came to mind. “Jennifer Clearry’s going to have a baby, Dad.”
“I know. I heard.” “We’re the same age.” “I know that, too.”
She stopped on their front porch. From the soft glow of the lights that were still on in the courtyard—Axel was waiting for everyone to get home before he switched them off—she studied her father’s face. She’d never thought of him as being a particularly handsome man. Over the years his classic Parker features had settled into a kind of blandness. But if you looked closely you could see he’d once been very attractive. Attractive enough to capture her mother’s heart?
Jodie couldn’t help but wonder about them. All she knew was that they’d met in an El Paso bar and married almost immediately, without Mae’s knowledge. Had that been his idea or hers? Had the passion between them been so strong that Gib was willing to face what he knew would be Mae’s certain displeasure? Or had it been the way Mae had told Jodie the one time they’d talked about it—that her mother had found entry into the Parker prosperity, and when offered a goodly enough sum to get out, she’d left without so much as a backward glance at Gib or her baby daughter?
Jodie suddenly burned to question her father about it, to see what he would say—but couldn’t make herself do it. Instead, she inquired about another subject she’d been curious about over the past couple of days. “Why haven’t you told me I’m wrong about Rio, like everyone else? I’d’ve thought you of all people… You didn’t like him, I know that.”
“I didn’t like the way he treated you, that’s for sure.”
She tilted her head. “Daddy? Do you think he could have beaten that girl?”
While her father pondered his answer, the lights went off. Only the bright moon was left to cast its shadows. “I don’t know,” Gib said at last. “Do you … for sure?”
A quick defense of Rio tumbled from her lips, but the simplicity of her father’s question gave her pause.
They parted again in the hallway, sharing a brief kiss, and Jodie quickly got ready for bed. She wasn’t sleepy, though. So instead of climbing straight into bed, she curled up by the window that looked out onto the backyard.
How many times over the years had she sat there watching and waiting—restlessly—for something to happen? Gazing at the pasture that the night had turned into a moonscape but for the barbed-wire fence?
She pulled the curtain aside to relive another memory, one that had to do with Rio and their secret meetings. Rio had carried an old silver Mexican coin as a good-luck piece. It was drilled through and set in a metal loop, which he then clipped to his key ring. When he wanted to see her—when he knew he could snatch some free time from his ranch duties—he’d hang the silver coin from a loosened nail on the exterior window frame. When Jodie saw it, she’d collect it and bring it to their meeting place.
She smiled. How utterly romantic she’d thought the whole process at seventeen. Then she looked for the loosened nail to see if it was still there.
And saw a silver coin dangling from a metal loop!
JODIE’S BREATH whooshed from her lungs. A coin? A silver coin? Had she become so wrapped up in her teenage memories that she’d started to hallucinate?
She shut her eyes, hoping that when she opened them the coin wouldn’t still be there. But it was.
Was it Rio’s coin? But how?
Her fingers trembled as she pushed the window open wider and brought the coin inside. They trembled even more as she examined it, because there was no mistaking. It was his! She’d spent hours when she was seventeen memorizing its every line.
Her first reaction was to fling it away.
The coin bounced and skidded across the hardwood floor before coming to rest on her bedside rug.
How dare he! How dare— She might defend him to the others, but not to herself. What on earth would make him think that she—she! —would be willing to meet with him?
Jodie shook her head. She didn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe it. He’d never come here! But if he did, if he had, wouldn’t it mean he was desperate?
Her mind whirled. What should she do? Call Tate? Tell Rafe? If Rio
had done what he was suspected of doing, he didn’t deserve. She crawled over to the rug, reclaimed the coin and sat with it, her back against the side of the bed. She’d defended him before her family, protested for his innocence. Avthe first provocation was she going to jettison everything she’d instinctually felt and said? Or was she going to give him a chance—one chance—to tell the truth?
She waited a half hour to make sure everyone was asleep, then, dressed in jeans and a light jacket, she slipped outside, across the gravel drive, through the courtyard and onto the path that led to the business heart of the ranch. The ranch office, the bunkhouse, the workshops and a large tack room all faced each other around a small clearing. Her goal was the storage room to the rear of the bunkhouse. It was there she and Rio used to meet.
Her heart beat rapidly as she paused outside the door. Not from any lingering attachment to Rio, but because she wasn’t sure—if it was him—how deeply she wanted to get involved.
She rapped lightly on the wooden door. It jerked open and she was pulled inside. The windowless storage room, used mostly to secure the camp-cooking gear for the twice-yearly roundups, was in full darkness. Jo-die couldn’t see a thing, but she was highly aware that the grip on her wrist—hard and tight and urgentmbelonged to a hunted man.
“Rio?” she asked, her voice low. “Is that”
“Shh!” he hissed as the flint of a cigarette lighter scraped a low flame into life.
A moment passed before Jodie’s eyes adjusted well enough to see in the flickering light. He hadn’t changed
that much. His face still had a boyish quality, even when sporting a mustache.
“Satisfied?” he grunted. ,
At her jerky nod the lighter flicked shut, plunging them back into darkness.
He reached past her for the door, peered out, then drew her after him as he crossed to the barn in a low crouch. Once inside, he pulled her over to the most distant stall.
When he seemed content to have their conversation in darkness, Jodie switched on the flashlight she’d brought with her. “Will this do?” she asked pointedly,
placing it on its base on an upturned crate.
“I suppose,” he returned.
His hair was longer than he used to wear it, falling in straggly blond curls almost to his shoulders. His eyes—older now with deep creases at the corners—kept darting toward the barn doors as if he was worded someone had followed them.
“You didn’t tell anybody I was here, did you?” he demanded.
Jodie released an impatient breath. “I can’t believe you had the nerve to do this! Are you crazy? The sheriff’s looking for you!”
“Jodie, you can’t tell a soul.t ” Cause if you do”– She cut him off. ” I haven’t made up my mind what I’m going to do yet. Anyway, why do you think you can come to me for favors? Do you remember what happened the last time we were together? When I thought you wanted to marry me and you”
“I made a mistake!”
“—and you said all you’d wanted was to have a little fun ?”
“I never said that!”
“You did?”
He dragged a hand through his hair. “All that happened a long time ago. I was young, you were young”
She crossed her arms. “And now you’re in trouble again. I heard what happened, Rio. Tate Connellym he’s the sheriff here now told us the other day. You’ve sweet-talked another rancher’s daughter–only this one you got pregnant, then you beat her up!”
“I didn’t!”
“I’m supposed to believe that? Me? When you told me one lie after another? You’ve come to the wrong person, Rio!”
“I never lied to you! Well, maybe once or twice, but never about anythin’ important.”
Jodie gave him a level look. “You lied about Shan non-about her wanting you to kiss her.”
“I thought she did!”
“You’re still lying. And you’d better start telling the truth!”
He shook his head and glanced toward the doors again. “You gotta help me, Jodie. You’re the only person who can.”
“You sure think a lot of yourself.”
To her surprise he crumpled onto the straw, his shoulders hunched, his chin fallen. When he looked up, his expression was pleading. “I didn’t do it and I can prove it! I was with some people when it happened!”
“Why didn’t you tell that to the sheriff in Colorado?”
‘“Cause he wouldn’t believe me! ” Cause he and
Crystal’s daddy are some kind of special buddies. ” ” If it’s the truth, he has to believe you. “
Rio laughed hollowly. “That’s not the way it works in the real world. Not for people like me. Lawmen act first,” then check their facts—if they even bother to check. Sheriff Preston’d just hand me over to the Ham mon ds and let ‘em take care of it. “
“Who are the Hammonds?”
“Crystal’s family. Real bad people to cross.” “So are the Parkers.”
His eyes narrowed. “Not like this. These people will hurt you! Kill you even. Cripple you for sure. Make you wish they had killed you.”
Jodie settled on the straw a short distance away. “Then why in the world would you get involved with..” what was her name? Crystal? “
A muscle jerked along his jaw. “You won’t believe me if I tell you.”
“You love her,” she mocked.
“I do! Not like … Not…” He shut up, obviously realizing that if he offended her, it would destroy any small hope he might have that she’d help him. When Jodie remained silent, he admitted, “Not like with all the others. Not like … with you. This time I really— I didn’t’ see her until after I’d signed on at the Double Z, then I knew I was in trouble. She … she felt the same.”
“So the baby was yours,” Jodie said.
His head jerked up. “Was?”
She had never seen Rio so intent before. Never sensed in him this deep an emotion. When she realized he didn’t know what had happened, she nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, yes. ” Crystal lost the baby. “
He closed his eyes and began to rock back and forth, thumping the back of his head against the wooden stall separator.
Jodie didn’t know what to say. She was under no obligation to feel compassion for him, but she would have had to be made of stone if she didn’t feel something. She was quiet for a moment, then said, “Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know! If i did I’d…” He stopped rocking. “The last time I saw Crystal she was fine. She’d told me about the baby the week before, and I was tryin’ to find a way to work everythin’ out. I saw her before I went into town for a ropin’ contest. I went in early, the Friday evenin’ before it started—last Friday, as a matter of fact, although it seems a lot longer.” He shook his head and continued, “There were card games and such goin’ on. This ropin’ contest is a big draw. It has some nice prize money, and there’s some big pots in the poker games. I thought I could win us some money to live on. Cowboys come from all over with their pockets full. One or two from Texas, even.” He sat forward. “That’s who knows I couldn’t have done it! The fellas I was playin’ cards with that night. All night! There’s four of ‘em. An’ they’ll remember me, ‘cause I. won! I took a bundle off ‘em! Crystal was gonna be so happy” — His voice trailed off in misery and he began rocking once more, his head thumping against the separator.
“Why can’t you tell that to the sheriff?.” Jodie asked.
He looked at her. ‘“CJuse I only know one of their names. This buddy of mine called Joe-Bob. The others” — he shrugged “—well, Joe-Bob knows ‘em. They’re his friends.”
“Then all you have to do is produce this Joe-Bob.” Another hollow laugh. “I wish I could. Like I said, that contest pulled ‘em in from far and wide. And by the time I found out Crystal was in a coma and that Sheriff Preston was lookin’ for me, everybody’d scattered. Moved on back to the ranches they work on or to other places.”
“And Joe-Bob?”
“He’s one of the boys from Texas I told you about. He’d been workin’ on a ranch up in Montana and was on his way back home. Said he’d made arrangements with a rancher in West Texas that was lookin’ for extra hands. That’s why I’m here—to find him.”
“What’s his last name?”
Rio gazed at her steadily. “All I know him by is Joe-Bob. Big o1’ boy, about thirty. Could be part Mexican. Brown hair, dark eyes.”
“If you show your face around here, you’ll get picked up. Tate’s telling everyone to watch out for you.”
“That’s why I need you. To help me find Joe-Bob. Please, Jodie! I know I don’t deserve it, but you’re the only person I can ask.”
“Are you completely out of your mind?”
“I was afraid to turn myself in. Afraid what would happen. You don’t know these Hammonds!”
Jodie could sense his fear. He might be lying about other things, but not that. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I have to think.”
He grasped hr by the shoulders. “Don’t think too long, okay? I have to get this straightened out. When Crystal wakes up, she’s gonna wonder what’s happened to me. She’ll think I ran out on her! I’m sure that’s what her daddy and her stepbrothers are gonna tell her.”
Only Rio Walsh would have the gall to ask an old girlfriend-to help him retain the affections of a new one. Jodie gazed at him incredulously and wondered how in the world she’d ever been attracted to him. Even to the point of running off with him. Now she felt nothing but an odd kind of pity.
She wriggled against his hold. “Don’t touch me!” she snapped.
He let go instantly.
They both got to their feet and looked at each other a little awkwardly. This wasn’t the first time they’d had to brush the straw from themselves after being together in this stall. Only, years before, she’d been exhilarated after being with him.
“Where will you be?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Around.”
She fished in her pocket for his silver coin. “Here,” she said. “I’ll make my decision tonight. When you’re ready to meet again, put it out like you did before. If I agree to help, I’ll be here within the hour.” She cocked her head. “Did you do the same thing with Crystal? Leave the coin for her to find?”
When he didn’t answer, she knew. He’d probably