Coming Home (2 page)

At first, she'd put this longing for the valley down as a whim, but instead of the need to be here decreasing, she'd found that it had grown. She was, she realized, tired of being
Roxanne—the
face and body that sold millions of magazines, and no doubt an equal number of pairs of scanty underwear—she wanted to be plain old “Roxy,” the oldest Ballinger daughter. Sloan's sister. And Ross and Ilka and Sam's sister. She wanted to wear worn blue jeans and scuffed boots and wander into Heather-Mary-Marie's, the local gift store, and be greeted by half a dozen people who had known her since she had been born and who were not the least impressed by her face, body, and reputation. She wanted a life that didn't involve always being “on,” always photographed, always gossiped about… She grinned. Well, that was going too far. The valley gossip was legendary and she was quite certain that her purchase of a dead, reputed marijuana grower's property was currently the hot topic of conversation everywhere in the valley. Her grin widened. At least she'd taken some of the heat off of Sloan and Shelly and given the residents something new to speculate about.

The marriage of Sloan Ballinger to Shelly Granger in June had set the valley on its ear. Not only because of the swiftness with which the courtship had progressed but the very fact that a Ballinger was marrying a Granger. The Ballinger/Granger feud was the valley's favorite legend—though it had been a series of conflicts rather than one specific incident. Ballingers and Grangers just naturally took opposite positions…on
any
thing. While most of the ugliness had happened decades ago, every time a Ballinger and Granger came face-to-face, the valley collectively held its breath and with bright, eager eyes watched to see if sparks would explode- out of thin air. Mostly they did, but sometimes, as in the case of Sloan and Shelly…Roxanne smiled wistfully. In the case of Sloan and Shelly magic happened.

She gave herself a shake and turned back to the house. Cabin, she amended, and again wondered what the devil she'd been thinking of when she'd bought it. It wasn't as if the Ballingers didn't own thousands of acres in the valley and foothills and mountains surrounding the valley that she could have chosen to settle on. Nor was it as if she wasn't more than welcome to stay as long as she pleased in the family mansion and childhood home on the valley floor—her parents would be thrilled. And if she had wanted, her father, Mark, would have built her a place of her own on one of the many parcels of land owned by the family. She hadn't
needed
to buy six hundred forty acres, an entire square mile, of mostly useless, mountainous terrain on the west side of the valley. It wasn't, even she would admit, a fabulous piece of land, altogether she probably had only about eighty acres that could be called flat--and that was stretching the word “flat.” The rest of the land was sheer, forested hillside with small benches of gently rolling ground here and there—included in the eighty acres of “flat” ground. It wasn't even great timberland—too much underbrush, blackberry vines, buck brush, manzanita, with oaks and madrones intermixed with the pine and fir. But it was hers, she thought with pride. Hers. Bought with herown money. Not family money. She didn't have to share it with a damn person. It was
hers.
And as for the cabin that came with the place…

Roxanne was positive that no other self-respecting Ballinger, except herself, would have considered the rough wood-framed building a prospective home. She laughed to herself. Call her crazy—her sister, Ilka, already had and her parents, their expressions askance, had asked her at least a dozen times if she was sure that this was what she wanted. She had assured them that yes, she really did want the place. The land had its own beauty, but she loved the cabin. It had, she had pointed out to her stunned family, potential. It wasn't big, but it had everything she wanted—or soon would have once she added on and remodeled. Of course she could understand their reaction—the place had sat empty for months and local vandals had broken in several times and practically torn the place apart. Not content with wreaking destruction on the cabin, they'd also prowled around and punched out a few walls in the small pump house and the falling-down shack that served as a garage. Roxanne shook her head. They'd really done a number on the place—not one structure had escaped their mark. It had taken several days of hard, sweaty work to make the cabin
almost
livable—if you ignored the damage to the walls and floors—which Roxanne did—the remodeling would take care of that. As for the other buildings, she dismissed them. The garage would be torn down and a new one built and the same went for the pump house—the damage done to them she could live with for the time being.

Built at the very edge of one of those benches, the cabin was perched nearly three thousand feet above the valley floor. From the deck and from the east-facing floor-to-ceiling windows, she had stupendous views; the main level was one spacious room, except for the small kitchen area, a bedroom the size of a closet, and a tiny, bathroom tucked into a corner. The upper floor had a larger bathroom and two rooms. The decor left something to be desired, but she had no doubt that with a lot of elbow grease and a full checkbook, she'd have it looking just the way she wanted in no time at all.

At the moment, with the exception of a chaste twin bed, a battery-run lamp, an oak end table, a portable CD player, and a new side-by-side almond-colored refrigerator/freezer, set up to run on propane, the place was empty. The original kitchen consisted of a battered stainless-steel sink, propane stove/oven, and a couple of metal cabinets. Her nose wrinkled. Marijuana growers apparently didn't do much cooking.

Of course, she reminded herself, it hadn't been
proven
that the former owner, Dirk Aston, had really been a marijuana grower—that'd merely been the conclusion of the valley residents. How else, they had asked, did someone unemployed and with no outside income earn enough money to live up there all by himself? And what about that brand-new truck he drove? Where did the money to buy it come from? And whydid he have those two greenhouses and black plastic piping running all over the place? And remember all those rolls and rolls of chicken wire and bags and bags of manure? Don't tell me he wasn't growing dope! When she argued that if his profession was so obvious he would have been busted and the property confiscated, the sages had looked wise. Dirk was small-time, they'd said. Not big enough for CAMP (Californians Against Marijuana Production) and the DA's office to go after, they'd said. Lots of guys like Dirk around, they'd said. Sheriff's office knew who they were, but there were worse offenses than growing a little marijuana to keep them occupied. Sheriff's office might harass guys like Dirk now and then, but no one took them serious—bigger, more important fish to fry.

Roxanne didn't doubt that the valley had the correct reading of the situation but it hadn't deterred her. She
loved
this place. It was isolated, yet town was only about six miles down a twisting gravel road that took almost twenty minutes to traverse—in good weather. Her nearest and only neighbor, Nick Rios, who was staying in the Granger house, was a couple of heavily forested miles away, and after the packed, surging humanity of New York, it was a great feeling to know that she could walk stark-naked out her own door and yodel at the moon and no one would see or hear her. Not that she was going to do that. But she could. If she wanted.

Grinning to herself, Roxanne walked inside the cabin. Crossing to the new refrigerator, she took out a bottle of water and, after twisting off the cap, wandered out the other door of the cabin. There was a small deck here, too, this one covered, and she had a charming view of a small, meandering meadow before the ground rose and forested hillside met her gaze. Like many places in the country, the rear of the cabin was both the entrance and the back door. It had always struck her as strange to drive up to the back of a house, until she took in the fact that the front had the views and no one in their right mind would sacrifice view for a front yard or driveway. The much-speculated-about greenhouses were situated to the south of the cabin, and sipping her bottled water, she'd started to amble in that direction when the sound of an approaching vehicle caught her ear.

She wasn't expecting anyone, and puzzled, she turned back to walk over to the wide gravel area where her own jaunty, rag-topped Jeep was parked. A second later, a red truck, a one-ton dually, roared up the last incline and stopped in a cloud of dust.

Recognizing the truck and the very tall, very big man who stepped out of it, her spine stiffened and her fingers tightened around the bottle of water. Jeb Delaney. Absolutely the last person she wanted to see.

Like the lord of all he surveyed, he strolled over to where she stood. Roxanne once surmised that the commanding air about him came from his job—a detective with the sheriff's department. There was a sense of leashed power around him, like a big huntingtiger on a slim lead, but even she had concluded that it was nothing he did on purpose, it was just…Jeb.

Most people liked Jeb Delaney. Old ladies doted on him; young women swooned when he smiled at them; men admired him, and young boys wanted to grow up to be just like him. Just about everybody thought he was a great guy. Roxanne was not among them. He rubbed her the wrong way and he always had. She couldn't be in his presence for more than five minutes before she was thinking of ways to knock his block off. It wasn't a new emotion—she'd felt that way since she'd been seventeen years old and he'd busted her for possession of a joint of marijuana. She'd been embarrassed and humiliated as only a teenage girl can be and she'd never forgiven him. The stern first-time warning and confiscation of the joint wasn't for her, nope, he'd made an example of her—probably, she thought crabbily, because she'd been friends with his brother, Mingo, and he hadn't wanted Mingo to become corrupted. It had been the worst incident of her young life—the whole valley had known the story about how he'd handcuffed her in the high school parking lot and put her in the backseat of his patrol car. Fortunately, he hadn't taken her to jail, as all her bug-eyed friends had thought, Mingo among them; he'd driven her home, giving her a tongue-lashing along the way that still made her cringe. Tight-lipped, he'd turned her over to her parents. She'd spent the rest of the school year grounded and endured the disappointed look in her parents' eyes—she'd hated that most of all. Hated the knowledge, too, that she had flaunted the joint practically right under his nose, just daring him to do something about it. She scowled. Well, he'd done something all right. He'd ruined that year of school. She brightened. Of course, she
had
gained a bit of notoriety over the affair, which had made her a big deal among her friends.

That time was behind her now and over the years most of her cocky edges had been sheared off, but to this day, the sight of Jeb Delaney still had the power to scrape her nerves raw. It puzzled her when she thought about it. She made friends easily and had a reputation for being charming and easy to work with. She liked people—she couldn't have been the success she was if she hadn't. But Jeb Delaney…Jeb Delaney set her teeth on edge and made the hair on the back of her neck rise up…and, a small voice nagged, excites you more than any man you've ever met in your life.

A big man, he stood six feet five and had the shoulders and chest to match. His arms were muscled beneath his plain blue chambray shirt and the tight, faded blue jeans he was wearing fit his lean hips and powerful thighs like a second skin. Sunglasses, dusty black boots, and a wide-brimmed black Stetson completed his garb.

Watching him with all the enthusiasm she would have for an invasion of rattlesnakes, Roxanne demanded, “What are you doing here?”

Jeb stopped about two feet from her and removed his sunglasses. His handsome face was expressionlessas his gaze roamed over her, taking in the long, long tanned legs revealed by her pink-striped shorts and the firm breasts only half hidden by the cut of her white halter top. There had been a few times in her career, not many, that she had posed nude, but she had never felt so very
naked as
she did at this very moment with Jeb Delaney's knowing black eyes moving over her.

Her lips tightened. “I repeat: what are you doing here?”

“Just being neighborly?” he offered with a quirk of his brow.

She snorted. “Jeb, I haven't a clue as to what rock you sleep under at night, but neighbors we're not.”

He rubbed his jaw. “Yeah, I guess not.” He looked around. “Seems an odd place for you to buy.”

“And that's your business because…?”

Jeb sighed and pushed back his black Stetson. “Are you always so prickly with everyone or is it just me?”

She smiled sweetly. “Just you—I like everybody else.”

He grinned, white teeth flashing beneath his heavy black mustache. It made him look like a brigand, a very, very attractive brigand, and Roxanne didn't like the way her heart leaped at the sight of that grin. The jerk.

Her foot tapped. “Are you going to tell me what you're doing here or are we going to spend the morning exchanging insults?”

“Princess, I haven't insulted you…yet. You just keep tossing those smart remarks out of that pretty mouth of yours and I might just have to do something about it.” His gaze fastened on her mouth and something dark and powerful leaped in the air between them. Then Jeb seemed to shake himself and took a breath. “Look,” he said quietly, “I just wanted to see if the gossips were right about you buying this place.” He glanced around. “After Dirk was killed, Danny and I came up here to double-check the place—it was a shambles—certainly not the sort of place I'd ever expect you to buy. Thought I'd take a drive up here and check it out. Since you're here, I guess this is one time that the valley gossip was right on the mark.”

She was being rude. She knew it. She hated herself for doing it, but she just couldn't seem to stop. Looking down at her pink-painted toes in the flip-flops, she made the supreme effort and muttered, “The gossips are right. I did buy it.”