The Sheriff Catches a Bride (21 page)

“What?” Rose turned on her.

“You’re squatting.”

“Huh?”

“You’re squatting on someone’s land. Or is it state land?” Mia looked at her, admiration plain on her face.

“Mia…”

“Rose, I won’t tell anyone. Heck, if anyone knows how to keep a secret, it’s me,” she said, resting a hand on her belly.

She had a point. “All right. I’m squatting. In the woods outside town.”

Mia nodded. “I knew it. And that lumber you bought last week? You’re building a cabin? You’ve got balls.”

“I built a tree house, actually. I’m beginning to think I might need to expand it.” Rose clamped her mouth shut before any other words could spill out.

“A tree house.” The longing was clear in Mia’s voice. “I always wanted a tree house.”

“Me, too,” Rose realized. It had never even occurred to her to build her hideaway on the ground.

“Rose,” Mia began. She stopped in the middle of the aisle and put a hand on Rose’s shoulder to stop her, as well. “I could use a place like that. Somewhere to escape. No, hold on,” she held up a hand to prevent Rose from speaking. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but with the baby coming things are going to get pretty hard on me. My parents… they’re pretty religious. It’s going to kill them when I begin to show. A few years back this other couple from church—friends of theirs—had a son who got some girl pregnant and refused to marry her. Every one acted sweet and charitable to their faces, but whenever they weren’t around people gossiped like crazy. They stopped getting invitations anywhere. They weren’t picked for church committees. All their so-called friends dropped them like hotcakes, even Mom and Dad. I know it killed my mother, but she knew if she didn’t go along with it, everyone she knew would drop her. She couldn’t bear that.” Mia shrugged miserably. “Now it’s going to happen to her, anyway.”

“Oh, Mia, I’m so sorry. That sounds awful.” Rose only attended services sporadically, but she couldn’t imagine such things going on at the simple church Reverend Joe Halpern oversaw. “Which congregation is that?”

Mia mentioned the name of one of the churches on the outskirts of town, a more conservative denomination. Rose shook her head. The behavior Mia had described didn’t belong in any house of worship.

A tear leaked out of Mia’s eye. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. Please, can I build a tree house, too? Just to get away sometimes and be by myself? A place where I can still dream it’s all going to be okay?”

Rose knew she needed to get Mia out of the store before she broke down completely. “Okay,” she said, almost cursing the day she’d ever befriended the girl. Now there would be three of them going in and out of Carl’s woods. What were the chances Cab wouldn’t discover them?

And how was Mia going to afford the supplies, anyway?

As if she’d read her mind, Mia wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt. “I won’t even have to buy the wood. We’ve got a whole shed out back at home filled with it. If you’ll tell me what I need, I’ll load it up and bring it out tomorrow. Where’s your tree house again?”

“In Carl Whitfield’s woods,” Rose said, her heart sinking. This wasn’t going to end well. It couldn’t.

“Carl’s woods.” Mia looked thoughtful. “I bet you can pull right into the trees and hide your truck. I’ve got this huge old tarp, too. My dad used to use it as a makeshift garage before he built a real one. I’ll bring it when I come out. Once I pull in behind some trees and cover my car, no one will know it’s there.”

Her foresight relieved Rose a little. Maybe they’d pull this off, after all.

Twenty-four hours had gone by
since Rose walked out of his house—well, out of Carl’s house—and Cab hadn’t heard a word from her. How long was he supposed to wait before he made his next move?

When she’d left his bed the previous afternoon, he’d still been in a daze from their unexpected and mind-blowing encounter, but when evening slipped into night and the minutes ticked on without her calling or even texting, he realized she wasn’t coming back any time soon.

He’d tossed and turned all night, and even got out of bed now and then to check out his window. He’d had the unsettling feeling that something was out there, but he couldn’t see anything. All he had to go by was a hunch that something wasn’t right.

Rose wasn’t sleeping with him; that’s what wasn’t right. Why hadn’t she come back? Was she too busy
finding herself
to give him a call? Why couldn’t they just jump over all this relationship gobbledygook and get right into the good stuff? She could move in with him, they’d divide the chores. At night they’d cuddle up, take in a show or two, and then hit the hay.

After a few hours of fooling around, of course.

Sounded like heaven to Cab. Only Rose apparently didn’t agree.

By Sunday afternoon, Cab had enough of Rose’s silence. It galled him to think she could sleep with him and then walk away while he couldn’t think about anything else. It galled him he didn’t even know where she was staying—she wasn’t at the Cruz ranch. What was up with that?

He decided to find out. He dialed her number and was relieved when she answered promptly.

“Hey, Rose,” he said and realized he hadn’t planned any further than that.

“Cab? Is that you?”

“Yeah. Where are you?”

“Um… at a friend’s,” she said, after waiting a beat too long. He figured if he could see her she’d be biting that bottom lip of hers. What was she hiding now?

“Want to get together tonight?”

“Um… tomorrow night is better. Does that work for you?”

He guessed it had to. “Sure,” he said, although he wanted to ask what was wrong with today.

“What time?”

“Five o’clock?”

Another pause. “How about six?”

“Fine. Where can I pick you up?”

“I’ll meet you. How about The Robin’s Nest in Silver Falls?”

“Silver Falls? That’s a bit of a drive.” Practically all the way to Bozeman.

“I don’t want to run into Emory in town.”

“It’ll save some gas if I pick you up,” Cab tried again. Why was she being so cagey about her location?

“Nah, that doesn’t work for me. See you there at six.” She hung up on him before he could answer.

He tucked the phone back in his pocket, disappointment weighing heavy in his gut. As much as he liked Rose and as much as he wanted this to work, he couldn’t handle the way she was giving him the runaround. He’d have to confront her tomorrow night; ask her how she’d spent her day and where she planned to sleep. He didn’t like secrets and he didn’t like the sense that something was going on he didn’t understand.

Meanwhile, he wasn’t going to hang around here by himself anymore. Grabbing his coat, he drove to the Cruz ranch to distract himself with a visit to his friends. He met up with Jamie when he parked in the driveway.

“Have you seen Rose today?” he asked as soon as he got out of his truck.

“No. I figured she was with you.”

Cab shook his head. “She stayed somewhere else last night.” He outlined the sequence of events and told Jamie his plan to confront her about her activities.

“Man, you suck at this stuff, don’t you?” Jamie leaned against his truck.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Don’t get your back up, I’m just telling it how it is.” Jamie clapped him on the shoulder. “Look, Claire’s been talking nonstop about you and Rose. She says you’re going to blow it if you push her too hard.”

“I’m not pushing her. I just want to know what she’s doing.”

“What damn business is it of yours? Do you think she’s sleeping around on you?”

“No.” He didn’t. Nothing in Rose’s behavior led him to believe that.

“Then screw the rest. Buddy, you’ve got a good thing there. Don’t mess it up because you’re a control freak.”

“What the hell did you just call me?”

“Control. Freak.” Jamie straightened and led the way toward the barn. “You always have to know everything and you always need everyone to do things your way.”

“Now that’s just not true,” Cab said, stung by his friend’s summation of his character. “I’m the laid-back one of the group.”

Jamie snorted and led the way inside. “Rob’s the laid-back one, Ethan’s the responsible one, I’m the good-looking one and you’re the control freak.”

“Hell, no.” Cab stopped short. “I am not the control freak. I’m the strong silent type that cleans up the messes the rest of you make.”

“Whatever.” Jamie flashed him a look, sauntered over to a bunch of tools piled up against one of the posts, and kicked them, sending them scattering across the barn floor. He sauntered onward into the dim recesses of the barn and started rummaging among the tack.

Cab waited near the scattered tools to see if Jamie was coming back, stunned by his friend’s behavior. When it became clear he wasn’t, Cab sighed and bent to straighten them up. He set the biggest pitchforks and rakes against the post, then leaned the shorter ones against them one at the time until the whole set was balanced. Tidier. Less likely to get in the way.

“See, I just cleaned up another mess,” he announced.

Jamie strode back toward him, gave the tools a quick look. “You just organized the rakes by size and function.
Control freak
. You know, you remind me of someone. Kind of an old dude that likes to rearrange Rose’s things and burn her paintings up? Know that guy?” He walked out of the barn laughing.

Cab remained behind, fists jammed deep into his jeans pockets. Yeah, he knew that guy, and if he was anything like Emory he had to change.

Fast.

On Sunday, Rose lay low,
hanging out in her tree house with a sketchbook and watercolor pencils. The small propane heater worked like a charm to keep the space warm, even if the tree house didn’t have a proper roof. She munched sandwiches and daydreamed and tried to sketch out some ideas for the paintings she would do when she finished the tree house’s interior and moved in her supplies. Since Cab could be at Carl’s place at any time today, she didn’t work on the tree house itself. She was afraid the sound of the hammer or saw would carry.

When her cell phone vibrated in her pocket late in the morning, Rose jumped but quickly answered it when she saw it was Cab. She was happy to plan a dinner date, but put him off until the following evening, determined to spend one entire day alone just to prove that she could. She felt it was important to establish a boundary with Cab—and herself, too. It would be far too easy to fall into a relationship with him that took over her life. That’s the way the old Rose would do things. New Rose kept her love life in line.

By four in the afternoon, however, Rose was getting restless. Try as she might, thoughts of Cab kept intruding on her plans and sketches. She relived every moment of their afternoon together and fantasized about new and different ways they could make love. The possibilities were infinite and before long she wanted nothing more than to climb down the treehouse ladder and dash over to Carl’s mansion.

When she found herself peeking out the window in that direction, she decided she needed a change of scenery. She made a run to a lumberyard in a neighboring town to get some extra supplies for Hannah and Mia’s tree houses. The corner posts took a day on their own to set in the cement, so she bought eight more posts and buckets, some brackets and screws and then took herself out to dinner. On her way home she stopped at a grocery store to stock up on food and a number of gallon jugs of bottled water.

Once it was dark she drove back, hid the truck again and brought everything to the site before mixing up the cement and anchoring the posts in the buckets. She had to use bottled water for the job and work by the low light of a flashlight with a ski hat draped over it, but it worked out. She’d picked out two locations some distance apart from each other and from her tree house, hoping Hannah and Mia would approve. Like hers, the new tree houses would be nestled among trees without being built into them; she was determined that if they were forced to leave, they could disassemble the houses and remove every trace of them without damaging Carl’s property.

As she settled in for another night in her tree house she was pleased with the progress she’d made and the fact that she hadn’t broken down and gone to be with Cab. She was a capable, competent woman, no matter what her parents or anyone else thought. She didn’t need anyone. She didn’t mind being alone.

But as she slid into her sleeping bag she wished more than anything that Cab was sliding in beside her.

On Monday morning she waited for Cab to leave for work before she finally finished the roof on her tree house. Then she got to work on digging the holes for Hannah and Mia’s posts. By rights they’d have come and done their own dirty work, but she didn’t mind. It gave her another reason to put off looking for a job.

She wasn’t sure why she was so reluctant to do so. Even though she wouldn’t get a reference from Emory, this was a small town; people knew who she was. But when she’d picked up the regional paper on her errands the day before she hadn’t found any ads for jobs she wanted to take.

She needed something flexible, and she needed a really cheap apartment to live in. That would leave her open to start classes for her degree.

She wanted a degree, she’d decided. Maybe it wouldn’t make her paintings more marketable, but she’d learn so much in the process she’d never learn on her own. She’d make connections with other artists, and—she thought triumphantly—it could lead to other artistic jobs. Maybe she could teach university classes someday. Those professors got good salaries, right?

The truth was, she didn’t give a damn about her salary. She did give a damn about art, though. She’d never gotten much support for it, apart from a teacher or two in elementary school who had encouraged her, and she wanted to know what that would be like. The thought that she could spend a few years among other artists filled her with longing.

Mia arrived in the afternoon and they quickly faced the same problem she had at the beginning; there was no electricity for a power saw to cut the lumber Mia brought from her family’s shed. They either had to cut it by hand, or risk going back to the Cruz ranch. After using the handsaw to cut a few boards they agreed to risk a trip to Autumn and Ethan’s place. While Mia looked over the list of board lengths and sizes Rose had drawn up for her, Rose placed the call to Autumn.