“Well, he’s probably pretty sharp. They all are. The old man, John Randall, wasn’t behind the door when they passed out the brains. The youngest son was probably just pampered and lazy.” She thought of Slade, his hard edges, his fixation with extreme sports, his raw energy. Pampered? Lazy? No way. “Anyway, do what you can,” Chuck rambled on. “Schmooze them, work your magic, bat your pretty little eyes, anything it takes.”
“Anything?” she threw back at him, and he chuckled again, deeper this time.
“Within limits, okay? We do have a loose code of morals here at Jansen, Monteith and Stone.”
“Very loose,” she said. He was kidding around of course, but tonight it rubbed her the wrong way, caused her hackles to rise.
“I’ll phone you again tomorrow for an update,” he said. “I’ve got another call coming in and I’d better take it. I imagine one of my kids is out of spending money again. It just doesn’t end. Love ya, babe,” he said, and hung up.
She took a long, slow breath, then, trying to get her bearings again, stopped by the refrigerator and pulled out the carton of milk. “I think I’ll doctor this up,” she said as she walked into the dining room and poured a splash of two-percent milk into her cup. Pointing the spout at Slade’s, she asked, “You?”
“Mine’s fine,” he drawled, then looked pointedly at the phone. “Your boss?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She tested the coffee. Not freshly ground French roast, but it was hot and not half bad with the milk.
“Among other things,” Slade guessed.
“What other things?”
“I’m figurin’ he’s your boss and your boyfriend. Maybe even more.”
“Is that what you figure?”
Quickly he reached across the table and grabbed her left hand. A few drops of coffee slopped from her cup onto her papers. “What’re you doing?” Jamie asked.
“Lookin’ for hardware.”
“What?”
“A ring.”
The warmth of his fingers was too intimate. He rubbed the back of her ring finger with his thumb, then let it go.
“I’m not engaged.”
“Yet. But your boyfriend—”
“I’m too old for a boyfriend,” she said quickly. It was hard to imagine Chuck, fifty, gray-haired and forever worried about his nearly grown kids, as a boy—any kind of boy. She wondered if he’d ever been one. All his life he’d been so damned responsible. High school, the army, college, law school, then straight to a firm in Seattle before settling in Missoula. He’d married his college sweetheart and started having babies right away.
Obviously, Slade didn’t believe her protests. “Whatever you say,” he muttered, but there was skepticism in his voice, a hint of amusement in his eyes that bugged the heck out of her as she found a towel in the kitchen and dabbed at the spilled drops of coffee.
“I say it’s none of your business.”
One side of his mouth lifted into a smile that could only be classified as wickedly sexy. “We’ll see about that.”
Her foolish heart knocked wildly. “Is there a reason you’re here—I mean a reason pertaining to business?”
“Nope.” He drained his coffee cup and stood. “I just dropped by to see you again.” Shrugging into his coat, he rounded the table—then, to her surprise, dropped a chaste kiss on her cheek.
She nearly jumped out of her skin. How could something so seemingly innocent, a simple brush of lips on skin, burrow so deep, make her want more? Her silly pulse fluttered as she pulled away and saw the mockery in his eyes...damn the man, he knew how he affected her.
“Don’t bother showing me the door.” He had the audacity to wink...wink at her! “I think I can find it on my own.” With a knowing grin, he turned and was gone, boots ringing against the polished hardwood, the door creaking loudly as he strode outside.
Jamie walked to the living room and, as she parted the curtains, touched that sensitive spot where the impression of his kiss still lingered. Dear God, what was it about Slade that burrowed right to her very core? How could he so easily bulldoze through all her well-constructed walls to keep him at arm’s length? She watched the taillights of his pickup disappear into the night.
Sighing, she sagged onto the old couch. Lazarus jumped into her lap, and she stroked his silky head. “This is gonna be bad,” she predicted as the cat began to purr loudly. “Even worse than I’d imagined.”
Chapter 5
“I don’t need a babysitter.” Randi glared at her brother as she hobbled toward an SUV that Larry Todd, the foreman, used when he was at the ranch. Keys jangled from her gloved fingers and she was slowly making her way through the soft snow.
“Do you have doctor’s permission to leave the house?” Slade was with her every step of the way, ready to ensure that she didn’t fall.
“That’s another thing I don’t need.”
“Randi—”
“Quit acting like I’m a two-year-old. If it’s so important that a doctor say I can leave, I’ll just have Nicole do it.”
“She wouldn’t.”
“I think she’d understand. As for you, quit treating me like a two-year-old.”
“Then quit acting like one.”
Randi rolled her eyes expressively as she reached the vehicle and yanked hard on the icy driver’s side door. With obvious effort, she struggled to reach the handhold above the door, then winced as she hoisted her body into the cab.
“You’re not ready for this.”
“Sure I am,” she insisted, settling herself behind the steering wheel. “Look, I’m going stir-crazy, okay? I just need to get out, even if it’s only as far as Grand Hope.”
“Then I’m coming with you.”
“Super,” she mocked. “My own private bodyguard.” Her eyes met his. “You don’t have to do this, you know. I’ll be fine.” Slamming the door shut, she waved her fingers at him then cranked on the ignition. Slade was around the truck and opening the passenger door before she realized he hadn’t given up.
“For the love of God, Slade. This is ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous!”
“I need some things in town anyway.”
“Sure you do.” She didn’t bother hiding her sarcasm. “Put on your seat belt. The last time I got behind the wheel it didn’t turn out so well.” She adjusted the seat and flipped on the wipers, then eased out of the drive.
She didn’t look too bad, Randi figured with a glance into the rearview mirror. All things considered. The bruises on her face had disappeared, the wires holding her broken jaw together had been removed, as had the cast on her leg, and her hair, shaved short while she’d been in the hospital, was beginning to grow out unevenly. That was the reason for the trip. She wanted a professional hairdresser to trim her locks, give her some style, even if the result was a punk-rock do.
“I don’t know why you’re still hanging around,” Randi mumbled as she flipped on the radio, pushed a few buttons and then, sighing, settled for a country-western station.
“Still have to sign the papers to sell the place.”
“And when that’s accomplished, what? You going to take off?” she asked as the SUV blasted down the long lane to the main highway.
“Not quite yet,” he said, looking out the side window to an area they called the big meadow. It was now snow-covered, the creek that cut through the field frozen; only a small, sparse herd of thick-hided cattle wandered toward the barn.
“Don’t tell me. Seeing Jamie Parsons again changed your mind.”
His jaw tightened. Randi’s observation cut too close to the bone. The truth of the matter was that seeing Jamie again had brought back memories he thought he’d forgotten. He’d lied to her last night, telling her that she hadn’t been far from his thoughts. That was just a line, one so transparent she’d seen right through it. But she did intrigue him. Now more than ever. He wondered about her, about the wild girl hidden behind the sophisticated don’t-mess-with-me lawyer attitude. Yeah, Jamie made things more interesting, but the r
eal reason he was still at the ranch was to make sure his sister lived to see her thirtieth birthday. He’d decided to appoint himself her own personal bodyguard, which she’d figured out and hated. “I haven’t really decided what I’m gonna do,” he hedged, fiddling with the knob of the defroster. “But I figured I’d hang awhile.”
“Not on my account, I hope.” She wheeled onto the main road and gunned the engine.
“That’s part of it.”
“Don’t bother. As I said, I don’t need a keeper.”
He slashed her a harsh look that silently called her a fool and she reacted in typical Randi fashion.
“Believe me, I’m serious! As soon as I’m able, I’m going to take Josh and head back to Seattle.” She arched an eyebrow and glanced his direction as she shifted down for a corner. “You gonna follow me?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“Damn it, Slade, just leave it alone.”
He ignored that. “I don’t know why you’re planning on heading West so fast.”
“Let’s start with my job.” She lifted her thumb away from the steering wheel. “If I don’t get back pretty soon, I won’t have one. Then there’s my apartment. You know, the place I call home.” One finger shot up to join her thumb. “I’ve got friends and a social life and—”
“—and no babysitter, no car. You still can’t walk without a limp. And someone’s definitely determined to see you dead, if you haven’t noticed. Now if you don’t give a lick about your life, well, fine, that’s your business, I suppose, but you’re a mother. That little boy back there depends on you and only you seein’ as you’re not telling us who his father is, so you need to keep yourself alive. For the kid.”
“Don’t tell me how to run my life.”
But Slade wasn’t finished. “The way I figure it, J.R.—er, Josh, is a whole lot better off staying at the ranch with people who love him. He’s got uncles and aunts and cousins, and Juanita, and you can’t beat her. She raised us.”
“I’m not sure that’s a recommendation.”
“Well, the baby’s safe at the ranch. Why in the hell would you go back to an apartment in a city full of strangers?”
He snorted and thought he saw her chin wobble a little as she gripped the steering wheel so hard her knuckles blanched white. “That’s where I live, Slade.”
“Alone. Do you have a babysitter?”
“I—I don’t know,” she admitted as the frigid countryside rolled past, rolling hills covered with snow. “I, um, I thought that if I went to Seattle, back home, maybe my memory would return.” She stole a glance his way. “There are such big holes. Somehow I’ve got to fill them. I’ve got to find a way to remember and get my life back.” She swallowed hard and blinked as if fighting tears.
Was she on the up-and-up? She seemed so sincere, but then, Randi had always been a schemer. And a great actress. He’d been fooled before.
“Do you remember firing Larry Todd?” he asked.
She gave it a moment’s thought, then, sighing, shook her head. “No. I can’t imagine doing that.”
“Well you did and he was mad about it, let me tell you. Thorne had to talk like hell to get him to come back to run the place. He’d been the foreman for years, you know. A good man. Why in the world would you let him go?”
“I wish I knew.” Scowling, she frowned at the road ahead and chewed on her lower lip. “But then I wish I knew a lot of things.” Faith Hill’s voice floated through the speakers and before the love song really took off, Randi punched the button for another station.
“What about the book you were writing?” Slade asked.
Randi sighed and tapped a finger on the steering wheel. “I told you...I don’t remember. But I’ve always wanted to write a book, that much I’m pretty sure of. It’s all so foggy.” Lines of concentration marred her brow. “I’d have to go home, back to Seattle, check my computer files, go into the office...” Her voice drifted away.
The wipers scraped away snowflakes that caught on the windshield as a radio commercial for a local car dealership blasted through the speakers. “So why don’t you tell me what, exactly, you do remember?”
“That you dated Jamie Parsons.” She slid him a teasing glance and he couldn’t help but smile. Randi, for being a royal pain in the backside, was charming as all get-out when she wanted to be.
“Okay, okay, but beyond my love life, is there anything?”
“Some things...but they’re out of sync, kind of in soft focus, if you know what I mean. And it isn’t that I just remember you dating Jamie, it’s that I recall most of my childhood. You know, Mom and Dad, you guys as teenagers getting into trouble while I was riding horses and bikes, that kind of thing, but...then it gets fuzzy.” She thought long and hard as the announcer on the radio gave the weather report.
Snow, snow and more snow.
Montana in winter.
So what else was new?
Slade watched the snow-drifted fields give way to subdivisions as Randi drove past the sign announcing Grand Hope’s city limits. “I do remember some of the recent stuff,” she admitted, driving past the old train station with its distinctive redbrick tower and clock face. “My job at the Clarion and my boss, Bill Withers, and a few of my coworkers, especially Sara and Dave.” Slade knew the names by heart. Bill Withers was the editor of the Clarion, while Sarah Peeples wrote movie reviews in a column called “What’s Reel” and Dave Delacroix was a sports writer.
“What about Joe Paterno?”
“Joe?” she repeated, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she drove over the bridge spanning Badger Creek. “He...he works at the paper, too, I think.”
“Freelance photographer. You dated him.”
“Oh.” Did she show a spark of recognition? Or was it his imagination? “So you’re fishing again? Hoping I would tell you that he’s Josh’s father?”
“Just tryin’ to help,” Slade drawled.
She didn’t reply, and when he brought up Brodie Clanton and Sam Donahue’s names, trying to work them casually into the conversation, she rolled her eyes. Brodie Clanton was a lawyer. Sam Donahue a cowpoke.
“Don’t take up private detective work, okay, Slade?” she suggested, easing into a parking space at the curb near the Bob and Weave Hair Salon. “You’re about as subtle as a Mack truck.” She parked, pocketed the keys, opened the door and slid out of the SUV and into the street where traffic rolled slowly through town. “And speaking of private detectives, be sure to tell your friend Striker that I’ve told him everything I know. Everything. If I think of anything else, I’ll get in touch with him.” She glanced over her shoulder as she reached for the door handle to the little shop.
Inside the salon three stations were filled with women in various stages of beautification. If that’s what you’d call it, Randi silently chuckled. One of the patrons held her head forward while the beautician shaved the back of her neck, another had huge curlers in her hair and the third looked as if she could pick up radio signals from outer space with all the pieces of tin foil stuck to her head.
“I’ll meet you over at the Pub ’n’ Grub when you’re finished,” he said, hitching his chin down the street.
“And I’ll be a new woman.”
“Just as long as you’re a new and improved woman,” Slade said with a smile.
“I’ll try, but it’s so damned hard when you start out perfect.”
He laughed as she pushed open the door and started talking immediately to Karla Dillinger, the woman who owned the shop and also happened to be Matt’s fiancée’s sister. Her own hair was a mixture of blond and red and through the plate-glass window she cast a glance at Slade as if he were the devil incarnate. Though Kelly Dillinger was marrying into the McCafferty family, obviously Karla had deep reservations about her sister’s choice. He winked at her and she blushed and quickly turned back to her client.
Hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket, Slade started down the street when he noticed the car, the little blue comp
act parked in front of a local realty company. One glance confirmed that the car belonged to Jamie Parsons. A quick look inside and he saw her seated at the desk of a petite blonde woman.
He should just walk on by, but he couldn’t. Not until he’d talked with her. Last night he hadn’t gotten anywhere, hadn’t explained what had happened between them, hadn’t broken through her icy veneer.
Through the window he saw Jamie stand and sling the strap of her purse over her shoulder. She must’ve caught a glimpse of him because he saw her tense, her eyes lifted to his and then small lines of disapproval gather at the corners of her mouth. With a quick word to the Realtor, she walked to the door and joined him on the street.
“You know, McCafferty,” she said without so much as a hello, “I get the feeling that you’re following me.”
“Do you?” No reason to try to explain.
“What is it you want?” She was walking to her car now, using a remote to unlock the doors. “And don’t start coming up with explanations about the past, because we’ve covered that territory already.”
She offered him a cold, professional, guaranteed-to-put-pushy-males-in-their-place smile, but beneath her icy exterior he caught a glimpse of something more, emotions that she tried to deny.
“I was just walking by.”
“Right.”
“I dropped my sister off at the beauty parlor up the street.” He hitched his thumb over his shoulder. “Then I thought I’d get a beer, and saw your car.”
“So you decided to wait for me.”
“I guess.” Leaning a hip against the fender of her compact, he watched as a couple of teenagers ran down the sidewalk, backpacks slung over their shoulders, snowballs formed in their gloved hands. Laughing and shouting, they hurled their icy missiles at each other before rounding the corner. “You act like I’m stalking you.”
“Are you? I hope not. Because there are laws against that kind of thing.”
“It’s not my style.”