Last First Kiss (2 page)

Annie tiptoed into her childhood bedroom and quietly slipped into her pajamas so as not to wake her son. She could always crash in the master, but this room felt right. The matching brass beds, hers and Claire’s, were still covered by the same nine-patch quilts they’d sewed during one long winter in their teens. Atticus slept in one, curled on himself, butt in the air, the awkward pose no adult would find comfortable but kids returned to time and again. She glanced at the empty bed and back to her little one. Not even a question, really. Crawling in beside him, the big spoon to his little, Annie inhaled his scent, a comforting blend of hot chocolate, fabric softener, and boy. The perfect antidote to the farmhouse’s forlorn mustiness.

But the night was an honest time.

She was lost.

The pressure to keep a brave face and feign optimism since the divorce threatened to buckle her knees. But who wanted to hear that story? No one. She needed to be Mighty Mama, the superwoman who taught Atticus a hundred infant signs, ensured there was always a seasonal décor project on the go, and cheerfully concocted homemade laundry powder.

The suitcase against the far wall didn’t hold thongs or sexy lace. It was time to hike up her practical cotton briefs, grab a glue gun, and get back on track. Her career, and more importantly, her son, counted on it.

“I’m going to take care of you, little man.” Atticus stirred at her whisper, murmuring a few jumbled syllables. Outside, the coyote yipped again and the air seemed to vibrate from the melancholy pang. “I’ll take care of everything.”

Tomorrow she’d figure out how.

Chapter Two

G
RANDMA
’
S
CACKLE
DRIFTED
from the open barn door, never a good sign, especially in the middle of the night.

“All right, time to come clean.” Sawyer Kane walked inside, telescope case tucked under his arm. “Where have you been?”

“Never you mind.” Grandma slammed her truck door, dressed in red flannel pajamas, hair rolled tight in curlers.

“You can’t drive around at this hour, remember what the doctor said? Your night vision isn’t what it used to be.”

“Pshaw. That quack couldn’t find his way out of a wet paper bag.”

Debatable. At her last physical, Doc suggested that with her gumption, Grandma could see well past one hundred. Sawyer didn’t doubt it.

“You’re up to no good.” He followed her down the dirt path toward her house.

“Children should be seen and not heard.”

Never mind Sawyer was a grown man, not to mention the sheriff of Brightwater. Here on Hidden Rock Ranch, Grandma’s rule was law, and she never treated him any different than the lost five-year-old kid who came to live there with his two brothers after their parents died in a freak house fire.

His first memory was from the funeral, and the steady way Grandma gripped his hand as the minister intoned, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” He wished he could remember more than two holes in the ground. If he tried hard, sometimes there came the faint tinkle of his mother’s laughter, or the sensation of his dad tossing him in the air. But they were only ever suggestions, a flash, nothing concrete.

At first glance, Grandma didn’t appear formidable, rather skinny as a rail with her pointed nose and bifocals. But those bones were forged of titanium. She’d been widowed far longer than she’d ever been married, and she managed Hidden Rock Ranch through sheer force of will. She repositioned the once bankrupt six-thousand-acre property to ride the grass-fed, anti-antibiotic trends commanding high price points in the Bay Area and throughout wine country, branding the beef as “farm to table,” and using the predominate peak in the valley, Mount Oh-Be-Joyful, as the logo.

She also showed no signs of handing over the reins. Who’d take over after her eventual retirement was anyone’s guess. Wilder, his older brother, high-tailed out of here years ago, becoming a smoke jumper in Montana. His younger brother, Archer, was more interested in wrangling and women than responsibility. Maybe the sprawling property would pass to one of their dozens of second or third cousins.

For now, though, Hidden Rock was Grandma’s domain. Sawyer bought a few acres from her when it looked like he’d be settling down, before life kicked him in the teeth with the heel of a stiletto. Still, he held no regrets, at least not for the cabin, built with his two hands, the old-fashioned way. His log house wasn’t a prefab made-to-order, shipped in and snapped together like Lincoln Logs. Instead, he spoke with neighbors, visited land, and selected trees he felled with his own axe, avoiding chainsaws wherever possible. He still had finishing work left, but for the most part the place was stout and snug, good enough, especially for a bachelor who lived alone with his dog.

Plus—blessing and a curse—he stayed close enough to ensure Grandma didn’t get into too much trouble.

Apparently he needed to keep a closer watch.

Her pink-handled axe leaned against the log pile. “Were you chopping firewood?”

She waved her hand in dismissal. “Just a damn chicken.”

“But you don’t have a coop.” An uneasy feeling washed over him. The Carsons’ hens had been escaping for weeks. He’d returned the ones he’d found wandering before the coyotes had gotten hold of them, but Roger Carson only nodded an absentminded thanks, muttering Five Diamonds was “too much work.”

Sawyer considered offering to do the repair job, but a man must respect another’s right to run his land as he saw fit, even if Sawyer didn’t admire it much.

“Where’d you find the chicken, Grandma?” he pressed.

She clomped up the backdoor steps and wiped her boots on the Go Away mat. “My conscience is clear.”

“That’s because you don’t have one.”

“I didn’t find the chicken, it found me. The bird brain got in my garden, and you know how I feel about those tomatoes.”

He knew Grandma loved him, in an abstract way, like the fact the sun rises, a law of nature, understood but little discussed. Grandma’s veggie garden was a different story. Half her will to live seemed derived from growing things for the Brightwater County Fair, and her blue ribbons were proudly displayed above the living room fireplace.

If a Carson chicken had been so foolhardy as to wander into Grandma’s tomatoes, no doubt it met a fast and furious end.

“I’ve had it to here with Kooky Carson.” She raised her hand over her head. “That man couldn’t pour piss from a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel. The girl needs to learn straight off—some things won’t stand.”

Something quickened deep inside him, the same way the west wind shook the aspen groves before a thunderstorm. “Girl?”

“Because the father is good as useless. You tell me, what grown man of sound mind spends his days gathering sticks and taking pretty pictures?”

Roger Carson’s coffee table books sold in the high-end shops that started sprouting downtown, boutiques that filled long-empty store fronts. Word around The Baker’s Dozen was that his photography sold for big bucks in places like Los Angeles and New York City.

“I think ol’ Roger does fine for himself.” Privately, he agreed with Grandma, but at least one of them had to observe her other oft-repeated and ignored rule, “If you can’t say anything nice . . . ”

“Well, he’s gone.” She sniffed as if to indicate
and good riddance.
She coveted Five Diamonds, had for years, clucking with disapproval after Roger ceased farming operations, focused on his art, and let the property go wild.

The Eastern Sierras were notoriously dry, most of the rain falling in the mountains. Brightwater River was the lifeblood to this harsh environment. After the Kanes lost the majority of their access in that unlucky hand of poker, the Carsons of old had been tight-fisted, allowing water access but forcing the Kanes to pay, nearly crippling the ranch. Grandma expanded their landholdings in other directions, and built back what they lost, but she carried the old grudge with dogged determination.

“Where’d Roger go?”

“That old hippie flitted off to Mexico. Imagine leaving with your roof in that condition, but what can you expect different from Kooky Carson? Remember the time he staged that whatchamacallit in the town square last year?”

“The hug-in?” Sawyer held back a cringe, remembering Roger, barefoot in a pair of overalls, strumming a ukulele between handmade signs that read, “Love is the Answer,” “World Peace Starts At Home,” and “Free Hugs.”

A curious crowd sprouted on the sidewalk, but no one took Roger, or Kooky Carson, as he was known, up on his hug offer.

“I don’t understand some people, I really don’t. They wouldn’t know how to find their backside if it was painted like a baboon.”

She hadn’t brought up “the girl,” again, so he needed to proceed with caution. Grandma’s senses were bloodhound good. She’d sniff him out unless he was mighty careful.

“Maybe I should pop around Five Diamonds in the morning and fix the coop.”

“Nah, keep ’em coming. I’ve got a taste for fried drumsticks.”

“Strange though, isn’t it?” Sawyer hooked a hand behind his neck. “Not even Carson would leave the country and abandon animals.”

Grandma gripped the handrail and turned, staring like he was a prize idiot. “Sawyer John. Do you have bricks for brains? Yes or no.”

“Grandma—”

“Yes or no?”

“No.” He smothered a grin. Grandma’s annoyance overrode her suspicious nature.

“Five Diamonds isn’t empty. That girl’s back, like I told you, the little wild one who always looked like a half-starved chickadee. She never did grow right, probably didn’t get enough protein.”

So Annie Carson had come home at last. How long had it been? Ten years. She’d kept true to her promise, left Brightwater and never spoken to him after that disastrous graduation party. His last glimpse had been of her beautiful blue eyes, not gentle and warm, but sealed off like a frozen lake. She believed he’d betrayed her, set her up for the whole school to mock.

“You think my family is a joke, Sawyer Kane? That I’m a joke?” she’d choked out. “Guess what? The joke’s on you because I’m going places, getting out of this nowhere town.” She’d run in the opposite direction, surprisingly fast given her Birkenstocks.

Grandma wagged a finger. “Watch it, boy, you just tripped standing still. Why are you still here, anyway?”

Sawyer snapped to the present. “Wanted to see you home safe.” Safe as she could be while plotting world domination and mass poultry murder.

Her face softened. Well, not exactly, but it turned a hair less severe. “You always were a good boy, Sawyer.”

The unexpected compliment warmed his heart.

“But shave more. Because what we need to do is find you a nice girl.”

“Grandma.” The warmth faded fast.

“It’s not right, you living alone in the cabin. This valley is our home and we need to keep it stocked.”

“Stocked?” He shook his head, hoping he didn’t hear her right.

“Breed the herd. Outsiders are coming in, more every day, thanks to that no-account nightmare.” Grandma didn’t think a great deal of the popular film
Tumbleweeds
, shot in the valley, and neither had much love lost for Buck Williams, the actor who played the blind cowboy. “It’s time to get back in the saddle after Ruby.”

“We’re not talking about Ruby.” His ex-fiancée, or Mrs. Buck Williams as she was now known.

When the film crew first rolled into town, Ruby’s face and charm landed her a coveted role as an extra, and soon a new role all together, as a Hollywood up-and-comer’s arm candy. It took a while before he realized what hurt wasn’t her absence, but his ego. Her parting words ran on a loop in his head. “Moose, you’re a Chevy and I have Rolls-Royce dreams.”

“Remember your duty to Brightwater,” Grandma snapped.

“I do.” He shook his head to clear it. “Every day. I’m the sheriff, my whole life is duty.”

She snorted. “You pull people over for traffic violations and bust bored kids spray painting the water tower.”

“There’s more to it than that.” Hell, he’d been awarded a medal of honor from the governor for his role in dismantling a regional meth lab last fall. Domestic assault could go bad. Bar brawls weren’t uncommon. His office was small, him and his two deputies, but they were capable and frequently called in to assist over in Sierra County. He and Maverick volunteered with the search and rescue in Yosemite’s high country and the adjacent wilderness when hikers went missing.

Speak of the devil, his dog appeared from the shadows.

“Hey there, Mav.” He crouched to scratch his black pointed ear. Some people thought German Shepherds were aggressive, but Maverick had nothing but heart. He failed out of K-9 school for licking the mock intruders.

“Roo roo roo,” Maverick responded, in a tone that meant anything from “My day’s been satisfactorily engaged in genital licking” to “Chewed a bone. Barked at a cat.” Some days Sawyer wished for a dog’s life. They didn’t stress about bank account balances or gold-digging exes. They simply were. If in Sawyer’s lifetime he got half as wise as Maverick, he’d consider himself one lucky son of a bitch.

“I’m tuckered out,” Grandma snapped. “Time you get on home.”

“Night, Grandma.”

“Night, boy.”

Maybe it should bug him more, how she refused to acknowledge he’d grown up and become a man with his own home and hearth, but instead it mostly amused him. He walked by the axe glinting in the moonlight and the smile slid from his face.

“Sawyer?”

He glanced over his shoulder.

Grandma poked her head back outside. “Something smells fishy.”

Things always smelled fishy to Grandma. She started half the conspiracy theories in town. “How so?”

“Got one of those feelings.”

Grandma and her feelings. He wanted to tell her it was gout, but even though he outweighed her by a good hundred pounds, she fought dirty. Probably hid brass knuckles in her pajamas.

“That girl is up to something, mark my words. She’s Kooky Carson’s next-of-kin, there’s bound to be trouble. Big trouble.”

“Night, Grandma.”

The slamming door didn’t do much to mask her dismayed grunt.

He strode up the hill with visions of a young, pixie blonde filling his mind. While he’d known who Annie was for years, they’d never directly spoken until the afternoon he discovered her poised on a cliff over the Brightwater River. He’d gone for a ramble down through the gulch behind Hidden Rock and froze beneath the cottonwoods. Her lean, naked body glinted in the dappled light, and as she jumped without a trace of hesitation, raw need took root in his stomach, blooming into an unfamiliar ache.

Wonder if she’s changed at all.

At the cabin, he hoisted the telescope bag on his shoulder and kicked the dirt off his boots before walking up the wide front steps. He never wanted to study astronomy. Law enforcement had always been his path, a way to serve and protect, make a difference to the community. But he loved the stars. And when he set his mind on buying a telescope, he waited, saved, and the one he eventually bought was damn near professional grade.

Maverick kept to his heels, and before he turned on the bedroom light, another appeared, in the dark, down the hill at Five Diamonds Farm. A breeze ruffled the plain white curtains and he released a breath. Once upon a time, the split-rail fence separating his life from Annie’s had been breached. The two of them spent time together at the swimming hole. Cliff jumped. Talked. Ignored the old grudge and the roles they were supposed to play, that of “Brightwater High’s popular star pitcher” and “Town misfit orbiting the farthest reaches of the social galaxy.”

He didn’t have the word for it then but he did now.

Love.