Winsor, Linda (8 page)

Do
you need to call anyone before we head back?" Shep held open the door to
the Stop and Save Market where they picked up a few groceries.

"One
lie begets another."
Gram's sage observation haunted Deanna as though
whispered straight into her ear.
Gram, bear with me and... and, Lord, please
forgive me. I know You've given me refuge. I'm just trying to hold on to it.
She
chose her words with care, sticking to the flight-from-a-relationship-gone-sour
scenario she'd sketched earlier. "The only one I might call is the one I
dare
not
call."

The
fact was she had no one to call, no one to turn to. Her chivalrous host was her
only friend, and that was based on false pretenses.

"What
about family back home in the Big Apple?"

"No
one close anymore. Just a distant relative or two." She'd never been a
social butterfly. More like a business bee, she had friends only in the context
of work. Time hadn't been there for others. After Gram's death, her extended
family's gatherings had stopped. With Deanna's parents gone, she had no one
close with whom to keep in touch.

Heavily
populated as it was, New York had been a lonely place. No wonder she'd been
such an easy pick for the first guy brave enough to breach that no-nonsense
wall she'd erected around her almost nonexistent private life.

"Well,
I'm
having second thoughts already," Shep quipped as he deposited
the three bags of groceries into the back of the Jeep.

Second
thoughts?
Deanna
abandoned her morose evaluation of her life with a startled look.

"I
don't know if I can afford to feed you," he teased. "Looks like I'm
feeding a herd of rabbits."

Picking
up on the friendly debate, which had started at the produce counter when she
suggested they purchase more than one kind of lettuce for a salad and something
other than apples for fruit, Deanna rallied in relief. "Fruit and
vegetables are part of the basic four food groups, but your lettuce has little
nutritional value. And in case you hadn't heard, beans don't make the fruit and
veggie grade." Or did they? She tried to recall a home economics lesson
long since moved to the recesses of her memory about the placement of legumes.
They went with meat and proteins didn't they?

"I
had vegetables and fruit already... plenty of both."

"In
cans, dusty cans at that." Deanna had seen them when she put away the dishes
last night. "Everyone knows that fresh salads and produce are far more
healthy."

"And
more trouble," Shep pointed out with a stubborn quirk of his lips.
"Especially when a man doesn't know if or when he'll have time to cook. I
just got tired of throwing stuff away If it's in a can, it's always good. It's
not like I have a market within spitting distance like you do."

If
not for the mischievous light in those bourbon brown eyes of his, Deanna would
have retreated. The last thing she wanted was to jeopardize her temporary
reprieve from life on the lam.

"That's
where health-conscious planning comes in," she told him with brazen
authority as he backed out of the row of parking spaces that ran parallel to
Buffalo Butte's tree-dotted main street.

Surely,
Martha Stewart was choking somewhere at that very moment, given Deanna's
helter-skelter home life. It was more than literal miles away from this small
town, U.S.A. But for the street vendors and delicatessens so prevalent around
her previous work- place and neighborhood, she'd be eating out of cans and the
frozen cardboard boxes she'd spotted in Shep's freezer, too.

"But
those two cans of Chef Luigi's macaroni and franks don't count, I guess."

Caught,
there was nothing to do but fess up. "When it's on sale, one can indulge
on occasion."

"Oh,
I get it." Shep cut a sidewise glance at her. "Breaking the rules is
okay when it suits you."

His
question struck the bulls-eye of her conscience. Were they still talking about
food? Squirming mentally, she forced a grin. "Okay, I admit it. I've been
a Chef Luigi addict since childhood." At the raise of his brow, she added,
"What, do you think cowboys have the monopoly on an unpredictable
schedule? It's a quick meal in a pinch."

Shep
lifted his hand, acknowledging the wave of the young man sweeping the pavement
in front of a pharmacy/soda fountain. Everyone here not only knew Shep but
obviously liked him. The more she saw of him, how could anyone not like Shepard
Jones?

Deanna
felt guilty deceiving such a nice guy, but what choice did she have? Would he
be so nice and understanding if she'd said she was on the run from the police
and God only knew whom else? Would he believe in her innocence when the facts
the detective had presented her were almost enough to convince even her that
she was guilty?

With
an involuntary shiver, she turned away to stare at the lazy roll of the
pastureland as they left the equally slow-paced town.

"You
too cold?" Shep's inquiry gave away the fact that his attention hadn't
wavered from her. Under other circumstances, it would have been flattering,
even hoped for.

Deanna
shook her head. "Somebody must have stepped on my grave," she
offered, repeating one of Gram's sayings.

"I'm
a fresh air fiend anyway." Shep cut off the air-conditioner and rolled down
the windows from his console.

"Yeah,
me too. Nothing like a lungful of diesel fumes to kick off the day."
Deanna couldn't keep a straight face at the sharp look aimed at her. It
softened with a white-toothed grin.

"If
it blows your hair too much, just holler."

"Spoken
by a man who must know his way around women." What kind of woman made a
man like Shep tick?

"Nope,
just their hair. Consideration of that is one of those universal rules integral
to man's survival. You know, like never leave the toilet seat up."

With
a laugh, she focused on the country surrounding them while Shep fiddled with
the radio. He probably went for the fresh-scrubbed and wholesome as milk
type—someone who was equally at home in the kitchen and the stable instead of
the deli and the office. Definitely not her.

Resigned,
she enjoyed the wind whipping her hair about her face and eyes. Although it had
been cut for just such abandon, whether clipped up off her neck or down as it
was now, Deanna rarely had the chance to test it. The rushing air seemed to
carry away her problems, enabling her to appreciate her surroundings and the
country music station's corny parody of the
Perils
of Pauline.

The
villain tied Sweet Sue to the railroad tracks. The train was coming. Things
couldn't look any more hopeless. Corny as it was, Deanna related to Sweet Sue's
desperation. In her mind she could see C. R. with the black cape and sleazy
mustache framing her and then the ransacking and then... just like in the
chorus of the radio song, "Along Came Jones"—Shepard Jones, that is.

She
gave her companion a startled look and burst out laughing. "Get outta
here."

"What?"
he asked, clueless.

"Along
came
Jones."
She waved her hands, directing and singing along with
the chorus. "Get it? I mean, is that weird or what?"

Shep's
mouth thinned to more of a grimace than a smile. "I don't see the
connection. I ran you off the road and then rescued you. The name is the only
similarity, and Jones is one of the most common names—"

"Forget
it. It just struck me funny." Men! No sense of whimsy She settled against
the headrest once more as the song gave way to an advertisement for some bug
killer for farm and ranch use, but at the announcement of the upcoming weather
and news brief, her relaxed humor turned to alarm. What if her story was aired?
God, spare me please, I just need a little time...

She
listened, breath still, for her name, but the broadcast leaned more toward
national and international headlines. In no time at all, the music started
again. Once again, she could breathe easily and savor the moment in silence.

Although
there were no horns blowing or hordes of people waiting impatiently at every
corner for a light to change, the ride took Deanna back to carefree hours spent
in the taxi with her dad. While city born and bred, he'd been a cowboy at
heart. Country music and TV Westerns were a mainstay at the Manetti household.
What would he think now if he saw the coppery sea of cattle grazing on a
sun-parched plateau in the distance instead of rush hour traffic frozen around
him? She could almost hear him singing along with the radio, belting out lyrics
about being footloose and fancy free in the middle of Montana. Had she been
chasing his dream and not her own?

"The
cattle look like their coats are polished," she observed as the Jeep
passed them by. "Are they yours?"

"The
cows aren't, but the land is. I lease it for grazing to one of the bigger
spreads. Helps pay the taxes at least, till I can get up and running with my
horses."

So
Hopewell was much bigger than its meager home place suggested. Although he fell
back into silence, Shep's remark triggered the latent entrepreneur in her. With
this kind of collateral, there were any number of opportunities Shep might
consider as a means to fulfill his dream. Why he wanted to train four-legged
beasts that would eat him out of house and home, not to mention fill a
litterbox in one visit, was beyond her, but it was possible.

Even
though Deanna was clearly out of her element, she wouldn't mind the all's well
euphoria of this windblown country-song moment and the companionable presence
of her host as part of her life. In the back of the Jeep as the road became
rougher along with the landscape, a symphony of rattling paper and plastic
interspersed with the occasional bottle-tapping timpani played like a lullaby,
while the bags of groceries kept time to an upbeat rendition of Western swing.

At
Shep's intrusive chuckle beside her, Deanna realized she'd lost herself in
woolgathering longer than she thought. Worse, she'd started singing aloud with
the chorus again, not just in her mind.

"I
wouldn't quit my day job for a recording contr—" Shep swerved the Jeep
with a clipped, "Well, I'll be a—"

Before
embarrassment could claim her, their vehicle was bouncing like a speeding taxi
over road construction across the shallow ditch running parallel to the road.
Her exclamation of astonishment had hardly rolled off her lips when Shep
steered the vehicle straight up a dry grassy incline. With the grinding and
groaning of gears echoing the outrage of the jouncing, banging grocery bags in
the back, she finally saw the reason for his sudden and erratic behavior.
Grazing at the edge of some scrub trees crowning the hill was the sorrel
stallion that had forced her off the road the day before.

"What
are you going do?" She braced herself against the dash of the vehicle with
her hands.

Ahead,
the horse lifted its head, ears pricked. It stood frozen for a moment, like a
magnificent statue glistening red in the sun, then reared on its hindquarters
in defiance. Its golden mane and tail unfurled as it bolted, racing along the
wood's edge and down toward a steep-sided valley.

"Corral
that son-of-a-prairie-biscuit," Shep steered the Jeep after it.

"In
this?"
Glad for the seat belt that kept her from bumping her head
on the roof, Deanna glanced sideways at her companion. There was no telling
exactly what he said under his breath, but the renegade stallion had shattered
his laid-back attitude.

The
sorrel left a trail of dust, amplified by the Jeep pursuing it. Head bent in
determination, Shep maintained a tight hold on the wheel and Deanna held what
breath was not jolted out of her. The Jeep careened over a raised slab of rock
on the floor of what was turning into a canyon with higher and higher rocky
cobalt sides. "You can't possibly catch him in this."

"No,
but if I can herd him into the draw up ahead, there's an old gate there that
just might hold him until I can get back with Patch. You game?"

His
excitement
was
infectious. Or was it the challenge Deanna found
impossible to ignore as she nodded, grinning like a fool. Thank heaven they
were strapped in a Jeep with a roll bar... and that they hadn't seen the
mustang again yesterday while riding Patch, who had no such safety devices.

Each
time the stallion pivoted and tried to run back, Shep steered the Jeep into his
path to head him off, honking with a horn that sounded like it hadn't quite
cleared puberty. She thought the vehicle surely would turn over, but it soon
became obvious that the cowboy at the wheel had done this before and knew just
how far to push it. All he needed to do was wave his hat out the window and
holler—

"Yee-hah!"

...exactly
what he just did, she thought, as startled as she was incredulous. Gripping the
dash with one hand and the window frame with the other, Deanna definitely
preferred to ride the trail from her dad's old La-Z-Boy.

The
stallion tried doubling back again, this time with more determination than
ever. It was almost as if the animal sensed the trap ahead. With Shep leaning
out the window and whipping his hat overhead in big circles, his long stretch
caused his foot to slip off the gas pedal and the Jeep threatened to die.