Cate picked up Tanner, who wound his arm around her neck and smiled winsomely at her. She pulled back a little, narrowing her eyes at him, which might have been a little more effective if she hadn’t been patting his back at the same time. “You’re up to something,” she said suspiciously.
“Not,” he assured her, and smothered a yawn.
They were tired and ready for bed, but too excited to settle down. First they couldn’t decide what story they wanted to hear; then Tanner wanted one of his dinosaurs to hold, which meant Tucker had to decide which toy he wanted, too. Finally he settled on his Batman figure, which he bounced around on the covers.
Tanner laid down his dinosaur and gave her a very serious look. “I’m going to be in the army when I grow up,” he announced.
Tucker nodded, too caught up in a yawn to say anything.
Last week they’d been set on being firemen, so Cate could only wonder at how fast they changed. “Do you know where kings keep their armies?” she asked in wide-eyed seriousness.
They both shook their heads, their own eyes going big.
“In their sleevies.”
For several long seconds they stared at her in silence, then began giggling as they got the joke. Sometimes she had to explain jokes to them, but that frustrated them and they loved it when they caught on all by themselves. Behind her her mother gave a soft groan, probably because she remembered that at the twins’ age repetition was the name of the game and now she could count on hearing that joke at least a hundred times over the next two weeks.
Cate read them their story, which lulled them to sleep within five minutes. She kissed them good night, then tiptoed out of the room.
Sheila saw the tears in her eyes and hugged her. “You’ll be all right, I promise. Just wait until the first day of school;
that’s
when you’ll cry your eyes out.”
Through her tears Cate had to laugh. “Thanks, Mom, that’s such a comfort to know.”
“Yes, but if I told you it wouldn’t bother you at all, when the day came you’d know I’d lied and you wouldn’t trust me again. Of course,” Sheila said thoughtfully, “I didn’t cry at all when Patrick started school. As I remember, I turned handsprings on the lawn.”
Sheila continued to reminisce about Patrick, keeping Cate smiling, until they went to bed. As soon as Cate told her mother good night and closed her bedroom door, however, her eyes filled and her chin wobbled. The boys had never been away overnight before. She was devastated by the prospect. They’d be so far away; if anything happened it would take her hours and hours to get to them. She wouldn’t be able to hear them playing during the day, their shouts and squeals and laughter, the pounding of their feet as they raced around. She wouldn’t be able to hug them tight, feel their little bodies close to her own and know they were okay.
Bitterly she wished she’d kept her mouth shut about them going home with her mother, but at the time she’d been panic-stricken—which had been a perfectly normal reaction to having had a gun pointed at her. Her only thought had been to get her children away from any possible danger.
She hadn’t known cutting the apron strings would be so difficult. Nor had she intended to cut them now. When they were five would have been about right. Or six. Maybe even seven.
She had to laugh at herself, a watery gurgle that caught in a hiccup. Part of her had wanted them to be more independent, because being a single parent of two active little boys wasn’t easy. She felt as if she never had any downtime, as if she had to be alert every minute of every day, because they could get into trouble in a second. If they were older, more responsible, she could relax a little. She just didn’t want them to be older and more responsible right
now.
Giving herself pep talks didn’t help; neither did reasoning with herself. She cried herself to sleep, already missing the boys so much she ached.
The next morning Cate got up even earlier than usual so she could help her mother get the boys and their stuff loaded in the SUV, as well as do her normal morning cooking. She made hot oatmeal for the boys, because the predawn air was downright cold, but they were too sleepy to eat more than a few bites. Knowing they’d never last all the way to Boise without getting hungry, she prepared each of them a zippered plastic bag of cereal, and sent along two apples just in case.
Dawn hadn’t yet arrived when they shepherded the boys outside. Even the cold air didn’t rouse them very much. They climbed into their seats, looking adorable in their jeans and sneakers, their little flannel shirts left unbuttoned over their T-shirts. They had resisted wearing jackets, so Cate had gone outside and started the SUV ahead of time, turning the heater on high, and the interior was nice and warm. They settled in, each clutching a chosen toy. Cate kissed each of them, told them to have fun and that they should do what Mimi told them to do, then hugged her mother. “Have a safe trip,” she managed to say without her voice quivering too much.
Sheila hugged her in return, patting her back just as she had when Cate was little. “You’ll be fine,” she said soothingly. “I’ll call when we get home, and I’ll call or e-mail every day.”
Cate didn’t want to mention the word
homesick
where the boys might hear her—she didn’t want to plant a seed, in case they knew what the word meant—so she said, “If they get teary—”
“I’ll handle it,” Sheila interrupted. “I know you agreed to this when you were scared and then nothing happened and you’re thinking you were worried for no reason, but…tough. You agreed, and I’m holding you to it. I don’t like cutting my visit short, but I’ll get the rest of my time when I bring the boys home.”
Nothing like some of her mother’s no-nonsense commentary to brighten her world, Cate thought, laughing as she got in another hug. Then her mother got behind the wheel, and Cate leaned down for a last look at the boys. Tucker was already asleep. Tanner looked drowsy, but he gave her an impish smile and blew her a kiss. Cate pretended to be staggered by the impact and he giggled.
They would be okay, she thought as she watched the taillights disappear down the gravel road. She had doubts about herself.
From his observation point, Teague watched the SUV slow as it approached the bridge, then pick up speed. The lights from the dashboard showed a middle-aged woman behind the wheel. The passenger seat was empty.
The logical supposition was that, leaving this early, the woman had a flight to catch. He couldn’t imagine why a lone woman would come to the middle of nowhere for a solitary vacation, but maybe she was some high-powered executive who just wanted to get away from everything, and Trail Stop was certainly a good place to do that.
During the wee hours he’d reconnoitered the community. Two rental vehicles had been parked on the far side of the B and B, meaning just one was left now. He’d watch for it. Slipping among the houses, he’d looked at angles, deciding the best positions his men could take for the most effective lines of fire. A couple of dogs had barked, but he was very good at clandestine movement and neither of them had taken real alarm; no lights had come on, so he guessed the inhabitants were accustomed to the occasional bark.
These people wouldn’t roll over and play dead. They would fight back as well as they could, and probably every house had some sort of weapon in it. Out here, with bears and snakes and other wildlife, it paid to keep at least a pistol handy. He wasn’t worried about the pistols; they wouldn’t have the distance. Ditto the shotguns. It was the rifles that would give him problems, and it was a sure thing that some of the men would hunt deer, so they’d have powerful weapons that shot powerful rounds.
He marked the buildings from which the locals would be able to effectively return fire, which, if he positioned his men right, would be few. The houses were too spread out, with a lot of open ground that they couldn’t safely cross. There were maybe thirty, thirty-five buildings total. The road angled to the left side of the roughly comma-shaped area, putting most of the houses on the river side, on the right, which was good because it clustered people on the side where they had literally nowhere to go. Not only was there a seventy-foot bluff on that side, but the river itself was an effective barrier.
Any escape attempts would necessarily come from the left, where there were fewer houses for cover. The mountains on that side were mostly impassable, but before he started this dance, he intended to explore them himself, looking for possible escape routes. These people would know their own backyard; there might be an abandoned mine that cut all the way through a fold of the mountain. If there was, he wanted to know about it.
Then the next step would be to locate Joshua Creed.
WHEN TEAGUE OPENED THE PORCH DOOR INTO THE B AND B’S dining room, the delicious aroma of fresh baking assailed him. He paused, inhaling deeply. The room was big but filled with small tables and with people, some of whom stood around with a cup of coffee in one hand and a muffin in the other, instead of taking a seat—not that there were many vacant seats.
He took a good look around, marking one or two faces that looked familiar. He could put a name to one face, that of Walter Earl, who owned the little hardware store here. In all likelihood, that meant Earl could put a name to Teague’s face, which in turn meant he had to be extra careful not to do or say anything suspicious, and when the plan actually came down, he couldn’t let any of the locals see him.
The buzz of conversation died down as his presence was registered and everyone got a good look at him, not being shy about it, either. Some even turned around in their chairs to eye him. Probably whatever dustup the two city boys had caused made the locals a little antsy, not that they would ever have been shy about looking over an outsider.
Their interest died fairly fast. The city boys would have stood out like sharks in a pool of guppies—though they’d found out pretty quick that these guppies had teeth. Teague, on the other hand, looked like one of them, because he
was
one of them. He was wearing old boots, jeans worn white from years of use, and a faded flannel shirt against the sudden chill the weather had taken. On his head was a green John Deere cap, definitely not new. He could have been any one of them.
A woman came into the dining room, bearing a tray containing muffins and butter that she unloaded on one of the tables, deftly placing a muffin-filled plate in front of each person while the butter went in the middle. Each table already bore an assortment of jams and jellies. She smiled at Teague in passing, saying, “I’ll be right with you.”
From Goss’s description, he knew this was the owner. Funny how Toxtel and Goss had given such different descriptions. Toxtel had shrugged and said, “She’s nothing extra. Brown hair, brown eyes. Average.” Goss, on the other hand, had smiled and said, “She’s got a great ass, like an athlete. Round and muscular. Small tits. Lanky build, except for that ass. Like a runner, maybe. Long, wavy hair, and this funny-looking, kissable mouth.” Toxtel had snorted at that, but Goss had ignored him. The difference told Teague as much about each man as it did about the B and B owner.
Her name was Cate Nightingale. Dumb name, Nightingale. What kind of a name was that? He’d done some checking, so he knew she wasn’t a local. How had she ended up at Trail Stop? If you weren’t born here, why would
anyone
come to Trail Stop? The few little businesses had to be barely hanging on, providing service to the community and the neighboring ranches, but God knows, they couldn’t be making much. Still, for the folks born here, this was home and a few of them had stayed when common sense said they should have moved on years ago.
Having finished delivering the tray full of muffins, she came back to him. “What can I get you? A muffin, or just a cup of coffee?”
She had a nice voice. She didn’t look like someone who would take what didn’t belong to her, but that wasn’t his problem.
As if suddenly remembering his manners, he grabbed the cap off his head and stuck it in his back pocket. “Uh—I’m looking for Joshua Creed, but those muffins do look good. One, please, and a cup of coffee.”
“Coming right up.” She looked around. “Take any seat you like; we’re very informal here. Just ask any of the men about Mr. Creed, and if one person doesn’t know where he is, someone else will.”
He nodded and she whipped through the door into the kitchen, where he glimpsed another woman working. No sign of a kid, though, and in his experience a kid made its presence known. If there was one, it was probably old enough to be in school, and would be home this afternoon.
One of the tables was occupied by a group he recognized by their clothes as outsiders. Climbers, he thought, catching enough of their conversation to confirm his guess. And from the way they were dressed, they weren’t going out climbing. Were they going home today? The weekend was just starting, but maybe they had a climb planned at another location. They bore watching, to see if their vehicle was packed up when they left.
He approached the table where Walter Earl was sitting, and gravely nodded his head in acknowledgment. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but do any of you know where I can find Joshua Creed?”
“Don’t I know you?” Walter Earl asked with a slightly puzzled expression.
Teague pretended to study him. “Maybe. Your face looks familiar. My name’s Teague.” Lying wouldn’t be smart, because Earl might remember his real name later.
Walter’s face cleared. “That’s it. You’ve been in the store a time or two, haven’t you?”
Once, to get some shotgun shells, but in a place like this people tended to remember anyone they didn’t normally see every day. “I have,” Teague said. Maybe it was good the old man remembered him; it placed him in the others’ minds as someone who belonged.
“Josh took a client deer hunting,” Walter offered. “Monday, wasn’t it?” He looked at the others for confirmation.
There were several nods. “Sounds right,” another man said. “I don’t remember when he said he’d be back.”
“Should be today or tomorrow, though; he usually keeps his hunts to four or five days. Says that’s about his limit on tolerating most of them.”