didn’t think he could stand it.

“You’ve stabbed us all in the back, Ellie,” another voice was saying. “We all loved you, trusted you...” And Tanner realized with sudden shock that it was Lonnie.

Tanner moved then, into sight, striding down the crowded aisle of Davidson’s Market to the huddled group of angry townspeople.

Pete Forrester was a giant of a man, built like a linebacker, with massive thighs and shoulders and big meaty hands to match his red, angry face. He topped Tanner by probably half a foot and one hundred pounds, and there’d be no contest in a fair fight. Fortunately Tanner didn’t fight fair.

Reaching around the burly figure, he took Ellie’s stiff arm and tugged. She came readily enough, and he began leading her out the door.

The townspeople watched in sullen silence, too surprised by his sudden advent to protest. Pete finally broke the spell.

“Get out of here, you murdering bastard!” he shouted. “And take her with you!”

Tanner stopped by the door. He looked at Pete, a long, measuring look, and noted without surprise that it still worked. Pete backed off, muttering something beneath his breath. It was always easy to stare down a coward and a bully, and Pete Forrester was exactly that. “If I were a bastard,” Tanner said coolly, “we wouldn’t have any problem here, would we?” And taking Ellie with him, he let the door close gently behind them.

They weren’t through yet. The number of people on the sidewalk had swelled, and he half expected bottles and insults to be thrown. He should have known better in this town of the living dead. They just watched, surly and apathetic, as he helped a shaken Ellie into the car and pulled away, into the bright sunshine.

“We’ll get your necessities of life from Addie. We need to tell her where to find her truck,” he said, looking over at her. She had her arms wrapped around her, for warmth on this hot summer day.

“Could you take me home?” she asked in a very small voice.

He opened his mouth to say something, to comfort her, and then shut it again. Comfort from him would only weaken her. They drove in silence back through town. Tanner could feel the eyes watching their departure, feel the hostility fanning forth in waves of tension. Why the hell had he ever involved Ellie? He’d known from the start it would bring nothing but trouble, nothing but pain and despair.

Hadn’t he had some half-crazy idea about bringing her down to his level? He should have known it was impossible. She was sitting there beside him, hurt, aching, grieving. Yet he knew for a fact that she held nothing against Pete Forrester and his ilk. And nothing against his own worthless self.

He was about to do something about that, however. A quick, clean cut was the kindest. If he didn’t drive her away now he’d never be able to let her go, and there was no future for her with Charles Tanner’s son.

“Would you mind dropping me off at the cabin first?” he asked, keeping his voice cool.

She looked over at him, startled out of her misery. “I thought…I mean…” She floundered to a stop, took a deep breath and started again. “I wanted to be with you,” she said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not? Do you think I mind what those people said? I know them too well, I know the kind of pain they’re going through.”

“And have you forgotten who inflicted that pain?”

“No. I still need you, Tanner.”

He steeled himself. He hated hunting, hated the notion of gunning down some helpless animal. He had no pleasure in what he was going to do. He just knew he had to do it.

“Don’t make me say it, Ellie,” he said, his voice still remote.

“Say what? That you don’t need me? I don’t suppose you do. You’re much more self-sufficient than I am.” She was trying to keep her voice light, trying and failing. “And you can’t tell me you don’t want me. I wouldn’t believe it.”

“Believe it.” He kept his eyes trained on the roadway in front of him, listening to the little intake of breath that was a swallowed gasp of pain. “You may as well know, I went after you for a reason.”

“You went after me?”

“Didn’t you notice you were being stalked? There you were, sweet and pretty and just waiting to fall, and there I was, the spawn of a murderer. I thought I might even up the score a bit. Bring you down to my level.”

She said nothing for a long time, and he didn’t dare look at her, for fear he’d waver, tell her he was lying, ask her to run away with him and never set foot in Montana again.

He’d pulled up in front of the derelict cabin before she finally spoke. “So now that you’ve brought me down to your level,” she said quietly, “what next?”

He opened the door and climbed out, leaving the motor running. She slid across the wide bench seat to the driver’s side, put her hands on the steering wheel and looked up at him, her face calm, expressionless, waiting for an answer.

“What next?” he echoed. “Goodbye, Ellie.” And he shut the door very carefully.

There was no sign of pain or distress on her pale face. He could see the faint dusting of golden freckles dancing across her cheekbones, glinting in the bright, cheery sunlight. “Goodbye, Tanner,” she said. Putting the car in gear, she drove away, down the winding dirt road.

He waited until she was out of sight, waited until the sound of the big engine had faded in the distance. Then he started to curse, a mindless litany that did nothing to relieve his own grief and rage.

Finally the words faded into silence. He walked into the cabin, feeling as always the sense of desolation that the place engendered in him. He’d had to do it, he reminded himself. For his sake, and for Ellie’s. Now all he had to do was survive the next few days, long enough to find out who or what was behind the incidents that were echoing his father’s history. And then get the hell out of there.

He looked around the weather-stained walls. One thing he promised himself. Before he went, he was going to torch that place, scorch it down to the relentless clay it sat upon. And then, even if Charles Tanner, Sr. didn’t find peace, his son would.

* * * * *

Ellie didn’t cry. There didn’t seem to be any tears inside her, everything felt hot and dry and burned up. She skirted town, driving the long way around rather than having to see the angry faces watching her. She considered running to Doc for comfort, then rejected the idea. Ginger was there, Ginger who’d crow with triumph and then probably hotfoot it back out to the cabin to see if she could take up where Ellie had left off.

Tanner would probably be glad to see her. Compared to her, Ginger’s expertise would be a welcome alternative. Maybe she’d just been so impossibly inept the night before that he hadn’t wanted to bother with her.

No, she couldn’t go crying to Doc, even if Ginger wasn’t there. There were some things you couldn’t talk to a man about, even if he was one of your oldest friends.

There was Maude, of course, but she didn’t want to do that either. Maude had looked so happy when they left. She had found herself a grandson, a link with the future, and Ellie didn’t want anything to get in the way of that happiness.

When it came right down to it, there was no one she could turn to. She’d spent so many years being calm, being helpful, being there for people, that there was no one to do the same for her. All she could do was go home and crawl into bed, between the fancy sheets she’d put on for Tanner. Maybe she’d strip the bed and sleep on the bare mattress.

A low moan of pain startled her. It startled her even more to realize the sound had come from her own throat. Almost home, she promised herself.

There was no one in sight when she pulled Maude’s old car into the driveway. No one to watch as she limped painfully up the back stairs and into her unlocked kitchen. Closing the door behind her, she carefully turned the key she’d found a few days ago. She moved through the house, locking every door, pulling down the shades, unplugging the telephone. Her gold-headed cane was resting at the foot of the stairs. She picked it up, feeling the smooth metal with a sense of soothing familiarity as slowly, carefully, she climbed the long dark flight of stairs.

Chapter Eighteen

Just when things ought to have quieted down, just when tempers began to calm, word came of another incident. One of Charles Tanner’s victims was buried in Helena, and someone had desecrated that grave, pouring red paint over the headstone. Nerves tightened further still, tension rose in the tiny town. And Ellie kept her cane with her at all times.

She didn’t waste time wondering whether it was psychosomatic, whether she needed the cane, needed to limp when life seemed empty and desolate. All she knew was that the throb in her knee was a constant reminder, and the angry expressions on the townspeople’s faces were fading, returning to looks of kindly commiseration as she limped around town, alone, and Tanner kept his distance.

Even Pete Forrester seemed to have mellowed. He’d said good-morning to her when he’d passed her on the street the day before, and even judgmental old Sally Richmond had managed a wintry smile. At first Ellie’s reaction was a startled relief that managed to penetrate the numbness that surrounded her. And then she realized what had prompted the kindliness.

They’d decided she’d been a victim again, this time of Charles Tanner’s son. She’d been led astray, seduced and abandoned, and they were willing to fold her back into their collective arms and forgive her momentary weakness.

As long as she went back to being the martyr of Morey’s Falls, she thought bitterly. As long as she was willing to stay alone in that dark old house, doing good deeds, keeping herself untouched after her fall from grace.

For the time being that was easy enough. She had no interest in having anyone touch her, anyone at all. But that would pass. Tanner would leave, and as soon as he was gone she’d pull herself together and get out, too. Right now it hurt too much to make plans. But as soon as he was gone, as soon as there was no danger of running into him in the empty streets of Morey’s Falls, she’d get back to being her normal, resourceful self, and get her normal, resourceful self out of there.

At least the odd, eerie incidents had almost stopped. A few more animals had been found dead, one or two people reported a Peeping Tom lurking around, and the news about the grave in Helena that had caused a flurry of concern had quickly died down. As far as she knew, Tanner had done nothing to get people excited again. He spent a lot of time with Addie Pritchard, he spent a lot of time with Maude. Doc, the bearer of that information, had even allowed that Tanner had spent a lot of time with him. Though not, he added, with Ginger, who’d found herself a divorced man in Menton, two towns over, and spent most nights away.

Eliie didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. On the one hand she was fiercely, gloriously relieved that Ginger hadn’t done her bit to fill Tanner’s empty bed. On the other hand, the sooner he was completely out of reach, the sooner she’d recover.

She awoke late on the morning of July third with a sense of impending doom. It was no different from any other morning in the past two weeks, since before Tanner even arrived she’d woken with the feeling that life was about to crash around her head. She lay there beneath her heavy cotton sheets, feeling the thick, humid air closing around her, dreading the days ahead. Next afternoon she’d have to unveil that monolith in the pocket-sized park, she’d have to say all the appropriate things and dress in semi-mourning like the professional widow she was. If she could just get through the next forty-eight hours, Tanner would be gone, and so would she.

She didn’t really know why he still hung around. It certainly wasn’t to see her. She’d had no more than a glimpse of him in the last two weeks, and she wished she hadn’t even had that. She’d gone out to Maude’s, to thank her for the loan of her car while her own had been repaired, and had seen Tanner in the distance, astride Shaitan. He’d been absolutely beautiful, more at home on the big black stallion than she could ever be. Man and horse were made for each other, and the knowledge was acid eating into her soul. She didn’t go back to Maude’s without calling first.

It was Maude who’d told her he’d be leaving the next day, Maude, her dark eyes bright with concern, her voluble mouth for once silent. Apparently Tanner had warned her, and Maude had listened. While her expression was compassionate, her words were matter-of-fact. Tanner was leaving, and he wouldn’t be coming back.

Ellie dragged herself out of bed, rubbing abstractedly at her knee before reaching for her cane. What she needed after such a sleepless night was a strong cup of coffee, maybe two or three. And then she needed to keep busy, keep her mind running so fast that she wouldn’t have time to stop to listen for his footsteps on her back porch, for that lazy drawl of his insinuating itself into her consciousness. Forty-eight hours and he’d be gone. Surely she could last that long without breaking down?

She glanced at her reflection in the mirror before she reached for her robe. She looked tired, but sleep had been hard to come by recently. She looked miserable, but that was to be expected. How else were you supposed to look when your heart was crushed and bleeding?

She made a face at her nightgown. She should have followed her instincts, should have thrown it away at Maude’s. Instead she’d gone back there, just a week earlier, found the paper bag with the crumpled nightdress and brought it back home. She’d washed it, mended it, and with an obsessive manner she didn’t care to examine too closely she wore it to bed every night, wrapping her arms around her narrow body, pretending it was Tanner holding her.

Common sense told her that there’d be other men. Kinder men, gentler men, men who were willing to accept the kind of love she could offer. She knew she’d find them. She just wasn’t ready to believe it.

She belted the old flannel robe around her waist and headed down the long dark flight of stairs. One more morning, she promised herself. One more morning she’d have to walk down those stairs, limp down the hallway and make her coffee in the vast empty kitchen. One more morning...

The kitchen wasn’t empty. The coffee was made. Tanner was sitting there, a half-drunk cup of coffee by his side, reading the speech she’d written for the dedication.

She clutched the cane tightly in one hand, in the other she reached up and pulled the robe more closely around her. He looked up then, his blue eyes as handsome and as unfeeling as the blue sage that grew so abundantly around there, and she shivered.

“Still got the cane, Ellie?”

“What are you doing here, Tanner?” She limped into the kitchen, exaggerating her lameness, doing it deliberately. It got the reaction she wanted. His mouth tightened, whether in dismay or irritation, she couldn’t be sure. It was enough to be able to affect him at all.

“I came to say goodbye.”

She managed a credible look of surprise. “Are you leaving?”

He wasn’t fooled. “Maude told you yesterday,” he said flatly.

“Okay.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. He made it too strong, but she’d gotten used to the taste of it black. She took a sip, keeping herself from shuddering, and surprised just the faintest trace of softening in those icy-blue eyes of his. “You’ve leaving,” she agreed. “To quote you on one memorable occasion…goodbye.” She opened the back door and stood there, waiting, one hand on the doorknob, the other balancing her coffee cup and the cane.

“Close the door, Ellie. I’m not leaving yet.”

“You are if I have anything to say about it,” she snapped.

“You don’t. Close the door and sit down. I have to talk to you.”

“You could have written a letter.”

“Stop being a prima donna and get over here.” He was getting riled now. It gave her an obscure pleasure. Maybe she could get even more reactions out of him if she tried. “If you don’t come over here,” he continued, “I’ll come get you. The neighbors watched me drive in, they know I’ve been in the house since just after six, and I’ll be more than happy to give them more to gossip about if you don’t move. It would be a shame, wouldn’t it, just when you’ve gotten back in their good graces?”

She slammed the door, and some of the hot coffee splashed down her front. It soaked into the flannel wrapper, going straight through and scalding her. She let out a little yelp of pain, and a moment later Tanner was there, pulling the sodden material away from her skin.

She batted at his hands, ineffectually, with the cane getting in her way. “Stop it, Ellie. You’re just going to make it worse.” He yanked off the old dressing gown and tossed it on the floor. And then his hands stopped in midair as he realized what she was wearing.

“Damn it, Ellie,” he said, his voice unutterably weary. “What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you wearing this?”

She pulled herself away from him, moving to the table and scooping up the sheets of yellow paper. “Let’s just say it reminds me of something I’d better not forget again.”

“And what’s that?”

“Not to believe something merely because it’s what I want to believe. Not to do something when I know it’ll cause me nothing but pain. To think with my head and not my heart. All those nice sorts of things that most people learn in their adolescence. I guess I’m a slow learner, but I’ve made real strides the last couple of weeks.” She started toward the hall.

“Come back here and sit down, Ellie!”

“You can’t make me.”

She’d forgotten how fast he could move. He caught her by the door, scooped her up and deposited her none too gently on the hard wooden chair. Then he took her cane, that twisted length of hickory, and brought it down across his knee. It broke, splintered, and he tossed it in one dark corner of the kitchen. “I can make you do anything I want,” he said flatly, taking the other chair.

She could feel the color drain from her face. She didn’t look at the broken remnants of her cane, she didn’t look at the man opposite her. She looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in front of her. “I expect you’re right,” she said quietly. “What do you want, Tanner? You’ve said goodbye. What else is there?”

“I came to warn you.”

She allowed herself a bitter grin. “Too late, Tanner. I’ve already been seduced and abandoned.”

“I can stop that mouth of yours.” The threat was lightly spoken and completely sexual. Ellie shut up.

He took his time, draining his cup of coffee, his long fingers fiddling with the thin china cup that had been part of Mrs. Lundquist’s prize set. Ellie allowed herself a brief, surreptitious glance at him. If she looked pale and tired, he didn’t look much better. His dark-blond hair was slicked back, still damp from however he’d managed to bathe, he hadn’t shaved, and the lines in his tanned face seemed to have deepened, scoring deep grooves between his nose and mouth, over his forehead, around his eyes. He looked like a man on the edge, and Ellie had to wonder just what had put him there.

“All right,” she said finally, when she thought all danger had passed. “Warn me. Though I don’t see what there is to warn me about. The incidents have stopped. No more desecrated gravestones, no more dead animals.”

“Pete Forrester’s prize hunting dog was found this morning,” he said flatly. “His wife saw someone dressed like me lurking around the barn last night when she got up during the night.”

Ellie’s reaction was a quick intake of breath. “How did you find this out so early?”

“Easy enough. I was on my way over here when Dave Martin stopped me. He was more than happy to tell me all the details, in exchange for my alibi.”

“Did you have one?”

“I was alone at the cabin.” Tanner shrugged. “There wasn’t much either of us could do about that. Anyway, that’s not the problem. The problem is, the incidents aren’t over. Whoever is doing these things hasn’t stopped.”

“Maybe not,” she said, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder.

“I want you to do me a favor.”

“Don’t count on it.”

“I don’t want you to give that speech tomorrow. I don’t want you to show up at the dedication.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t get rid of the idea that something’s going to happen there. That everything’s been building up to a repeat of fifteen years ago.”

She stared at him, aghast. “You certainly have some sick fantasies.”

“It makes a twisted kind of sense, doesn’t it? Someone’s going around, repeating the same weird things my father did, right before he flipped out completely. I’m just afraid someone else is going the same route.”

“Who?”

He hesitated, and she could see an emotion dance briefly across his face, one she might almost have called vulnerability. “I asked Doc whether he thought it could be me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He met her gaze. “I asked him whether I could be doing it all and not remembering.”

“What did he say?”

“He said no.”

Ellie let out her pent-up breath. “I’m glad to hear he’s got more sense than you have. Of course you haven’t been doing those things. It has to be someone else.”

“There aren’t any other strangers in town.”

“True enough,” Ellie said, her animosity and nerves fading. “So if what you think is true, then it has to be someone who grew up here. Who’s been here all along, seemingly normal, while he or she got sicker and sicker.” A sudden thought struck her. “Maybe it’s me.”

“This isn’t a parlor game, Ellie,” he snapped, disgusted.

She smiled with mock sweetness. “There are times, Tanner, when I wish I could take an M-l rifle to a selected few.”

“I’m sure I’d be tops on your list.”

“Count on it.” She shivered in the warm kitchen. “It isn’t something to joke about,” she said, in a more subdued tone.

“No, it isn’t. Particularly when it might be about to happen again.”

“You don’t know that. You haven’t even come up with any possibilities as to who might be doing it.”

He held his breath, visibly controlling his irritation. “I realize that. Just humor me, will you? Don’t go to that dedication tomorrow.”

“Why should I do one damned thing for you?”

“Because I don’t want you to run the risk of being killed if some madman decides to take a gun to Morey’s Falls again.”

“Why not?”

He grimaced, shoving his chair back and standing up. “Call me a sentimental fool.”

She didn’t even flinch. “Why not?”

He was halfway to the door. He kept moving, pulling it open, letting the bright morning sunshine flood her gloomy kitchen. He looked back at her, his eyes bleak. “I’ll let you guess.”

“Where are you going to be?”

“Right now? Back at the cabin, I expect. Waiting for a lynch mob, maybe.”

“They won’t come get you. Most people in town are afraid of your father’s place, Pete Forrester included. They think it’s haunted.”

“Maybe it is,” he said.

“Are you going to the dedication?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” His voice was grim.

She met his gaze. “Then I’ll see you there.”

He started toward her. She could see the conflicting emotions wash across his face, emotions she didn’t dare hope she was seeing. She’d hoped to goad him into touching her, into making some kind of commitment. There were things she could see, roiling beneath his controlled exterior, but she couldn’t be certain if they were really there or whether it was just wishful thinking on her part.

He stopped before he reached her, and the seething emotions vanished once more, leaving him cool and distant. “Suit yourself,” he said. And left without looking back.

She stared after him, controlling the urge to run to the window, to savor every fleeting glimpse of him. She felt more hopeful than she had in two weeks. He wasn’t immune to her—far from it. No matter what he told her, no matter what he told himself. That was more than enough to keep her going.

Even if she wanted to she couldn’t back out of going to the dedication. It was the last thing she was going to do for the town, the final gesture, and then she’d be free. If she didn’t go through with it, she might always feel as though she owed them something.

As for Tanner’s fears, they were disturbingly contagious. But common sense told her it couldn’t happen again. Lightning didn’t strike twice in the same place. The tiny town of Morey’s Falls couldn’t produce two mass murderers.

It was probably someone out to cause trouble. Maybe mischievous teenagers out to spook people. Maybe Pete Forrester himself, trying to frame Tanner and drive him out of town. There were endless possibilities, none of them leading up to murder.

She took a shower and got dressed, feeling more optimistic than she had in days. Her car had been repaired and brought back to her in two days flat. More’s the pity, she’d thought. She’d had the fleeting hope that it had been totaled, but the Buick lived on. She drove the few short blocks to town, parking it outside Lonnie’s office. There was no sign of life in there, which was surprising. Lonnie was usually sitting there in the mornings, reading the Helena paper, drinking coffee, waiting for the news to come to him.

The park was deserted. The monolith was still covered with a canvas dropcloth, its ends secured with tent stakes. She knew what it looked like—a cross between a headstone and an obelisk, carved in depressing Vermont granite. All the names of Charles Tanner’s victims were engraved on its rough sides. She’d refused to have her name listed as the sole survivor, and the town fathers had reluctantly agreed. After all, it was her money that was paying for the thing.

She walked slowly around the monument, trying to still the uneasy feeling that washed over her. When she got to the back she noticed that one of the tent stakes was loose. Someone must have gotten too curious, she thought, moving closer. As far as she was concerned the unveiling could wait till doomsday, but apparently someone else was more impatient. She was about to move on when she noticed the granite chips lying in the dirt.

She stood for a moment, hypnotized, afraid of what she might find. Slowly she moved closer, squatting down by the edge of the monument, ignoring the pain in her knee. With one shaking hand she lifted the corner of the tarp.

They were all there. Seventeen names, carved in granite. Sixteen of them neatly chiseled in Roman lettering. And there at the bottom, hacked into the stone so crudely that she could scarcely read it was one new name. Eleanor Johnson Lundquist.

Chapter Nineteen

Ellie began to shake all over. She put out a hand to steady herself, then yanked it back as if it had been burned. The last thing she wanted to touch was that horrific monument.

She stood up, so swiftly that dizziness washed over her. She looked around, but there was no one in sight. No one at all, in the middle of a hot July day, which was strange in itself. She stumbled out of the park, getting tangled in her own feet in her haste to escape. She was heading blindly for her car when she heard voices.

Pete’s Fireside Cafe was jammed with people. For once no one was looking out the windows into the empty streets; they were all turned intently to something inside the diner. The voices, angry, muffled, were coming from that building.

As surreptitiously as she could Ellie crossed the street and edged up to the building. She needn’t have worried. No one even glanced on her direction.

Pete’s diner was the real McCoy—a refurbished chrome railway car set up high. Ellie could press against the shiny metal and no one would see her unless they craned their necks outside the high windows that were open to the listless breeze. No one bothered.

“Things have gotten out of hand,” Pete was saying in his most blustery voice. “Are we going to sit around and let this happen again? Are we going to risk losing our loved ones, our wives and our babies and our parents, just because we were afraid to take a stand?”

There was a rousing chorus of “Hell, no!” and “No way!” A voice rang out, one Ellie couldn’t quite place. “Now, Pete, I’m sure we all agree with you.” Belatedly Ellie recognized Terry, the dentist’s suavely reasonable tones. “But I for one am not about to go out Route 5 to smoke him out.”

“No one’s asking you to, Terry,” Pete replied. “None of us need to. I sure as hell don’t want to—that place gives me the spooks as much as it does anyone. He’ll turn up, sooner or later, and when he does we’ll do something about it.”

“Like what?” This was Sally Richmond speaking.

“Like escort him out of town and make sure he’s in no shape to come back. The man needs to be taught a lesson. We’ve suffered enough around here at the hands of the Tanners. We don’t need any more of them hanging around, shooting our animals, desecrating our graveyards, messing with our women.”

The chorus of angry voices rose again. “What about his grandma?” someone shouted out. “And what about Ellie?”

“Hell, Ellie would probably buy the rope,” Pete chortled. “As for Maude, she’s too far out of town to know anything till it’s over. She didn’t help that trashy daughter of hers—why should she help her grandson? No, there’s no one who’ll lift a finger to help him. We’ll take care of him, all neat and clean, and there’ll be no one to blame unless you blame all of us.”

Ellie would probably buy the rope. The words echoed in her head, sick, horrifying words. Was the town she’d loved so far gone that they’d contemplate lynching? She had to get out of here, fast, and warn Tanner. He had to keep out of town, out of sight of these trigger-happy idiots.

She ran across the street to her car, no longer caring if anyone saw her. They were making too much noise to hear her engine start up, and if her tires squealed as she raced out of town she was beyond caring. All that mattered was to get to Tanner before he walked into a trap.

Dust swirled up behind her car as she sped down the rutted dirt road. She skidded a few times, regaining control at the last minute, and almost plowed into the derelict cabin at the end of the road.

He wasn’t there. She ran through the cabin, calling him, but there was no answer. “Damn you, Tanner,” she muttered desperately, heading out around the back. She raised her voice, calling for him, and started into the dense woods that surrounded the cabin.

She didn’t get very far. The skin on the back of her neck began to prickle. She had the oddest feeling someone was watching her, someone who wished her harm. She hadn’t had that feeling in days, but there it was back again. She stopped where she was, looking around her, looking back at the cabin through the trees.

It did feel haunted. She could understand why the big brave bullies of Morey’s Falls didn’t want to venture out there to get Tanner. She didn’t know whether it was the ghosts of the Indian massacre or the restless shade of Charles Tanner, Sr. All she knew was that she didn’t want to be alone in those woods any longer.

She wouldn’t let herself run. She could hear rustlings, the stirring of the wind in the leaves, except that there wasn’t much wind. She could hear the snapping of twigs underfoot, except that she hadn’t stepped on any twigs. She looked down and saw with dawning horror the shredded remnants of cigarette butts. And she knew with a certainty that they weren’t Tanner’s.

She did run then, tripping once on the uneven terrain and sprawling in the dirt before she got to her feet and ran once more. She listened for sounds of pursuit, but her heart was pounding so loudly in her chest that she could hear nothing but the noise of her own fear. There was no one in sight when she jumped in her car and slammed and locked the door. She sat for long moments, listening to her breath come in heavy gasps, listening to her heart jerk against her rib cage. And then she turned the key and headed off to find Tanner.

She drove by Doc Barlow’s house first. There was no sign of Maude’s ancient car, but for a moment Ellie was tempted to stop. If anyone could talk sense into the townspeople, Doc could. Pete might listen if Doc were doing the talking.

She was about to pull over when she saw a flash of hot pink by the side door. Ginger was standing there, looking out, her face in a weary pout, her blond curls limp. She looked straight at Ellie, her face disconsolate.

Without conscious thought Ellie pressed down harder on the accelerator, tearing off into the hot afternoon. At that point she simply couldn’t face Ginger, face the self-satisfied smirk that had settled on her face the moment Tanner had dropped her.

Besides, she couldn’t afford to waste any more time. Tanner had to be out at Maude’s. She could call Doc from there, see if he could do anything about the madness in town. In the meantime, the safest place for Tanner was back out Route 5. There might be ghosts out there, but at least none of them came equipped with a length of rope or a Winchester rifle.

But Maude hadn’t seen him all day. It was getting on toward midafternoon by then, and even though Ellie tried to disguise the panic in her voice, Maude’s eyes darkened and her seamed face creased in worry. “You don’t think he’s in trouble, do you?” she asked, standing on her front porch and peering out over her empty acres.

“Tanner was born in trouble,” Ellie said flatly. “The townspeople, Pete Forrester in particular, are getting riled up. I wanted to warn him to keep out of their way. He’s leaving tomorrow—all he has to do is lay low until then.”

“Did he come to say goodbye?”

Ellie felt a knife of pain spear through her. “Did you tell him to?”

“I didn’t dare. I didn’t need to either, did I?” Maude looked obscurely pleased. “What did he say?”

“Goodbye,” Ellie said flatly. “He said goodbye, Maude.” She turned back to her car. “If he shows up, tell him what I said.”

“Where are you going now?”

Home, she wanted to say. She wanted to go back to the old house, pull down the shades and climb into bed. Her head was throbbing, her knee was aching, and fear was a dry taste in her mouth. “I’m going to keep looking for him.”

Maude nodded. “Call me if you don’t find him.”

“Call me if you do.”

She drove back through town, slowly, her eyes so intent that they felt dry and stinging. No sign of Maude’s big black car anywhere. The crowd at Pete’s had moved their field of operations: Bernie’s Bar and Grill, and the noise spilling from the open door in midafternoon was mixed with music. It was turning into a social event, the kind Morey’s Falls saw too seldom. Typical of them to arrange it around violence to an innocent man, Ellie thought with a twist of her mouth.

Even the Gazette was still deserted. She couldn’t quite picture Lonnie in the midst of all that violent fantasizing, but maybe he was there for a story, rather than to participate in their vigilantism. Whatever it was, it no longer mattered. Not since he’d been part of the crowd that had cornered her in Davidson’s Market, not since she’d looked into the pale-blue eyes and seen a stranger there.

She’d considered taking Shaitan and heading back up to their secluded mountain meadow, but had dismissed the idea the moment she’d had it. For one thing, she didn’t think she could bear to ride up there again. For another, if he was there, he was safe.

Besides, where was Maude’s car? Maybe she’d just missed him, maybe while she’d been avoiding the main streets of town he’d breezed right through, and the incipient mob hadn’t even noticed.

She turned back toward Route 5, hoping and praying he’d returned. But there was no car at the cabin, and this time she didn’t even bother to get out. She just skidded into reverse and tore back down the narrow road. Where in the world could he be?

She was halfway back to town when she thought of the graveyard. She had no idea whether he’d ever made it out there, but if he was saying his goodbyes it made sense that he’d say it to his father.

The Morey’s Falls cemetery was on a rolling hill at the east end of town, well beyond the town limits. It had been started in the days when the founding fathers were a little more optimistic about the future of their fair town. It made quite a trek every Sunday, when Ellie and half the town carried flowers out to the victims. She hadn’t gone the previous week. She told people she couldn’t face the telltale signs of the red paint that had been dumped over the headstones, but she lied. What she couldn’t face was one more ceremony devoted to the massacre.

The long, straight roads were empty as she drove out to the graveyard. She’d hoped she’d never have to see the place again. One last time, she promised herself grimly. One more visit to the place where she’d spent far too much of the last fifteen years, and then she’d never have to come back.

She saw the recognizable shape of Maude’s car from a distance, parked alongside the rusting iron fence that kept cattle and varmints from rooting among the graves. As she pulled up she spotted Tanner, right where she thought she’d find him, standing in the deserted corner where his father was buried.

“What do you want?” he asked. It was an unpromising opening as she ran to the iron fence. He hadn’t moved, and the afternoon shadows made his face unreadable.

She looked across the distance at Charles Tanner’s grave, frowning. It was covered with a blanket of plastic flowers, the faded colors still garish in the sun. She allowed herself a brief glance around the crowded graveyard. There were no flowers, no flags on any of the other graves, when she knew for a fact that Pete Forrester bought a new plastic memorial for his daughter every month, and Sally Richmond made sure her veteran husband’s grave always had an American flag beside it. The red paint still shone faintly on the tombstones, like blood that couldn’t be washed away.

She turned back to Tanner. There were flags heaped on top of the flowers, every flag in the place. She knew better than to ask him if he’d been the one to rearrange the cemetery ornaments.

“Has this happened before?” Her voice came out strangled, and she had to repeat her question.

“Every time I’ve been here. I put them back, haphazard, but they’re always back on my father’s grave.” His voice was distant, abstracted, and Ellie’s heart twisted inside her.

“Come out of there, Tanner,” she said, soft enough to be persuasive, loud enough to be heard.

“Why?”

“I think Pete Forrester’s getting together what looks unpleasantly like a lynch mob. At best you can hope for tar and feathers, and the only place you’ll be safe is out at the cabin. They’re still afraid of ghosts—they plan to wait until you come back into town.”

He was walking toward her, and she didn’t like the expression on his face. It was half defiance, half determination. He was looking for a fight. “Why keep them waiting?”

“Damn it, Tanner, don’t do this! If you don’t care about yourself, think about them! They’ve suffered enough. How will they survive if your death is on their hands?”

“I don’t intend to let them kill me.” He stopped a few yards away. “Is that why you came looking for me? One more act as Saint Ellie, protecting your townspeople?”

“I don’t want any more killing,” she said hopelessly.

“I don’t think you have anything to say in the matter. Nor, I expect, do most of your lynch mob. But someone around here wants more killing, and unless we find out who does, we’re going to be powerless to stop it.”

“You won’t stop it by walking into a trap.”

“Who are you worried about, Ellie? Them or me?”

“You think it’s a difficult choice?” she cried. “They’ve loved and protected me for years. All you’ve done is hurt me.”

“They’ve kept you a cloistered martyr for years,” he said ruthlessly. “I brought you alive. Them or me, Ellie?”

It was no choice at all. “You, damn it. It’s you I’m worried about.”

A slow grin began to chase the shadows from his face. “In that case,” he said, moving closer, “I’ll go back to the cabin. If you’ll…”

She felt it before she heard the sound. A stinging sensation in her upper arm, as if the world’s biggest horsefly had chosen to take a chunk out of her. A moment later she heard the whine, the thwuppp and chink as a piece of granite flew off a headstone in front of her.

She looked down at her arm. No horsefly could bite her through the flannel shirt, but the cotton was torn, and she was bleeding. She looked over at Tanner in dismay.

“I think,” she said faintly, “somebody’s shot me.”

* * * * *

Tanner doubted he’d ever moved as fast in his entire life. He crossed the last few yards of cemetery, vaulted the iron fence and had her flat on the ground well before the second shot rang out. He cradled her head beneath his arm, forcing her down, covering her as he listened for the third shot.

It didn’t come. He heard the noise of a car starting up, the screech of tires as it raced away, but he didn’t dare move. He just lay there, his arms around her slender body, listening.

It was long minutes before he dared move. He would have waited longer still, but he had no idea how badly Ellie was hurt, and he didn’t dare put off checking on it any longer.

He sat up quickly, peering around him. No one in sight, but that was no guarantee of safety. He hadn’t noticed the third car earlier. Someone must have followed Ellie out there, and the two of them had been too intent on arguing to notice.

It was the kind of mistake they couldn’t afford to make. He looked down at Ellie. It didn’t look like much more than a graze, despite the generous amounts of blood soaking into her sleeve, but her face was dead white and her eyes were wide with shock.

“Can you make it to the car?” He had to repeat the question before she acknowledged that she heard and managed a faint nod. A moment later he was up, pulling her with him as they raced across the flat ground to the car.

She tripped once, her knee giving way beneath her, but was up again a second later. He shoved her into Maude’s old car, dived after her, and had the aging vehicle on the road in seconds flat. They sped off in a cloud of dust that obscured Ellie’s abandoned car, and headed back toward the outskirts of town, back toward the cabin.

He knew he shouldn’t risk it. But he had to know, had to be certain. She was sitting huddled against the side of the car, clutching her arm, barely moving, but the bleeding seemed to have slowed. “Where was this lynch mob being formed?”

Her voice was slow, almost sleepy. “At the diner,” she mumbled. “And at the bar.”

“Typical.” Before he could have second thoughts he turned the car into town, waiting for her protests, waiting for her to lash out at him. She said nothing, huddling deeper into the car seat.

The crowds were still going strong in the center of town. There were more cars parked there than he’d seen in the time he’d been in town, and the noise from the bar spilled out into the street. Obviously they were still in the planning stages.

A deep sense of satisfaction began to spread over him as he turned the car and headed back out toward the cabin. No one even noticed Maude’s car and her renegade grandson—they were too busy getting worked up and liquored up to realize their quarry was in their midst.

He knew he should take her to Doc’s and have a professional look at the bullet graze, but he didn’t dare. Finally he had proof that someone, not his own subconscious, twisted self, was out to kill and maim. Ellie had proof in her bleeding arm, and it wasn’t that pathetic semi-mob in town.

But he couldn’t be certain that that someone wasn’t Doc. At that point there was no one he could trust, not with his life, not with Ellie’s. He’d have to count on his own considerable experience with first aid to handle her wound. He only hoped and prayed it was as slight as it appeared to be.

It seemed to take forever to get out to the end of Route 5. He kept glancing over at Ellie, terrified that she might slip into unconsciousness, that the wound might be far worse than he expected. But she kept herself upright, holding her arm tightly, staring sightlessly ahead. The bleeding had just about stopped, and he’d seen the granite fly off the headstone, so he knew the bullet wasn’t lodged somewhere in her arm.

He skidded to a stop outside the cabin, jumped out of the car and raced around to her side. She just sat there, unmoving, passive, as he gently touched her arm.

He moved her hand away, pulling at the torn cloth, and then sighed with relief. As he’d expected, it was no more than a graze, not even that deep. The bleeding had about stopped—all he had to do was wash it clean and bandage it and it should be fine.

“It’s okay, Ellie,” he said gently. “It’s only a scratch. We’ll clean it up and you’ll be all right.” He put his arms around her, planning to lift her out of the car and carry her into the cabin.

That was when she started screaming.

Chapter Twenty

The sound of Ellie’s screams was a hideous, grating noise in the afternoon stillness. She was beating at him, flailing with her arms, trying to push him away, her eyes were black pits of despair, and her mouth was open in a desperate, endless cry of horror that erased time and memory.

He tried to capture her arms, to hold her close, but in her panic she was too strong. Her arm started bleeding again, soaking through the torn shirt, and she tried to break free of his restraining hands, slapping and clawing at him, her breath rasping in her lungs. She was like a wild animal, and he knew if she could she’d break away and run into the woods surrounding the cabin, run until she dropped, and it could take precious hours to find her if she did.

Tanner shook her, and she looked up at him, her eyes wide and unseeing. He realized that she had gone back fifteen years, reliving the horror of the massacre that she’d effectively blocked out, and all he wanted to do was to put his arms around her and wipe it out again.

But she wouldn’t let him. She kicked at him, slapped at him, screaming and desperate, and he had no choice. She was going to hurt herself if she kept it up, and the longer she struggled the more she bled.

He slapped her across the face, only hard enough to shock her. The screams stopped abruptly, her eyes focused on him, and a vast shudder washed over her body. And then she collapsed against him, limp, weeping, clinging to him as if he were her only link with sanity.

This time when he scooped her up she didn’t struggle. He carried her into the cabin, setting her down on the narrow cot, and when he tried to move away, to get the first aid kit he always hiked with, she wouldn’t let him go.

“No,” she whispered, her voice raw and strained. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’ve got to take care of your arm, love,” he said gently.

She shook her head. “Don’t leave me.” And she pulled him down beside her on the narrow cot, burrowing against him like a tiny animal seeking shelter.

But it wasn’t shelter she was seeking. Her hands were on the buttons of his shirt, pulling it apart, and then on his skin. Her legs were entwined with his, her hips pressed up against him, and he could feel his arousal growing. He told himself he was an animal, but it didn’t stop his response. Suddenly he wanted her, more than he’d ever wanted anyone, he wanted to bury himself in her soft, willing body, wanted to lose himself in her, to wash away the death and horror and pain. He wanted her eyes glazed and focusing on him alone, not on some remembered tragedy. He wanted life, not death.

“Ellie,” he said hoarsely, lifting his head, trying to pull away, to regain the last tiny shreds of self-control. He couldn’t do this to her.

She put her hand up to his face. It was shaking, and there was blood on her fingertips. She pulled his head down to hers, and her mouth was waiting. And her choice was life, not death.

He tore at her clothes and she helped him, raising her hips so he could slide down her jeans and underwear and throw them across the room, lifting her head so he could pull off the bloody shirt and send it flying after her other clothes. Her own hands were just as eager, just as desperate, fumbling with the zipper on his jeans, digging into his shoulders as she pulled him over her, on top of her, into her, wrapping her legs around him and holding him tight.

No sooner had he slid into that delicious warmth when more shudders of reaction began to wash over her. He held himself still, reveling in her helpless response, and then he thrust deep, joining her in a white-hot blaze of heat that burned the past to ashes.

It wasn’t long before sanity and second thoughts set in. He lifted his head, guilt and dismay sweeping over him. Her eyes were closed, and the faint purple shadows surrounding them gave her a bruised look. Her mouth was soft, swollen, pale, and her face was blotchy with tears.

“Ellie,” he said miserably. “God, I’m sorry…”

Her eyes opened, her wonderful warm brown eyes, and they were shining up at him. She slid her hands up his back, under the shirt he still wore, and her mouth curved in a soft, tremulous smile. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Thank you’?” he echoed. “Ellie, I should never have…your arm…”

“Thank you,” she said again. She reached up, touching her mouth to his. And slowly, carefully, he deepened the kiss, until he felt the seeds of passion begin stirring within him, still within her, and felt her own rekindled response.

It was almost dark before he got around to fixing her arm. They were both weak, giddy, almost light-headed with exhaustion and relief. She sat on the side of the cot, wearing only his oversize white cotton T-shirt, and watched him attend to her wound.

“Do you know what this means?” he said, daubing her arm generously with hydrogen peroxide. She didn’t even flinch.

“You aren’t through with me after all?” she suggested brightly. “Ouch…don’t be so rough.”

“Don’t be sassy,” he grumbled. “It means that there really is someone out there. Your vigilante gang was still intact—it wasn’t one of them. It had to be the same person who’s been playing his nasty little games with everyone in town. Which means I’m not crazy or paranoid or guilty.”

“I never thought you were.”

“You were a majority of one,” he said flatly, surveying her graze with a professional eye. “We ought to get this looked at.”

“Why?” She craned her neck to peer at the angry wound. He watched her swallow once, just managing to keep her hard-won self-control intact. “You said yourself it wasn’t much more than a scrape.”

“Gunshot wounds are tricky things.”

“Then why don’t we go see Doc? Why didn’t we go straight there from the graveyard?”

He didn’t answer, just busied himself wrapping gauze around her upper arm.

“You couldn’t,” she said quietly. “You couldn’t believe Doc would be behind this?”

“He’s a logical choice.” Tanner still didn’t meet her gaze. “He was my father’s best friend, he went through Korea with him, was affected by a lot of the same things, both good and bad.”

“But why would he want to kill you?”

“Who says he did?”

“He shot at you.”

“I don’t think so, Ellie,” he said gently. “It was your car that had the brakes tampered with. I think whoever it was, was shooting at you.”

She sat utterly still for a moment. The cabin was warm, but a shiver ran over her body, and she tugged uselessly at the hem of the oversize shirt.

“My name,” she said tonelessly. “Someone carved my name in the monument at the bottom of the list of victims.”

He stared at her in shock. “When was this?”

“I found it this morning.”

“What the hell were you doing in the park this morning?”

“Trying to make up my mind whether I could miss the memorial service after all.”

“What did you decide?”

“I don’t know.” She looked up at him, her brown gaze calm. “Make me an offer I can’t refuse.”

He stared at her, wanting to pull her back into his arms, wanting to offer her everything. But he had nothing worth giving her, nothing but a lifetime of memories and a past that wouldn’t let him go.

He stood up and moved away, packing the gauze and peroxide back in their compact container, ignoring the shadow that darkened her eyes. “For that matter I don’t really think it’s Doc. But I didn’t feel I could take any chances. It wasn’t just my life I was dealing with if I was wrong.”

“Doc wouldn’t hurt me,” she said with calm assurance.

“And I would?” He didn’t know what made him say it, but say it he did.

“Of course. You already have. You wouldn’t want to, but you can’t help it.”

“Why can’t I help it?” he demanded, leaning back against the table and watching her. She should have looked small and defenseless sitting there in his oversize T-shirt. He could see the faint line of scar tissue running up her bare leg, he could see her small, soft breasts through the thin cotton. Her chestnut hair was a witch’s tangle around her narrow, freckled face, but her eyes were calm and her soft mouth curved in a rueful smile.

“You can’t help it,” she said quietly, “because I love you and you don’t love me. And when situations like that exist, people are bound to get hurt.”

He moved so fast that he didn’t have time to think about what he was doing. He squatted down in front of her, gripping her arms tightly, noting her momentary grimace of pain and ignoring it. “What the hell do you expect from me?” he demanded in a low, harsh voice. “Do you want me to deny it, to get down on one knee and promise to love you forever?”

She smiled faintly. “Yes.”

“Knowing who I am, knowing that I’ve hurt you already, knowing that I’m entirely capable of walking away when the going gets rough?”

“Yes.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Knowing that my father’s madness might hit me later on, that I might suddenly take a gun and wipe out everyone in sight?”

“That wouldn’t happen.”

“There are no guarantees in this life. Knowing that it could be hereditary, you still want me to tell you I love you?”

“Yes.”

He sat back on his heels and stared at her. “Your children would be Charles Tanner’s grandchildren.”

“They’d learn to live with it. With parents like us they’d have to be tough,” she said.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” he demanded. His hands were no longer gripping her arms, they were gentle, caressing, soothing.

“Completely,” she said. “But you won’t have me, will you?”

“Honey, I’m a fool,” he said softly. “But I’m not that big a fool.” He dropped one knee on the scarred wood floor. “I’ll take anything you want to give me, and I’ll love you forever.”

For a moment she didn’t move. She just stared at him, hope and disbelief dancing across her face. And then she put her hands on either side of his face, and her fingers were cool and trembling. “Do you mean it?”

“I’m a lot of things, Ellie. But I’m not a liar. I mean it.” He took a deep breath. “The best thing I could do for you would be to walk out of town and never look back. But I guess I’m just too selfish for that. Two weeks ago I might have been able to go without you. Not now.”

“Oh, Tanner,” she said softly, “be selfish. Take me with you. Take me.” And she melted against him, tears running down her face, her mouth damp and trembling against his as he pulled her into his arms.

* * * * *

There were no watchers that night. Ellie didn’t know why she was so certain, but as she alternately slept and woke in Tanner’s arms she knew that no eyes were peering in the empty windows, no cigarettes were being furtively smoked and crumpled out in the scrubby woods beyond the cabin.

She woke to the smell of frying bacon and coffee. She had a thin cotton blanket wrapped around her and nothing else, and she felt aching, bruised and absolutely glorious.

“How do you like your eggs?” Tanner was standing over the camp stove, wearing jeans and nothing more, and water glistened in this thick blond hair and on his tanned, muscled chest.

Ellie sighed luxuriously. “Cooked. What I’d rather have is a bath.”

“There’s a dammed-up pool to the left of the cabin. Be my guest.” He went back to humming softly under his breath as he deftly turned the bacon.

She pulled herself out of bed, her muscles groaning in protest, and wrapped the blanket around her. She edged over to him, leaning against his back, pressing against him. “I don’t suppose I can talk you into joining me?”

He turned, sliding his arms around her, sliding the blanket around them both. “You’re insatiable, woman,” he muttered, kissing her, a slow, deep, possessive kiss. “But I’ve got bacon to fry and coffee to make, and if I join you in the water we’ll never make it out of here.”

“Where are we going?”

“New Mexico.” There was the hint of a question in his voice, but Ellie merely smiled.

“Sounds good to me. Can we make it to the Montana border before the memorial service starts?”

“If you stop dawdling,” he said, giving her a gentle shove.

Ellie didn’t take long at all. For one thing, the water was icy cold, still chilled by the spring runoff higher up in the mountains. For another, the smell of bacon and coffee was too enticing to bear. If she’d had any hope that Tanner would give in and join her she would have waited, but the water was too cold and Tanner was too stubborn. Maybe the mountains of New Mexico would have warmer ponds.

It was lucky she’d wrapped the blanket back around her chilled, wet body. It would have been luckier still if she’d thought to take her abandoned clothes with her. They were probably still strewn all over the floor of the cabin where Tanner had tossed them. Doc’s pickup truck was now parked next to Maude’s old car, and some kindly soul had also driven back her own Buick. That meant two drivers, two people intruding in their all-too-brief idyll.

There was no help for it. She tossed one corner of the blanket over her shoulder, wearing it like a toga, shoved her damp hair back from her face, and walked in the door.

Tanner had that wary look on his face that she’d seen too often. She could guess what Doc had been telling him, urging him to let her go, and for a moment she was terribly afraid that Tanner might have listened.

He heard her, though she’d scarcely made a sound, and he raised his head, his eyes meeting hers. And then he smiled, a clean, beautiful smile, and Ellie’s fears left her.

“My, my,” Ginger said from her perch on Tanner’s narrow bed. “Don’t you look different!”

“They brought your car back,” Tanner said unnecessarily, his voice giving nothing away as he handed her a cup of coffee. She took a grateful sip of it, controlling the urge to spit it out again. The first thing she’d do when they got to New Mexico was to teach him to make a decent cup of coffee.

“That was very kind of you,” she said, shifting the blanket higher. Her clothes were still strewn all over the floor, and she waited for the familiar blush to stain her cheeks. It didn’t come, and that small triumph strengthened her.

“That’s not all,” Doc said uneasily, looking from Tanner to Ellie. “There was more trouble last night.”

“What was it this time?” Resignation and fear echoed in her voice.

“Blood,” Ginger said succinctly. “Blood on people’s porches when they got up this morning. Everyone who had kin murdered by this man’s father had a nasty little calling card.”

“It was probably cattle blood,” Doc said hastily. “Dave Martin’s looking into it.”

“Well, then, there’s nothing to worry about,” Tanner said cynically. “If Morey’s Falls’s finest is on the case then everything’s well in hand.”

“Shut up, Tanner,” Ellie said calmly.

“Did you still want a ride to the ceremony this afternoon, Ellie?” Doc asked. He was trying to keep disapproval out of his voice, but Ellie had known him too well and too long not to see that she’d shocked him. The knowledge saddened her, but not enough to make her regret one moment.

“I’m not going,” she said quietly, wishing she could spare him, knowing she couldn’t.

“Not going? Ellie, everyone’s counting on you,” he protested. “You know how important you are to this town, you know what you mean to everyone.”

“She’s not going,” Tanner said. “She knows what she means to this town, and it’s too much.”

“I don’t think I’d be wanted, Doc.” She kept her voice gentle, placating.

“Because of Tanner?”

“And because of me. I just help them live in the past. They have to learn to look forward, Doc. You know that as well as I do.”

Doc’s face creased in frustration, and he felt in his breast pocket for the cigarettes he no longer carried. He looked toward Tanner for a moment, then back again. It was clear he wasn’t going to ask Tanner for one blessed thing.

“Can we talk, Ellie?” he asked in deep concern.

“We’re talking.”

“I mean alone.”

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” Tanner said at the same time.

“But I don’t want…” Ellie protested.

Tanner had already pulled her to one side. “Don’t you trust yourself?” he asked in an undertone.

“Of course.”

“Then let them try to talk you out of it,” he said. “I have to go return Maude’s car and say goodbye to her. And we’ll need to make arrangements for the horses. Why don’t you meet me out there in about an hour? That should give them long enough to make you see reason.”

“I’m not a reasonable person,” she said stubbornly.

He grinned. “Don’t I know it?” Leaning down, he brushed his mouth against hers, pulling back when she would have deepened the kiss. “One hour,” he said, grabbing his shirt and heading for the door. He didn’t say a word to his unwelcome visitors.

She stood there, listening to the sound of the car as he drove it away, and then she drained her cup of coffee. She’d known Doc and Ginger all her life, and she was about to do something they’d never forgive. But if she didn’t, she’d never forgive herself. She’d lived the last fifteen years for other people—now it was time to live for herself.

With matter-of-fact grace she began to pick up her discarded clothes from the cabin floor. “Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll listen.”

“Ellie, do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Doc demanded, his voice harsh with repressed emotion. “What the hell is going on with you two?”

A small, secret smile lit Ellie’s face. “You’re too young to know, Doc.”

He waved his hand in a gesture of disgust. “Ellie, he’s no good for you. He won’t offer you any future. In another few days, a few weeks at the most, he’ll be gone, and you’ll be left with the people you turned your back on.”

“He’s leaving today,” Ellie said. “And I’m going with him.”

She’d never realized how old Doc was until that moment. His face was gray, ashen, his features sunken, the leathery skin sagging. He looked old and tired and beaten, and a small, loving voice inside Ellie cried out in pain for him and for all he’d been and done for her.

He simply looked at her. “I guess it’s settled then,” he said finally. “You’re not going to listen to common sense.”

“No, I’m not. I’ve been sensible for more than thirty years, and that’s more than enough for one lifetime. I’m going to do something foolish, and I bet it’s going to turn out to be the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Don’t count on it,” Ginger drawled, still sprawled on the bed. “What do you two know about each other? Not a damned thing. Take it from an expert—hormones can only carry you so far before reality sets in and you find you’re trapped.”

Beneath Ginger’s cynicism and jealousy Ellie could detect the hidden stirrings of real concern, and she made a final attempt to explain. “Sometimes you’ve got to trust your instincts, Ginger. I know this is right. There are too many things against it for it to be anything but right.”

“What about Tanner?”

Ellie couldn’t help the wistful smile that lit her face. “I think he’s been around long enough to know what he wants. God bless him, he wants me.”

The two Barlows didn’t move for a long moment. Then Ginger rose, slowly, languidly crossing the room until she stood by Ellie. Suddenly she put her arms around Ellie’s smaller figure, hugging her tightly. “Then take care of each other,” she muttered. “And tell him if he hurts you I’ll kill him.”

As quickly as the moment came, it passed. She pushed Ellie away and strode out of the cabin. “I’ll be waiting in the truck,” she called over her shoulder.

Doc nodded absently. His eyes were so weary, so sad. “You’re sure you know what you’re doing, Ellie? You’ve been like another daughter to me.” For some reason his voice stumbled over the words. “I hate to see you ruining your life.”

Ellie nodded. “I’m not ruining it, Doc. I’m saving it.”

There were no last-minute hugs from Doc. He just stood there, halfway across the room, resignation and something else in his body. “I’ll tell them at the memorial service.”

“Tell them I’ve gone with Tanner, Doc. Don’t let them have any illusions.”

“I’ll tell them. You’re not doing this as an act of rebellion…?” At Ellie’s dreamy smile his words trailed off. “No, I suppose you’re not.”

“Be careful, Doc,” she said.

“Of what?”

“I don’t know,” she said. The sheet was covering her bandaged arm, and only for a moment did she consider showing it to him. Tanner was right, they couldn’t trust anyone. There was something about Doc she didn’t understand, hadn’t recognized before. She didn’t think it was violence or anger, it seemed to be composed more of sorrow and disappointment, but she couldn’t be sure. “Just watch out. Tanner hasn’t been behind the incidents that have been plaguing Morey’s Falls.”

“Which means that someone else has?”

Ellie nodded. “Just keep your eye out, okay?”

The gaze behind the horn-rimmed glasses looked back into the hazy, blood-soaked past, and a shudder of remembrance shook his body. “I’ll watch,” he promised. “Goodbye, Ellie. God bless you.”

“Aren’t you going to kiss me goodbye?” she cried forlornly.

A smile crept beneath Doc’s thick mustache as he shook his head. “Nope. Ask Tanner why not. Maybe he’ll tell you.”

And without another word he was gone.

Ellie stood in the center of the room and listened to the old pickup truck lumber off down the road. With an economy of motion she pulled on her clothes, ignoring the pain in her arm, ignoring the stiffness in her knee. If she hurried she’d have time to straighten everything up before she went to get Tanner. The first thing she’d do would be to pour out that hideous coffee, maybe even ditch the battered coffee pot that made such a bitter brew.

She didn’t hear the sound of the car, but then, BMWs ran very quietly. She didn’t hear the footsteps on the grass, but then, the stalker was used to moving silently. She didn’t hear anything until the horrifying, familiar telltale click of the gun behind her.

She shut her eyes tightly, willing it to be a dream. But she knew it wasn’t. She could feel the presence behind her, the eyes that had watched her, the creature that had hidden beneath windows and waited. Slowly she turned and looked into Lonnie Olafson’s mad blue eyes.

Chapter Twenty-one

Everything inside her crystallized into icy fear as she stared into the eyes of the man she’d once thought she might be able to love. He was wearing an old army uniform—she’d seen enough M*A *S*H episodes to know it came from the Korean War. The weapon in his hand was just as old. She didn’t know much about guns; she’d deliberately avoided all knowledge of them, but even in her ignorance she recognized what was probably an M-l rifle. She shut her eyes for a brief moment. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live, with Tanner. She didn’t want to repeat the nightmare that had haunted her for fifteen years. She’d survived the first time—she doubted she’d be lucky enough to make it the second time around.

She opened her eyes, forcing a gentle smile to her stiff face. “Hi, Lonnie,” she said softly.

“Hi, Ellie.” His voice was the same, slightly high-pitched, but his eyes were blinking rapidly behind the clear-rimmed glasses, and the gun trembled imperceptibly in his hands. “Where’s he gone to?”

She didn’t waste time asking who. “Tanner’s gone to Addie’s for cigarettes,” she said. “He’ll be right back.”

“You’re lying, Ellie.” His voice was sorrowful. “Tanner stopped smoking two weeks ago. After he spent the night with you up on the mountain. He wouldn’t have gone for cigarettes.”

“But he wasn’t seeing me for two weeks, either. I think I bring out the smoker in him.”  She was still holding the pot of coffee. If she threw it at him the hot liquid might scald him enough to make him drop the gun. It would give her a running chance to get to her car.

“Put the coffee down, Ellie,” he said. “I’m not ready to shoot you yet, but I won’t be picky if you don’t do as I say. And don’t bother thinking about running. I’ve gotten very good with a rifle in the last few years. People don’t realize, they think I’m just Poor Lonnie, who can never do anything right. They don’t know I’ve been practicing, for hours and hours. I can hit anything I want.”

She took a deep breath and set the coffee pot down. “So why did you miss yesterday?”

He didn’t bother to deny it. “I didn’t want to kill you. I wanted to warn you, to give you one last chance to get away from him.”

“When did you carve my name on the monument?”

He laughed, the sound soft and eerily familiar in the quiet morning air. This was Lonnie, whom she’d laughed with, joked with, grown up with, almost made love with. This was Poor Lonnie, poor mad Lonnie, and she was going to die.

“I did that more than a week ago. I wondered how long it was going to take you to find it. I was afraid you were going to miss it entirely.”

“I would have seen it today when they unveiled the monument,” she said.

He laughed again. “No, I don’t think so. Of course, I haven’t made up my mind, but I don’t think I’ll wait for the unveiling.”

“Wait for what, Lonnie?” But she already knew the answer. “To take my place in history,” he said simply. “I’m not going to be Poor Lonnie any more. I’ve watched, you know. I’ve watched all these years, when the most important person in this town was Charles Tanner. In a few short minutes he changed the lives of everyone around here. He’ll never be forgotten. They still bring him up on the national news whenever there’s a new killing. People don’t forget, they sit up and take notice.”

“Yes, they do,” she said carefully. She was close enough to the coffee pot to grab it again. Tanner hadn’t been gone more than forty-five minutes. He wouldn’t start to worry for at least half an hour, maybe more. He wouldn’t come in time to save her, but at least he wouldn’t walk into a trap.

“Even Tanner,” he continued, his voice aggrieved. “Do you think anyone would have paid any attention to him if it weren’t for his father? He’d be wandering around here, being Poor Tanner, if it weren’t for what his father did.”

“Do you really think so?” She meant to keep the question light, to keep him talking, but his eyes narrowed and the gun swung angrily in her direction.

“I suppose you think it’s because he’s something special. All the women in town are panting after him. Even you couldn’t wait. You had to soil your body with filth like him, when you’d been keeping yourself for me. I know you had. You would have been mine, too, years ago, if I hadn’t changed my mind and decided to wait.”

That wasn’t the way Ellie remembered that embarrassing night. She remembered Lonnie’s tears, his vain attempts, and sorrow swept through her.

“I’m sorry, Lonnie,” she said gently.

“You’re no better than the rest of them. You’re trash, falling for a no-good drifter like Tanner, for the son of a killer…”

“I thought you admired Charles Tanner,” she interrupted him, no longer able to bear the hideous words that were tumbling from his mouth. “I thought you wanted to be like him.”

“I’m going to make Charles Tanner look like an amateur. When I’m finished everyone in this country will remember the name of Lonnie Olafson.”

“I think they will anyway, Lonnie. You don’t have to kill anyone to do it.” Her voice was eminently reasonable, but Lonnie was beyond reason.

“You don’t understand!” he cried, and he sounded like a petulant teenager. “I told you, I have to do it. And you’re the first. I want you to move away from the stove.”

“Why? You can shoot me here as well as anywhere,” she said calmly.

“I don’t want to. I think I want to tie you to the chair and shoot you then,” he said, his voice dreamy. “Yes, that’s what I want to do. When I’m finished with you I’ll go on into town and wait for the ceremony to begin.” He gestured with the rifle. “The chair, Ellie. I’m getting impatient.”

She moved, slowly, so as not to alarm him, and sat down on the rickety seat. He set the gun down, and once more she considered trying to run for it. He followed her gaze, and giggled.

“Don’t bother, Ellie. I took the keys to your car, and I’m a good shot. I don’t want to shoot you in the back, but I will if I have to. Sit still and let me tie you.”

She tried to struggle, but Lonnie, weak, useless Lonnie who’d never done a day’s worth of manual labor in his life, was far too strong. The ropes cut into her wrists and ankles, and she was trapped, helpless.

“Now,” said Lonnie, perching on the table and pouring himself a cup of Tanner’s horrible coffee. “I want you to tell me about it.”

She eyed him warily, still afraid to display any of the hostility that might ignite the smoldering violence lurking beneath his nervous exterior. “Tell you about what?”

“About what he did to you,” he said, his voice low and excited. “I want to hear everything. Where he touched you, what he did to you. Everything.”

“No, Lonnie.”

“Tell me!” he screamed. “I know he had you. All I had to do was look at your face that day and know you betrayed me!” The muzzle of the gun was up against her throat. “You’ll tell me,” Lonnie said. “I’ve got plenty of time before I get in place.”

“In place? Where are you going to be during the ceremony?” Knowing probably wouldn’t help—it didn’t seem likely that Lonnie would give her any chance to warn somebody, but she needed to ask.

He didn’t move the gun. “Exactly where Charles Tanner stood. On the roof of the Gazette building. There’s a wonderful view there, and no obstructions.”

“You’ll be there, waiting?”

“I’ll be there. You, however, will already be dead.” He nudged her lightly with the gun. “Are you going to make it hard or easy, Ellie? I want you to tell me what it was like to bed Charles Tanner’s son.”

A blast of white-hot rage suddenly raced through Ellie’s trussed-up body. Fury washed over her as she faced her tormentor, fury and a reckless abandon. Too many men had taken guns to prove their manhood, and now another one was facing her. She no longer cared what he did to her; she had to fight back.

“All I’ll tell you,” she said, “is that he could do it and you couldn’t.”

She was unprepared for his reaction. Lonnie burst into tears, his handsome face turning red as his narrow shoulders shook beneath the old army uniform. “No,” he wept, sinking down on the floor. “No, no, no.”

If only she’d put up more of a fight earlier, she thought regretfully. He was so absorbed in his misery that if she weren’t tied to the chair she could walk right by him and he wouldn’t notice.

“Lonnie,” she said gently, when the storm of weeping had abated somewhat. “You don’t want to hurt me. Untie me. We’ll get help for you.”

He looked up then, the tears vanishing, and his mouth curved in a sudden crafty smile. “You’re wrong, Ellie” he said. “I don’t need help. And I do want to hurt you. Very much.”

Lonnie was staring at her, a bemused expression on his face. Suddenly he pulled back the gun. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said abruptly.

“You’ll untie me?”

“Oh, no. You’re going to stay right here. But I’m not going to shoot you. I’m going to let you live. Another survival, Ellie, with everyone you love dead around you. I think that would be even nicer, don’t you think? I’ll just leave you here to wonder if I found your lover. I think I have enough time to stop by Maude’s house. Even if Tanner’s not there, Maude will be. And you know I’ll find the rest of the people in the town.”

He leaned over and kissed her on the lips, a light, gentle touch, like that of a sixteen-year-old on his first date. His breath smelled like toothpaste, his hair like shampoo, his skin like Lifebuoy and dried sweat. “Goodbye, Ellie,” he said gently.

She sat there, disbelieving, as she heard his car drive away. And then she began to struggle.

He’d been much too clever for her. The ropes were so tight they cut off the circulation to her hands and feet. If she’d only had her wits about her she might have done something. She’d read enough books, seen enough movies. Weren’t there ways she could have held her wrists, so that tight bonds loosened?

Well, she’d been too scared, and now wasn’t the time to worry about lost opportunities. She had no idea what time it was—probably sometime around noon. The ceremony was scheduled for one o’clock, more than enough time for Lonnie to take his place on the roof of the Gazette building. And he was absolutely right, the worst thing he could do to her was leave her as a survivor once more. Particularly if he killed Tanner.

She looked around her in desperation, searching for something to cut her bonds. Nothing looked promising—the only possibility might be if she managed to break the heavy earthenware coffee mug on the rickety table.

He’d tied her ankles to the chair legs, twisting her knee just enough to make each move agonizingly painful. Ellie ignored it, jerking and yanking the chair after her as she edged across the room. When she got within reach of the table she set her jaw, shut her eyes, and deliberately toppled over against it.

She landed with a crash on the rough flooring, the table beneath her, the still-hot coffee drenching her, the cook stove crumpled, and the mug still intact. Ellie had no time for pain, no time for recriminations. Ignoring the scaring pain in her arm from her reopened bullet graze, she hunched along the floor, the chair still an unwanted hitchhiker, and picked up the mug in her teeth.

She wasn’t able to hurl it with much force, and the miserable thing bounced. No wonder Tanner carried it with him on the trail. It was completely indestructible.

But she wasn’t going to give up. Damn it, she couldn’t. It didn’t matter if Lonnie had taken her car keys, she could run, she could crawl, she could make it into town if she had to drag herself. But she didn’t think she could make it with the chair still clinging to her.

She allowed herself two minutes of furious, impotent tears before heading toward the mug again. She’d thrown it too far, and each scrunching, sideways move across the rough plank flooring drove splinters into her skin.

This time she heard the sound of the car down the deserted gravel road. She stopped, just within reach of the coffee mug, and held her breath. It had to be one of two people: Tanner or Lonnie.

Even though the last few minutes had seemed eternity, Ellie knew full well that not much time had elapsed since Tanner had left for Maude’s house. Not enough for him to start to worry, to come back to check on her.

That left Lonnie. He must have changed his mind, decided to use his M-l rifle on her first. She lay there, listening for the sound of the car door opening, for footsteps on the path, and shut her eyes.

“Ellie!” It was Tanner, Tanner beside her, his hands freeing her, holding her, soothing her, his voice murmuring endearments and savage threats and words of love all tangled into an incomprehensibly reassuring monologue.

She allowed herself only a moment of comfort before she withdrew from the shelter of his arms. “We’ve got to stop him,” she said fiercely. “He’s going to kill everyone.”

“Lonnie?”

“How did you know?” She rubbed her ankles briskly. In the few minutes she’d been tied the rope had burned deep scores into her pale skin, and her feet were numb.

“Part animal instinct, part logic,” Tanner said, pulling her upright, holding her again when she swayed against him. “I think having me show up was the final straw for him.”

“I don’t know. It sounded as if he’s been planning this for years. He would have cracked sooner or later.”

“And this time I’m here to stop it,” Tanner said grimly. “Where’s he gone?”

“He said he was going to wait on the roof of the Gazette building and open fire during the ceremony.”

“The ceremony starts at one, and it’s a little after twelve-thirty. We don’t have much time, Ellie.”

“Let’s go.”

“I think you should stay here.”

“Why?” she demanded:

He reached out, taking a moment to frame her face with his long, hard hands. “Because I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop him in time. And I don’t want you to be in the line of fire, and I don’t want you to have to watch anyone shot ever again.”

She covered his hands with her own. “I have to, Tanner. Don’t you see, if we can stop him, it will somehow balance out what happened fifteen years ago. If we can keep it from happening again then the town has a chance of recovering.”

“Forget the town. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“There won’t be any future for me if it happens again,” she said bleakly. “Lonnie knew that—that’s why he didn’t bother to shoot me. If you go to stop him and fail, that means he’ll kill you, too. And there’s no life at all for me without you.”

He stared down at her for a long moment. And then he kissed her, long and hard and deep, sweeping her into his arms and holding her.

When he released her they were both breathless. “All right,” he said. “But keep down. And that goes for me too, you know. There’d be no life for me without you.”

* * * * *

The town of Morey’s Falls was mobbed. People had come from all the neighboring towns, the state and even some of the national media were out in full force, and the smell of roasting chicken hit Ellie’s stomach like a fist. Amid all the out-of-state cars it was hard to find Lonnie’s BMW, and when they finally discovered it abandoned in front of Pete’s Fireside Cafe the digital clock on the Morey’s Falls Bank and Trust read twelve-fifty-three—and eighty-five degrees.

Tanner slammed Maude’s old car to a halt behind the BMW. “Stay put,” he ordered. “He might be nearby.”

“The hell I will.” She’d already reached for the door handle when he leaned over and yanked her back.

“Stay put,” he said again. “Or I’ll drive you out of here and let the town of Morey’s Falls fend for itself.”

She knew he meant it. “All right,” she said. “But let me at least show you the back way up to the roof.”

“There’s no need. He’s not up there,” Tanner said flatly.

“How do you know?”

“See for yourself.”

Ellie peered out the windshield at the crowded park. A stage had been set up behind the draped monument, and a row of chairs held the town dignitaries. Doc was sitting there, dressed up and uncomfortable looking. The town council was firmly in place, and her own seat was empty. Beside it sat Lonnie Olafson, a raincoat covering his army uniform, a small package on his lap.

If people thought a man wearing a raincoat on a sunny warm day was slightly strange, they had other things occupying their minds. Ellie wanted to scream at them, but no sound came. “He doesn’t have the gun with him,” she said hoarsely. “Whatever it is he’s carrying, it’s too small to be a rifle.”

“An Uzi would fit very nicely in that box,” Tanner said grimly.

“An Uzi?”

“A very small, very deadly machine gun. He’ll make my father look like a piker if he gets a chance to set off that thing in this crowd.”

“Maybe it’s not...”

“You want to take any chances?” he countered.

“No,” said Ellie. “What are we going to do? There’s no way to sneak up behind them. If he sees you he’s bound to open fire.”

“I know.” His voice was flat, hopeless.

Ellie shivered in the hot air. “Then he’s going to have to be distracted.”

“No, Ellie.”

“Yes. He tried to shoot me before and he couldn’t. I don’t think he could now.”

“I’m not willing to take that chance,” said Tanner.

“If I draw his attention,” she continued, ignoring him, “you could sneak up on the other side.”

“No, Ellie,” he said again, reaching for the ignition.

It took just the time she needed. “Yes, Tanner.” And she was out of the car and heading for the park before he could grab her.

She didn’t dare look behind her. If she did she might alert Lonnie that there were two of them. She crossed the street, ignoring the traffic, ignoring the squeal of tires and angry shouts of the tourists, and stepped into the crowded town park.

At first no one noticed her. The coffee had dried on her pants, the fresh blood had caked on her sleeve. She knew she looked bruised, dirty and desperate, and she didn’t care. Fastening her gaze on Lonnie’s abstracted face, she headed for the stage.

People began to move aside for her. She could hear the murmur of conversation, the rumble of curiosity and hostility as she made her way toward the monolith. Suddenly Lonnie looked up, straight into her eyes, and his face paled.

His hands twitched, clutching the package, as he stared at her. His mouth was dry, and he licked his lips, watching, waiting, his hands reaching into the rumpled paper bag.

Her knee was throbbing, her body covered in a cold sweat, and still she moved ahead. The crowds around her began to quiet as they sensed something was going on. Finally there was only a hum of conversation, a final, stray laugh, and then absolute silence as Ellie neared the crude wooden platform.

As if in slow motion Lonnie rose. For a moment Ellie wondered whether Tanner had followed, or whether he’d started the car and driven away, leaving the town to their no doubt well-deserved fate. She watched Lonnie move toward her as if mesmerized, the raincoat falling open and revealing the old uniform, his hands deep inside the paperbag, pulling out something compact and metal and hideously deadly.

Tanner exploded across the stage with the grace and power of a hawk diving for his prey. Lonnie went down beneath him, the wicked gun flew out of his hands and went skidding across the stage to land at Doc’s feet, and the crowd erupted in noise and confusion.

She had expected more of a battle. Lonnie collapsed beneath Tanner’s body, weeping, kicking his feet like an angry child, sobbing and howling with frustrated rage. His screams of impotent fury were all too clear to the watching crowd, and as the reality of what they’d just been spared sank in, horror grew.

When Dave Martin finally appeared with two state police Lonnie was no threat to anyone. Tanner rolled off him, twisting Lonnie’s arm up behind his back to keep him docile, but there was no fight left in him. All he could do was weep.

Ellie stood at the edge of the stage, ignoring the noise and questions around her, ignoring the shivers that were still wracking her body, ignoring the hot, sweet dizziness of relief that threatened to collapse her legs beneath her. All she could see was Tanner.

He stood there, watching, as Dave and his men led Lonnie away. Doc was with them, talking in a low, soothing voice, and after a moment Tanner turned back, his eyes searching for her.

Pete Forrester was advancing on him, his burly arm outstretched in a welcoming handshake. Tanner didn’t even spare him a glance. He leaped off the stage, pulling Ellie into his arms, sheltering her trembling body against his, pushing her face into the protection of his shoulder, holding her. They stood like that, wrapped in each other’s arms, as the noise and crowds faded away, and there were only the two of them, healing each other.

* * * * *

“This town has a heap of healing to do,” said Maude. “Maybe now we can get on with it.”

It was early evening. The shadows were beginning to lengthen on that endless Fourth of July, but the sun wouldn’t set until after ten o’clock, and Tanner and Ellie had plenty of time left. All the time in the world.

They were sitting side by side on Maude’s porch swing, looking out over the landscape, the wide grasslands leading to the foothills, up into the jagged mountains where they’d first met.

“You think they have a chance?” Ellie questioned.

“I think so,” Maude said. “But then, I’m an optimist. I always think there’s hope. Even for poor Lonnie. The state hospital’s the best place for him. Someplace where he can’t hurt anybody.”

“If Pete Forrester can thank Tanner,” Ellie murmured, “then anything can happen.”

“Did he really?”

“He did,” Tanner said. “He told me I was welcome in his place anytime. I told him the best thing Ellie and I could do for Morey’s Falls was to get the hell out and never come back.”

“Never?” Maude’s voice quavered.

“Never,” Ellie echoed. “You’ll have to stir yourself and come visit us, Maude. Your great-grandchildren are going to grow up in New Mexico.”

“So is that devil horse of yours,” she snorted, looking pleased at the thought of progeny. “You sure you don’t want to wait and take him yourself?”

“Rafael Maderos will do a fine job bringing the horses down to us,” Tanner said. “I practically grew up with him, and I’d trust him with my life. More important, I’d trust him with my horses. Besides, he’ll be the one to drive you down to visit too; you might as well get used to him. And admit it, you’re going to miss Shaitan.”

“I’m going to miss you and Ellie, period,” she said flatly. “Poor Lonnie,” she added, for what was probably the twentieth time. “I’ll go bring us some more coffee.” The screen door bounced shut behind her spry figure.

“Poor Lonnie,” Ellie agreed. “I guess he just wanted someone to pay attention to him.”

“He’s got that all right,” Tanner said. “He’ll get all the attention and help he needs—the kind my father could have used.” There was no bitterness in his voice, only acceptance. Ellie looked over at him and smiled. The past had finally begun to release its stranglehold, on him, on her.

“You sure you’re not marrying me for my horses?” she asked lightly.

“Who said anything about marriage, woman?” he mocked.

“My children are going to be named Tanner,” she said firmly. “And the next time you get the urge to go walking, I’m going with you.”

“What about your leg?”

She grimaced. “You know as well as I do that once I’m away from Morey’s Falls I’ll hardly notice it. Don’t worry, I’ll be able to keep up with you.”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’m going to need to be doing too much walking in the future,” he murmured, taking her hand and caressing the rope burns that still lingered on her narrow wrist. “Not if you’re certain you know what you’re doing.” The levity was gone from his voice, and his eyes were no longer icy as the north wind, they were the soft gray-blue of the fragrant sage around them.

“I’m certain,” she said. And she moved into his arms with the grace and sureness of the sun moving across the wide blue Montana sky, knowing she was home at last.

Chapter Twenty-two

Spring came early to the Sangre de Cristo mountains. The sky, surely as big and as blue as Montana’s fabled sky, was cloudless, bright and sunny, and the acres and acres of land surrounding the Walking Horse Ranch blossomed with the promise of the new season.

Ellie leaned back in the wicker rocker and propped her bare feet on the porch railing. Wiggling her toes in the early-morning sunlight, she contemplated the last ten months. Instead of the adobe house she’d expected, she’d discovered a Texas-style ranch house. Instead of a frail, dying old man she’d found Alfred, still full of vinegar, determined to fight his way back from the last debilitating stroke and welcome Tanner’s new wife properly. He’d done it, and they’d had a good, happy six months as a family before he’d died, peacefully enough in his sleep on New Year’s Day.

Tanner had had no need to marry her for Shaitan. His breeding stock was fully Shaitan’s equal, and if neither of Tanner’s stallions had a glorious black coat or quite the imposing height of Ellie’s horse, their temperaments were a decided improvement.

She wished she could say the same thing for Tanner. She’d seen it coming for the past two months, the faraway look in his eyes, the abstraction, the distance she couldn’t seem to bridge. Something was calling him, something she couldn’t fight, and she was trying her hardest to resign herself to his going.

The ranch would be fine. Even without Alfred, the place was so well-organized that it ran like clockwork. Rafael knew as much about horses as Tanner did, and the others were equally adept. It hadn’t taken Ellie long to take over the book work, and she knew she was more than capable of making any executive decisions that needed to be made while Tanner walked.

He hadn’t said a word to her yet, but then, he didn’t need to. She knew him well, knew the worst thing she could do was try to hold him back. If she fought it, if she tried to tie him to her, someday he’d walk away and never come back. If she let him go with loving hands, he’d always return to her.

The last thing he needed to hear at that moment was that she was going to have a baby. It would be one more thing pulling on him, one more thing holding him back. He wasn’t ready for fatherhood, he’d told her at Christmas when she’d asked if they could try to have a child. He wasn’t ready to face Charles Tanner’s grandchild, not quite yet. Maybe never.

Would he blame her when he found out? It hadn’t been her fault. They’d been in the barn, alone one evening, when he’d picked her up and tossed her into the hayloft, falling after her, dismissing her word of caution. If nothing had happened in Montana, surely they’d be safe this one last time.

They weren’t. And her fault or not, she couldn’t tell him. She could only touch her still-flat stomach and try to contain the strange mixture of fear and elation that swept over her at the very thought.

The coffee beside her had grown cool and oily. Apparently everyone at the ranch liked coffee that resembled paint thinner, and Ellie had learned to tolerate it. But with her stomach just the tiniest bit hesitant, she couldn’t drink much anymore.

The sun was climbing higher in the sky. Rafael’s portly wife would be dishing up breakfast before long, and it was time for Ellie to stir her indolent body. She should be in giving Melora a hand, but couldn’t resist stealing the last few moments of peace in her busy day. She cherished the early morning, with the men busy down at the barn, the smells of breakfast from the big ranch kitchen, the slowly brightening sky.

Tanner was walking up alone from the barn. She watched him approach, and once more felt the familiar clutching deep inside her, a bittersweet feeling of longing and resignation.

His hat was down low as he crossed the flat stretch of ground, but he knew she was there, watching him. There was something different about that rangy walk of his, a new ease and determination. And Ellie steeled herself for the worst.

The old porch creaked as he climbed the front steps. He usually went in the kitchen door with the other men, to wash up in the big sink out back, but today was different. He wasn’t wearing his barn boots either. He was wearing hiking shoes.

She couldn’t bring herself to look up at him. If she did she’d cry. She looked out over the peaceful setting, the early-morning sky, and waited.

He put his hand on her shoulder, the weight of it heavy and solid, and she leaned her cheek against his hand. “When are you going?” she asked quietly.

“Now.”

She couldn’t help the little spasm of pain that swept through her, and his fingers tightened on her shoulder. “Okay,” she said, and pressed her lips against the back of his hand.

“I’ll be back, you know,” His voice sounded tight, strained, as if he were the one in pain.

She looked up at him then, knowing there were tears swimming in her eyes, looked up anyway and smiled. “I know,” she said.

* * * * *

The end of April slipped quietly into May, and the mountains came alive with spring. Ellie passed the third month mark in her pregnancy with a sigh of relief, turning her concentration to the new generation of foals being born at the Walking Horse Ranch. Shaitan was about to become a father for the first time, and Ellie viewed the event with almost as much trepidation as she did her own upcoming parenthood. The mare, Alfred’s Folly, had refused to be covered by any stallion until she’d seen Shaitan, and Rafael had doubts about her qualifications as a mother.

Ellie had no such doubts. Alfred’s Folly, so named because of her refusal to breed, would be a fine mother. Whether she’d ever let another stallion near her was a different matter, and Shaitan was being absurdly possessive, but it wasn’t worth worrying about for now.

May turned into June, and the days grew blazingly hot. Ellie told herself she was too busy to miss Tanner, and she knew she lied. She was tired and lonely, and she sat behind the big old mission oak desk in the ranch office and thought longingly of Montana, of the hidden meadow and the cool weather.

And then she remembered the town monument, the anger and paranoia and pain and death that had haunted the town for so long. According to Maude’s letters, things were improving. The Gazette had been taken over by a young couple with two kids, Pete Forrester had stopped haunting the graveyard, and there was even some talk of a ski area being built less than twenty miles away. While it might hurt the land, it would bring jobs and people into the area, and Ellie could only be glad.

Even Lonnie was slowly improving. For six months he’d sat in the state hospital and spoken not a word. Now he was talking, working things out. Whether he’d ever be well enough to live a normal life was still up in the air, but Ellie, remembering the good years, remembering the real sweetness that lay beneath the anger and madness, could only hope so.

She hadn’t told Maude that Tanner had left, but she knew she couldn’t put it off much longer. Maude was itching to visit, demanding to know when she was going to be a great-grandmother, wanting to know what was going on in New Mexico. Morey’s Falls was boring nowadays, she wrote. Even Ginger Barlow had settled down, marrying a meat salesman and becoming downright domestic. Doc hadn’t been feeling too chipper lately, but there was a new widow in town, one who seemed to think she was just what he needed, and maybe there’d be another wedding before long.

There’d been no word from Tanner, but then, Ellie hadn’t expected there to be. All she could do was wait and accept it.

It was another early morning on the ranch. Ellie was dressed, but just barely, carrying her coffee out onto the front porch when Rafael came charging up, panting heavily. “It’s Folly,” he wheezed. “She’s ready. Better come quick.”

Ellie set the coffee down hurriedly, ignoring the pain as the scalding liquid splashed on her hand. “Shouldn’t we call a vet? I’ll go…”

“No way. Foals get born in five to ten minutes—there wouldn’t be time for anyone to get here.”

“But what if she has trouble?” Ellie protested. For some reason Folly’s pregnancy had taken on enormous importance to her, as if it were a precursor of her own.

“If she has trouble, we’ll have to take care of it,” Rafael said. “And we’ll have to pray.”

“I can manage that much,” Ellie said. “Let’s go.”

Rafael hadn’t exaggerated. Folly was already down. Ellie and Rafael knelt in the straw, near enough to reach her if needed, careful not to get in the way.

Ellie didn’t know when he came in, so intent was she on the miraculous drama that was unfolding so very quickly in front of her. For a moment the light from the door was blocked out, and then it was bright again. And Tanner was beside her in the straw, not touching her, watching with the same silent intensity.

Rafael grinned over his shoulder in welcome, accustomed to Tanner’s comings and goings. Ellie remained motionless wanting to scream and cry in joy, wanting to rage and hit him.

In the end it took Alfred’s Folly seven and a half minutes to give birth to an impossibly long-legged colt with the ease and dispatch of a pro. Ellie scarcely breathed as it tried to struggle to its feet.

“We don’t consider it a live birth until it’s standing and drinking from its mother,” Tanner said, his voice a deep rumble in the quiet barn.

“What if she won’t let him drink?” Rafael fretted, still not trusting the recalcitrant mare.

“She will,” Ellie said firmly.

It took another endless few minutes, and for a moment it looked as if Ellie’s trust was misplaced, as Folly stared at her gangly offspring with suspicion.

“Come on,” Ellie muttered under her breath. She reached out, knowing Tanner’s hand would be there, and held it tightly. “Come on, Folly.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Rafael breathed. “She’s nursing him.”

“Of course she is,” Ellie said smugly, ignoring her moment of panic. “She just needed a moment or two.” She turned and looked into Tanner’s eyes, those distant blue eyes she hadn’t seen in almost six weeks.

“Another one of your charity cases, Ellie?” he murmured. “One more walking wounded?”

“Are you mocking me?”

“No,” he said. “I love you.”

She managed a brief, tremulous smile before turning back to watch Folly nurse her colt. There it came again, that strange fluttering in her womb, that she’d first thought was nerves. It was the first time she’d felt her baby move. “I only hope,” she said deliberately, “that I have as easy a time of it as she did.”

Rafael had vanished by this time, tactful enough to let them have their reunion in private. “When?” asked Tanner, his voice rough with an emotion she was afraid to guess at.

“December.”

“You knew when I left and you didn’t stop me?”

She turned to face him again. “I didn’t want to hold you if you didn’t want to stay. It had to be your decision, not because of duty or guilt or responsibility. I’ll always let you go when you need to.”

“Will you always let me come back?”

“Yes.”

The tension suddenly drained from his taut shoulders. His dark-blond hair was too long, his face too tired, his body too weary. But he smiled at her, a tender, infinitely dear smile, and the last tiny bit of sorrow and hurt left her. “I won’t go again.”

“You don’t have to promise me.”

“I’m not promising. I’m just telling you the truth. I couldn’t stand it. The first night away was bad, the second was worse, the third was pure hell. I kept going, kept walking until I was sure the wanting would stop. But it never did. I just kept seeing you wherever I went, dreaming about you, missing you. A hundred times I picked up the phone to call you, a dozen times I turned around to come back.”

“Why didn’t you?” she cried.

“I couldn’t until I was sure, Ellie. That’s why I had to go one last time. I had to make certain the walking, the running was over.”

“And is it?” Her voice was soft, beseeching, unable to hide her desperate hurt and longing anymore.

He reached out his long hands and cupped the sides of her face. “Oh, Ellie,” he whispered, “I know for sure now. I’ll never leave you again.” And he kissed her, her soft, trembling mouth, her tear-drenched eyelids, her chin, her breasts, her slightly rounded stomach, as he pulled her down into the sweet-smelling hay.

Folly, nursing her colt, looked at the foolish humans whispering in her stall and whickered softly. And Shaitan, unexpectedly docile for the first time in his life, looked over from the adjoining stall and whirruped in reply, as the bright morning sun flooded the barn with new life and joy. A new day had begun.

—THE END—

If you enjoyed Blue Sage, continue reading for an excerpt from

Night of the Phantom!

Night of the Phantom

He loved the night. It spread around him, a soft, comforting cloud of darkness that wrapped him in a warmth as vital to him as air and food. Daylight was a time to hide, a time to simply live through, but at night, he came alive. Blood pumped through his veins, his lungs filled with air and everything became possible, all under cover of the beneficent darkness.

He sat in his chair, utterly still, as he let the night drift around him. He could sit that way for hours, unmoving, not even blinking, absorbing the darkness into his very soul.

By tomorrow, his precious solitude would be violated. He’d never had the chance to pass judgment before, and he found the idea curiously seductive. In an unjust world, he was going to force justice. He was going to make Reese Carey pay for his crimes, and he expected to use his considerable creative powers to do so effectively.

And then he’d surrender to the darkness again. Triumphant in the inky black of night, he’d go back to being alone once more, content, a phantom to terrorize the narrow-minded people of Oak Grove. Ethan Winslowe, a creature to frighten children and gullible adults. A deformed monster, a specter of the darkness. A phantom of the night.

Chapter One

Megan Carey told herself she had no reason in the world to feel guilty. For the first time in her twenty-seven years, she was going to do something irresponsible, romantic and wonderful. She was taking off with nothing but a brand-new matched set of luggage, a one-way ticket to Europe and a wad of traveler’s checks that would choke a horse, not to mention enough unencumbered plastic to keep her going until she and she alone decided it was time to stop.

Her co-workers at Carey Enterprises were giving her a lavish send-off, out of keeping with her relatively few years on the job, but she was universally liked in the huge construction-and-development firm. The fact that she was the boss’s only child was a drawback rather than an incentive, but her friends in the executive offices were partying up a storm anyway, throwing her a bon voyage party worthy of a veteran of fifty years in the company. Meg accepted it with good cheer and gratitude, wishing she could just get rid of this nagging little feeling of guilt.

It wasn’t as if she were leaving her father in the lurch. She’d worked for the huge company founded by her grandfather since she was in high school, working during school vacations, doing every job imaginable as she learned the construction business from the bottom up. Not that Carey Enterprises was simply a construction company. Reese Carey had turned a run-of-the-mill organization into a multinational glamour business. He built mansions for millionaires, upscale office buildings, elite public buildings for wealthy municipalities. Carey Enterprises had a reputation for quality worth paying for, a reputation Meg viewed with justifiable pride, secure that she’d been partly responsible for it.

But she was tired of it. Tired of working every spare minute that wasn’t spent on schooling, tired of being so tied to her father that she had no life of her own. Tired of squashing down her embarrassing, undeniably romantic yearnings for a life of adventure. Now, finally, she was going to give in to those yearnings, toss the common sense that had ruled her life to the winds and take off.

Her father hadn’t taken her decision well but for once she was adamant. There wouldn’t be a better time to leave. Her father was about to remarry five years after being widowed, and his fiancée was a sensible, attractive woman who knew as much about the business as Meg did. Her father would be so busy with his new bride that he wouldn’t have time to miss her.

If only he hadn’t been looking so worried during the past few weeks. So preoccupied and slightly desperate. Whenever she’d asked him what was wrong, he’d only insisted he was going to miss her, but she didn’t think it was that simple, despite her immediate upsurge of guilt.

She’d even gone so far as to check the financial records of both the firm and her father’s private accounts, wondering whether he was on the brink of ruin and didn’t want to tell her. But both Carey Enterprises and Reese Carey himself were not only solvent, they were flush, with the real estate and building slowdown not seeming to affect them at all.

She accepted a glass of imported champagne from someone in the accounting department, accepted a kiss from one of her father’s secretaries and moved through the crowd. She was due to fly from New York in four days’ time. She was allowing two days to drive from their home in Chicago to the East Coast, another day to shop, and then her adventure would begin. But it wouldn’t start until she made one last-ditch effort to find out what was troubling her father.

He wasn’t anywhere in sight. He’d circulated through the chattering employees for a while, his usual bonhomie firmly in place, and then suddenly, he was gone. He could be anywhere in the elegant office building they’d constructed seven years ago from plans by the great Ethan Winslowe, but she had a pretty good idea where he’d be.

His office door on the deserted twentieth floor was ajar. She could see a pool of light beyond, and for a moment, she hesitated, wondering whether she’d be walking in on a romantic moment between Reese and Madeleine. But no, Madeleine had been deep in conversation with the comptroller. Her father would be alone, ready for one last father-daughter talk.

The thick rugs muffled her footsteps, even in the high heels she wore to add to her miserly five-foot-two height. She pushed the door open, a warm smile on her face, and then froze in horror.

Reese Carey was sitting in his leather desk chair, his back turned to her, staring into the Chicago night. He was holding a gun to his temple.

For a moment, Meg was paralyzed with panic. She wanted to scream, but she knew it might startle him into pulling the trigger. She held her breath for one heartbeat, for ten, then spoke very, very softly.

“Father?”

He whirled around in the chair, dropping the gun to the desk, and his usually red, cheery face was pale with strain. “Meg,” he said hoarsely.

She closed the door behind her, stepping into the walnut-paneled office. “What in God’s name is going on?” she said, fear making her usually warm voice strident. “Don’t fob me off with excuses anymore, I’m not buying them. What’s happening to you?”

For a moment he said nothing. Then he put his face in his hands, and his big shoulders heaved with sudden, noisy sobs. “I wouldn’t have done it, baby. I wouldn’t have done it to you. I would have waited.”

“Why were you going to kill yourself? Daddy, you’re not sick, are you?”

He raised his head then, and the tears streaming down his face looked strange, unreal to her. Her father, who laughed and joked and bullied his way through life, shouldn’t be crying. “I’m in trouble. Big, big trouble, and I can’t see any way out of it.”

“It can’t be financial. I checked our accounts when you started acting so oddly. We’ve got plenty of money, plenty of contracts, prospects…”

“Not for long. Not if Ethan Winslowe has his way.”

She sank down in the chair opposite him, a sudden foreboding making her cold inside. “What does Ethan Winslowe have to do with anything?”

“He’s out to destroy me,” Reese said, and for a moment, Meg almost laughed at the melodrama in his voice. Until she looked at the gun on the desk.

“Why would an architect want to destroy you? You’ve never even met him. The man’s a full-blown eccentric who never leaves his house. What would he have against you? You’ve built dozens of his designs, you’ve helped give him the reputation he enjoys. Why would he want to hurt you?”

Reese shrugged. “God, I don’t know. The man’s crazy, we all know that. As far as I know, no one’s even seen him. I’ve been told he’s multiply handicapped, kept alive by machines. Other people say he’s just agoraphobic. It doesn’t matter—the bottom line is he’s nuts and he’s out to get me.”

“You still haven’t told me why. He must have some reason. If he didn’t, how could he do you any harm? The man doesn’t even have a telephone in the back of beyond or wherever he lives.”

“Oak Grove,” Reese said. “And he could do it, have no doubt about that. He’s like a giant, evil spider spinning his web, and I’m well and truly trapped.”

Even with the gun in sight, this was getting too farfetched for Meg. “Why?” she said again with some asperity.

Her father considered for a moment, and he got that look in his eye that she knew far too well, the look that meant he was trying to figure out how much of the truth he had to tell. “You remember the Springfield Arts Center?”

“How could I forget? The collapse of that roof killed two workers and injured a score of others. We’re just lucky the investigation proved it wasn’t the company’s fault.”

“Yes, that’s what the investigation proved,” Reese said glumly.

“Supposedly it was Winslowe’s fault, wasn’t it? Was he fined or something?”

“They could never prove anything.”

“And Winslowe’s holding it against you? Five years later, he’s decided you railroaded him…?”

“No,” Reese said. “It just took him five years to find out that it really was my fault.”

Meg took a sharp breath. “How could it have been? You followed the blueprints, you knew what you were doing.”

“I was trying to cut costs. You’ve seen his plans—always the best of everything. A recluse like Winslowe has no sense of economy—he thinks money’s like water. I didn’t think those roof trusses needed to be that heavy gauge.”

“So you changed the specifications?” She didn’t want to hear this. The nightmare collapse of the arts center roof five years ago was something that none of them ever forgot. The one consolation had been that it hadn’t been their fault.

“Your mother had just died!” Reese cried. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. The business was going through a tough spell, and I thought we could come up with a little extra working cash if we just cut back on the reinforcements. I never thought it would have collapsed like that. If Winslowe only used normal design standards, it would have been fine.”

“But that’s what makes Winslowe so special, so sought after. He does things differently, and if you follow his specifications to the letter, it works. Father, how could you!” she cried.

“Don’t you start in on me! There hasn’t been a day when I haven’t regretted it, haven’t been eaten up with guilt. You know their families were well taken care of. You know nothing like that’s ever happened again.”

“But Ethan Winslowe found out.”

“I don’t know how he did. The man’s uncanny, sitting out there in the middle of nowhere. And now he’s going to destroy me.”

“Just calm down,” Meg said, more to herself than to her father, as her fingers gripped the sides of her chair. “Exactly what can he do?”

“He has proof, or so he says. He’s going to turn it over to the federal investigators next week unless I can come up with a reason why he shouldn’t.”

“That sounds like blackmail!”

“It wouldn’t be money he wants. The man has more than he’ll ever need. I don’t know what he wants from me. It’s hopeless, Meg. There’s no way out.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said flatly. “You can’t be a coward at this point in your life. So you made a mistake. A terrible, tragic mistake. But you’ve suffered for it, you’ve done your best to make amends. Who the hell does he think he is to pass judgment on you?”

“I don’t imagine he’s quite sane.”

“There must be something we can do.”

She’d known her father for her twenty-seven years. She knew that slightly speculative expression he could get in his faded blue eyes as he weighed possibilities. “I’m supposed to present myself at his place in Oak Grove by Saturday. If he hasn’t heard from me, he’ll go ahead and destroy me.”

“Can’t you call him…?”

“He has no phone, remember?  He won’t answer my letters. And I know for damned sure that throwing myself on his mercy won’t do me a spit of good. He’s going to destroy me, Meg. There’s no way out. Unless…”

“Unless?” Here it comes, she thought.

“Unless you were to go in my place. The man isn’t thinking this through clearly. He doesn’t realize that he’s not just destroying a man, he’s destroying a family, a company, thousands of lives.”

“Hundreds,” Meg corrected with the ruthlessness she sometimes had to use to cut through her father’s high-flown emotion. “Let me get this straight. You want me to go out to Oak Grove and plead your case for you?”

“He won’t listen to me. All he wants is revenge. He’ll listen to you, Meg. He’d have to be blind not to.”

She took a deep breath.  “What makes you so sure he isn’t blind? Enough rumors have been spread about what kind of shape he’s in….”

“He couldn’t be blind. Not and design the buildings he’s designed. Will you do it, Meg? Will you save me?”

She’d been trapped, quite neatly, by a master. There was no alternative, not and live with herself. “My airplane tickets—”

“Are for Tuesday. You could drive out to Oak Grove, spend one night and drive back to an airport in time to make connections.”

“Why can’t I fly to Oak Grove?”

“Meg, you can barely find it on a map. The nearest airport is five hours away. You’d have to rent a car and––”

“You’ve already got this all figured out,” she said shrewdly.

Her father had the grace to flush. “I’ve been a desperate man, Meg. I’ve thought of every possibility. I’d never ask you—”

“You already have,” she pointed out.

“Will you do it?”

She didn’t even hesitate. She already knew she had no choice. “Of course,” she said, trying to keep the stiffness out of her voice. “But I’ll fly to the nearest airport and send my other stuff on to New York for my London flight. That is, if I can get tickets.”

“I’ve already made a reservation,”. He said sheepishly.  He got up from the desk, suddenly full of energy. “Let me go find the papers Winslowe sent. Oak Grove has to be the armpit of civilization, but I’ve got a fairly decent map…” His voice trailed off as he left the room.

Meg watched him go, her eyes narrowed at his sudden cheer. She’d seen him get what he wanted before, and she recognized all the signs. On impulse, she leaned over the desk and picked up the gun. Unloaded, of course, and her father knew guns well. The whole scene had been carefully staged for her benefit.

She ought to walk out and never come back. He’d managed to railroad her again, just as she was finally claiming her independence.

On the other hand, doing this one last thing for him would assuage her guilt. She would have earned her freedom if she talked Ethan Winslowe out of pressing charges. The man had to be reasonable, no matter how odd his reputation. She had a gift for negotiating, for making an opponent see the other side of matters, a gift her father had used often enough.

This time, she’d be using it for more than getting the best possible terms on a contract. This time, she was bargaining for her father’s livelihood and her own life. If Ethan Winslowe held to his revenge, there’d be no way she could leave Chicago. She’d need to stand by her father in his disgrace.

No, it was her life she’d be fighting for, too. Setting the gun back down on the desk, she leaned back in her chair. It was going to be a hell of a weekend.

* * * * *

Endless hours later, she was beyond stress, beyond worry, beyond regret. The late flight out of Chicago had been full of turbulence and grumpy flight attendants. She had had to change planes twice, each one getting a little smaller and a little choppier. By the time she arrived at a small municipal airport outside of Bennington, Tennessee, she was feeling jarred, achy and angry. And depressed, knowing she had a five-hour drive ahead of her.

Oak Grove was a tiny, faceless town that nestled somewhere between Kentucky, Arkansas and Missouri. None of the states wanted to claim it, and it had the odd distinction of having belonged to all three in the last one hundred years. Currently, it belonged to Arkansas, but that probably wouldn’t last too long.

The only rental car was an aging Ford with no springs whatsoever. As Meg drove through the long, empty hours of early morning, she told herself things would look better when the sun rose. If it ever bothered to. There was a gloomy mist falling, and the late-spring weather seemed bleak, timeless. Somewhere beyond the side of the road, dogwoods must be blooming, azaleas and forsythia and tulips and daffodils. All she could see was gray.

The road narrowed as it climbed through twisty, dark hills. She was still more than fifty miles away when the road turned to gravel and the rain turned that gravel to mud. She was forced to slow down to something slightly faster than a crawl, and for a moment, she considered pulling off to the side of the road and trying to catch a little bit of sleep. She hadn’t seen another car in three hours—no one would be likely to be traveling this godforsaken road and find her sleeping.

But she couldn’t do it. She wanted to get to Oak Grove with a need that bordered on desperation. The sooner she faced Ethan Winslowe, whatever there was of him to face, the sooner she could get away, back to that horrible little airport with its horrible little plane. Her flight to Europe left New York in less than seventy-two hours—she was already cutting it close.

Besides, when it came right down to it, she was afraid. Afraid of facing Ethan Winslowe, afraid of what she’d find. Afraid that all her pleas, all her reasonable explanations were going to fall on deaf ears, either literally or figuratively. Afraid this midnight trip from hell was going to be a miserable, agonizing waste of time.

She almost missed the town of Oak Grove when she came to it. The gray mist had lessened somewhat, the sun was making a vain effort to poke through the thick clouds, and it was just past eleven in the morning. The gas gauge on the Ford was heading toward empty when she passed a cluster of buildings that suggested civilization was near at hand. She drove straight through, looking, but things rapidly became uninhabited again. There’d been a rusty gas pump near what seemed to be an abandoned store five miles back. She had no choice but to turn around.

This time, she saw the sign. Covered by weeds, rusted so that it was almost unreadable, the once-white sign said Oak Grove, Founded 1835. Underneath, someone had scratched something with a knife. Slowing the car, she peered at it. Lost, 1962, it said.

A tiny shiver of fear ran across her backbone as she pulled up next to the gas pump. She didn’t recognize the brand, and she could only hope there was even a trace of fuel in the old-fashioned pump. She sat there in her car, staring at the deserted street, and her hands came up to rub her chilled arms.

There was a church. Every speck of paint had peeled off, the front was a mass of weeds, but the windows were intact, and a sign listed services for almost every day of the week. Next to the church was a store with dingy, fly-specked windows full of old canned food and faded clothing. Oak Grove looked like a ghost town, she thought. The houses were dark and empty looking, the town deserted, eerie, a place no one in their right mind would want to live.

“Fill’er up?”

She screamed, thoroughly spooked. “Yes, please,” she said, pressing a hand to her racing heart. “I’m sorry, you startled me.”

“Yeah,” said the man. “I have a habit of doing that.”

A fitting resident of a ghost town, Meg thought. He was ageless, the man who’d materialized beside her window, moving with a slow gait that seemed more sullen than elderly. She glanced back at the town and for the first time realized that some of the blinds were being pulled back from the curtained windows. People were watching her.

“No credit cards,” the man said when he finished, appearing beside her just as abruptly. He watched with interest as she shuffled through her meager supply of cash. “You just passing through? We don’t get people in these parts very often.”

This sudden curiosity would have been disarming if Meg had been able to rid herself of the notion that he clearly wanted her gone. She handed him two twenty-dollar bills, waited while he laboriously counted the change, and then she flashed him her friendliest smile, the one guaranteed to melt Chicago bus drivers and postal workers everywhere. “As a matter of fact, I’m looking for someone.”

He remained unmoved. “That so?”

She didn’t let her smile falter. “A man by the name of Ethan Winslowe. He lives around here, doesn’t he?”

If the man had seemed distant and unfriendly before, he now seemed positively icy. “Winslowe don’t cotton much to visitors. You’d best keep on your way.”

“I’ve come to see him,” she said firmly. “I have an appointment.”

The old man narrowed his eyes. “He’s not going to want to see you. That man doesn’t see nobody, and nobody wants to see him. They say the last person that looked him in the eyes turned stone blind.”

Meg’s mouth dropped open. “I beg your pardon?”

“And then there’s old Mrs. MacInerny. She saw him one day when she was out walking and ain’t been right in the head since. He’s a son of the devil, he is, girly. No one’s rightly sure whether he’s real or not, whether he’s dead or alive. Some say he’s a phantom, haunting that crazy old place, but truth of the matter is no one wants to find out. You’d better get away from here before you run into anymore trouble.”

“I’m not going anywhere but to Winslowe’s house. I don’t believe in that kind of…”  She was about to say shit but suddenly thought better, “…nonsense.”

“Your funeral,” the old man announced with an air of gloomy satisfaction. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“You warned me, all right. You still haven’t told me how I can find him.”

“First left. Just keep driving—you’ll come to the old Meredith place sooner than you’ll ever want to.”

It was lack of sleep, Meg decided there and then. It was sheer exhaustion, not to mention tension, that was making this odd old man sound so sinister. “Meredith place?”

“His granddaddy’s. No one in their right mind would ever want to come back there to live, but then, Winslowe ain’t in his right mind. Everyone around here knows it.” And then the man disappeared back into the deserted-looking building, slamming the door shut behind him.

Just as well, she thought, starting up her car again. She might have been crazy enough to ask him another question. Considering the strange answers he’d already given her, she’d be better off waiting to see what she found at the end of her journey.

It took her half an hour to drive what couldn’t have been more than five miles. The road turned into a rutted swamp, one the old Ford could barely negotiate. She was so busy dealing with the driving conditions that she didn’t have any time to look ahead. When the road finally ended, she pulled to a stop, sitting there staring up in mingled awe and horror.

Find Night of the Phantom on Amazon.

And don’t miss the rest of Anne Stuart’s Greatest Hits:

Cinderman

The Soldier, The Nun and The Baby

Blue Sage

Night of the Phantom

One More Valentine

About Anne Stuart

Anne Stuart is a grandmaster of the genre, winner of Romance Writers of America's prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, survivor of more than thirty-five years in the romance business, and still just keeps getting better.

Her first novel was Barrett's Hill, a gothic romance published by Ballantine in 1974 when Anne had just turned 25. Since then she's written more gothics, regencies, romantic suspense, romantic adventure, series romance, suspense, historical romance, paranormal and mainstream contemporary romance for publishers such as Doubleday, Harlequin, Silhouette, Avon, Zebra, St. Martins Press, Berkley, Dell, Pocket Books and Fawcett.

She’s won numerous awards, appeared on most bestseller lists, and speaks all over the country. Her general outrageousness has gotten her on Entertainment Tonight, as well as in Vogue, People, USA Today, Women’s Day and countless other national newspapers and magazines.

When she’s not traveling, she’s at home in Northern Vermont with her luscious husband of forty years, an empty nest, five sewing machines, and when she’s not working she’s watching movies, listening to rock and roll(preferably Japanese) and spending far too much time quilting and making doll clothes because she has no intention of ever growing up.

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Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Night of the Phantom

About Anne Stuart