Sweet Nothings

  Molly immediately sobered. “You’re right. I’m sorry for giving you a hard time. I just—” She glanced at the broom closet. “I think a man would have a difficult time hiding in there, is all.”

  He nodded. “I’m not necessarily looking for a man.” He closed the closet. “I’m not entirely convinced the sheriff’s right, but on the off chance it was kids, caution is in order.” He winked at her and looked under the sink, which made her laugh. “All secure,” he said. “If you lock up tight, you should be safe enough.” He arched a questioning eyebrow. “Will you feel comfortable staying over here alone? If not, you’re more than welcome at the house. You do realize that.”

  Molly noticed a pair of brown cotton gloves lying on the counter behind him. She had no idea how they’d gotten there. Last night when she’d raced back here to dress, she hadn’t come in the kitchen. The only other time she’d been in the cabin since the fire was this morning when she’d grabbed a shower.

  “I-I’ll be fine,” she murmured. “I appreciate the offer, though.”

  His gaze sharpened on her face. “Is something wrong?”

  Molly fiddled with a button on her new pink blouse. His eyes always unnerved her, making her feel as easy to read as an open book. “I’m just tired and need sleep.”

  His expression turned amused. “Sleep? What’s that?”

  “I’ll think of you when I’m snuggled down in my warm, comfortable bed.”

  He grinned. “You do that.”

  Molly realized what she’d just said and blushed. Seeing her embarrassment, he chuckled and moved past her. Heart pounding, she followed him to the door.

  Before stepping out, he cupped a hand to her cheek. “Get a good rest,” he said.

  For a fleeting instant, Molly thought he might kiss her. Instead he stepped out and closed the door firmly behind him. “Lock up tight, honey. If you need anything, just holler. I’ll be here in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  “I’ll do that,” Molly called. “Good night, Jake.”

  As his steps faded away, she locked up and returned to the kitchen. When she found the courage to pick up the gloves, she saw dark splotches on the knit. The rank smell of diesel burned her nostrils.

  Molly sucked in a sharp breath. With a shudder of revulsion, she opened the broom closet and flung the gloves inside. After slamming the door, she held it closed with the press of her palms, knowing on some level that it was silly. Out of sight, out of mind? She couldn’t hide from this.

  “There were no prints on the fuel cans,” Jake had told her after speaking on the phone with the sheriff earlier. At the time, Molly had been relieved to hear the news, convinced it vindicated her.

  Those gloves were glaring proof of her guilt.

  It hadn’t been kids who’d started that fire. It had been her.

  All this time, she’d been so convinced that her illness of a few months ago had been induced, that Rodney had drugged her and staged all her bizarre behavior to make her look crazy. Now she had to face the terrible truth, that she might be as nuts as everyone deemed her to be.

  She had to tell Jake. If she had sleepwalked and set that fire, there was no telling what she might do next.

  She had reached the front door and was about to unfasten the bolt when sanity returned. If she told him she had reason to believe she might have set the fire, there was no predicting how he would react, except that he would want her off his ranch. To that end, if he contacted Rodney, she could soon find herself in an asylum again.

  Memories flashed through her mind—awful memories of ice baths, shock treatments, and mind-numbing sedatives. In the early days of her treatment, she’d been a screaming recalcitrant, pounding on the door, begging to be let out, and refusing to eat. Her attendants had thought she was crazy. Even Sam Banks had believed that at first.

  She would rather die than go through a similar experience again.

  There was also Sunset to consider. If Rodney learned where she was, what would become of the horse? Her ex-husband would take his stallion back to Portland. If Sunset acted up, which he surely would, Rodney’s solution would be to whip him. She couldn’t bear the thought of that happening. No matter what became of her, she had to save Sunset from enduring any more abuse.

  Think, Molly. Laying the truth out before Jake was the obvious course of action, but that didn’t mean it was her only option. There had to be a way to protect herself and Sunset while safeguarding the ranch as well.

  Trembling with nerves, Molly turned from the door to survey the cabin. She couldn’t prevent herself from sleep-walking, but she could take measures to make sure she did nothing destructive.

  She went to work. After locking all the windows, she used a roll of masking tape she’d brought from Portland to seal them shut. Then she located the sack of wind chimes that she’d stowed in the closet. After dismantling them, she used yarn from her crochet satchel to string the noisemakers over the windows and front door. Hopefully, the loud tinkling sound would awaken her if she tried to leave the cabin. As an added precaution, she scooted the heavy old easy chair and the antique trunk in front of the door to form a barricade.

  Only then could she bring herself to go to bed and try to sleep, try being the operative word—she was afraid to close her eyes. Despite all her precautions, what if she left the cabin?

  Madness. Every conceivable exit was either taped shut or barricaded, and she’d booby-trapped every opening with noisemakers. She was bound to jerk awake the instant she touched those wind chimes.

  Molly had nearly convinced herself that it was safe to close her eyes when a knock came at the door. “Molly, it’s me, Jake.”

  She sprang from bed, thinking of the furniture and wind chimes in front of the door. Grabbing her white chenille robe, she thrust her arms down the sleeves and knotted the sash as she dashed to the living room. She grabbed the chair to move it, cringing when the wooden feet scraped loudly over the floor.

  “Coming!” she cried when Jake rapped the door again. “Just a sec.”

  “Are you all right in there?”

  Evidently she hadn’t been all right for a very long time, and she’d been too blind to see it. The wind chimes tinkled loudly as she ripped the string away from the door. She dropped them on the chair before opening up. Jake’s expression was bewildered as he took in the furniture behind her.

  “Sweetheart, I said you were welcome at the house. You don’t have to stay over here alone if you’re afraid.”

  Molly’s mind raced for an explanation. “I, um, just felt better, knowing I’d wake up if anyone tried the door. That’s all.”

  He leaned a shoulder against the frame, his gaze dark with worry. “Come up to the house. There are plenty of spare beds.”

  Molly didn’t dare do that. She needed the chimes and barricade to ensure that she didn’t wander in her sleep. She pushed at her loose hair, which was already tangled from tossing and turning. “No, really. I was already dozing off.”

  He straightened to reach for something tucked under his belt. Eyes widening, Molly saw that it was a pearl-handled, nickel-plated revolver. He thrust the weapon at her handle first. “I want you to have this. Just in case.”

  Her father had died of a gunshot to the head. Even now, she couldn’t forget the way the pistol had looked, loosely grasped in his blood-splattered hand. Molly recoiled. “Oh, no. I don’t like guns.”

  Pointing the barrel at the floor, Jake spun the chamber. “This is an old .357 and very simple to use, the only drawback being that it’s got a hell of a kick.”

  Molly shook her head. “No, thank you. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot anyone, so what’s the point?”

  “You don’t need to shoot anyone,” he assured her. “If there’s trouble, just aim at the ceiling. Call me a worry-wart. I’m afraid I won’t hear you calling for help. If you fire off a round, I know it’ll get my attention.”

  He grasped her wrist and slipped the gun into her hand. Then, bending forward, he quickly showed
her how to cock the hammer and take it off safety. “Just point and pull the trigger,” he said. “It’s as easy as that. If you won’t come stay at the house, please keep it here with you. I’ll feel better if you do.”

  Put like that, how could she refuse? She lowered the weapon, acutely aware of how cold and heavy it was. “Thank you. I’ll keep it next to my bed.”

  “See that you do, and don’t be afraid to use it. If you even think someone’s trying to break in, fire off a round.” He glanced up. “We’re going to patch the roof this summer, anyway. You won’t be hurting anything.”

  A moment later, Molly was bidding him farewell through the locked door again. After hanging the chimes and replacing the barricade, she took the gun to the bedroom. Fearful of what she might do in her sleep with a loaded weapon at her disposal, she took all the bullets from the cylinder and hid them at the bottom of her underwear drawer.

  Only then did she feel it was safe for her to sleep.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Molly hadn’t even reached the main house the next morning when she heard Jake cursing. Following the sound of his voice, she circled the machine shop and found him crouched beside an old yellow tractor. Peering over his shoulder, she saw that the tire was flat as a fritter.

  “What on earth happened?”

  “It’s slashed!” he fairly snarled. “Every damned tire on the place, slashed.“

  Staring in horrified fascination at the tire, she recalled all the times she and Rodney had awakened to find their house in disarray, gouged sofa cushions vomiting stuffing, expensive paintings hanging in ribbons from their frames.

  “Oh, no,” she said hollowly.

  “Oh, no, is right.” Jake’s face looked gray as he pushed to his feet. “First my stable, now all the tires.” He jerked off his hat and thrust a taut hand into his sable hair. “Damn! Tractor tires cost a fortune. Someone’s out to ruin me.”

  Molly gulped and directed another glance at the tire. Her fingers and toes felt suddenly numb. “I didn’t do it,” she said shakily.

  He gave her a curious look. “Of course you didn’t.”

  Embarrassment washed through Molly for having said something so stupid. It was just—oh, God—always before, everyone had blamed her.

  Jake swept past her, the heels of his boots sending up puffs of dust.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To call the sheriff! I’ll be damned if he’ll blame this one on kids. It took a man’s strength to do that.”

  A man’s strength? She wanted to believe him, but her conscience wouldn’t allow it. Seven months ago, she’d seen her handiwork. While sleepwalking, she had slashed Rodney’s paintings with such force that the butcher knife had penetrated the backs of the frames and gouged the walls. She’d heard that people could exhibit extraordinary strength when their adrenaline was up. Maybe that held true for sleepwalkers.

  She retraced her steps to the cabin. Once inside, she checked the windows for the second time that morning. None of the tape or chimes looked disturbed, and the front door had still been barricaded when she first woke up. If she had sleepwalked, she supposed she might have pushed the furniture back in front of the door when she returned to the cabin, but it didn’t seem probable. How exacting was a sleepwalker likely to be?

  Still concerned, Molly drew back the covers on the bed to check the sheets. She’d changed the linen last night before retiring, and it still looked clean, no smudges of dirt or debris. If she had gone outside last night, she’d either worn shoes or washed her feet before returning to bed.

  Suddenly exhausted, she sank onto the mattress and rested her head in her hands. Oh, God … oh, God. Had she slashed all those tires? There was no evidence that she’d left the cabin during the night. But what if she had?

  All the while she washed the breakfast dishes later that morning, Molly circled the possibility that she had slashed the tires, a part of her convinced she was the culprit, another part of her unable to believe it. But if not her, then who? Rodney couldn’t be blamed for this, not unless he’d somehow managed to track her down and was perpetrating the vandalism to convince Jake she was crazy.

  The thought made her freeze. About to put a large frying pan into the drying rack, she stood there, staring at nothing, her fingers clenched over the wooden handle. What if Rodney had found her? Until now, that possibility hadn’t occurred to her.

  Her skin went icy. She glanced uneasily out the kitchen window, searching the line of trees that grew at the edge of the yard. For months now, she’d been convinced that her ex-husband had deliberately made her look crazy so he could gain control of the investment firm. Given her rapid recovery after she’d entered the clinic, it had been the only explanation that made sense. In less than seventy-two hours after she’d escaped Rodney, her head had cleared and she’d stopped feeling dizzy and nauseated. The sleep-walking incidents, about which her husband had complained so bitterly, never occurred in the clinic at all.

  Sam had theorized that Molly’s rapid improvement was due to the abrupt cessation of stress in her life. She was far removed from her overbearing husband’s influence. She had escaped the tension at work. Lastly, he argued that the change of scenery had distanced her from all reminders of her father’s suicide. No stress, no symptoms, it was as simple as that, he’d assured her in the beginning.

  Molly had never bought into that explanation. Granted, stress had been known to make people dizzy and unable to think clearly, but her symptoms had been extreme. Toward the last, she’d been too weak and disoriented even to walk from her bed to the adjoining bathroom. One night Rodney had come home to find her lying half-conscious on the floor. After carrying her back to bed and helping her into a clean nightgown, he’d descended on her with yet more pills. “Take your medicine, darling.” She had tried to tell him the drug was making her sick. He’d refused to listen, and when she wouldn’t open her mouth to take the pills, he had poked them down her throat.

  It had been a nightmare, a nightmare that had only grown more horrible when she awoke at the clinic. Molly shuddered at the memories. It had been glaringly obvious to her, if not to her doctor, that her husband had been drugging her and that her illness had been chemically induced. It followed that the recent sleepwalking incidents had been staged as well. Until Sam had finally come around, she’d tried frantically to make someone listen to her, experiencing a gamut of emotions when she failed—rage, fear, frustration, and an awful sense of helplessness.

  Now, suddenly, it was all happening again. She was apparently sleepwalking, and this time Rodney couldn’t be blamed. She was frightened, starting to question her own sanity, and mere inches away from losing her grip.

  Rodney would be so pleased.

  Oh, God, it would be just like him to wage an insidious attack, chipping away at her self-confidence until she began doubting herself at every turn. Even worse, such tactics would eventually lead Jake and everyone else on the ranch to doubt her sanity as well, robbing her of the only friends and support she had.

  Poor, crazy Molly. An awful weak feeling attacked her legs as she recalled the stable fire. Until that night, she’d always slept with her bedroom window open so she could hear Sunset in case he needed her. Wasn’t it possible that after setting the fire, Rodney could have slipped into her cabin through that window? Was she out of her mind to think he might have hidden somewhere in the house until she left so he could put debris in her bed and plant the gloves in the kitchen?

  Molly remembered the nightmare she’d had that night about Sarah and her dad. Rodney knew all about her past. In movies, she’d seen people whisper suggestively to a sleeping person to induce a terrible dream. It would be very like Rodney to enjoy the risk of that, not knowing for sure when she might wake up. “Molly, help us.” A shudder coursed over her. She could almost hear his whispering voice in her mind.

  She could easily imagine him showing up at the ranch. He could be so convincing when he chose. He’d pretend to be concerned about her welfar
e even as he regretfully informed Jake that she was emotionally ill and undoubtedly responsible for all the vandalism on the Lazy J. Poor, crazy Molly, who sleepwalked. Poor, crazy Molly, who was a danger to herself and everyone around her. He would tell Jake that she needed constant supervision.

  Molly felt as if she might vomit. Rodney. There had been a time when she never would have believed him capable of such heinous behavior, but no more. After her father’s death, her rose-colored glasses had been ripped away, and she’d begun to see her husband not as she wished him to be, but as he truly was, a man who would stop at nothing.

  Terror sluiced through her. If Rodney had found her, she didn’t have a prayer of escaping him. The tires on her Toyota were flat. Until they were replaced, she didn’t even have transportation.

  Oh, God. With Claudia and Jared’s help, he might be able to get her committed again, and once that happened, no telling how long it might be before she was released.

  Molly sank down at the table and covered her face with her hands. She’d been on the Lazy J for about three weeks. She hadn’t heard a word on the television or radio about a stolen horse. It was possible Rodney hadn’t even reported the theft, choosing instead to track her down and deal with her himself.

  Only how had he found her? She’d told no one where she was going, not even her mom. Without the help of law enforcement, how on earth could he have pinpointed her exact location?

  The trainer.

  Lowering her hands, Molly clutched the edge of the table with such force her knuckles began to ache. The trainer. Of course, that was it. Somehow, Rodney had coerced the man into revealing her whereabouts.

  Molly leaped up from the chair and advanced to the wall phone. A few minutes later, she’d spoken to an information operator and was ringing Shamrock Greens, the Portland stable where Sonora Sunset had been boarded. A woman answered the call.

  “Yes, I’d like to speak with Keith Sandusky, please,” Molly said shakily. “Would you mind having him paged for me?”