One True Heart (32 page)

W
INTER
'
S
I
NN

Beau Yates set down his guitar and stepped out onto the little balcony of his room. He'd spent the day talking to Lark and making plans. For now, he hoped to visit as often as he could and stay at the bed-and-breakfast. He didn't want to rush her. He loved her so much his insides ached. The only good thing about her not spending the night was that songs of missing her danced in his head.

As he looked into the darkness, he noticed the Blue Moon Diner sign with its faded painted blue moon. Through the trees he could see the back of the bookstore and a glimpse of the clock tower on Main. He'd had so many memories here, but none would ever hold a candle to yesterday when he'd walked out of the diner twice with Lark's hand in his. He wouldn't be surprised if the owner didn't bar him from the place.

A pickup turned into the back lot just across the creek. It was a little late to stop by the bookstore, but maybe someone just wanted to sleep off the drinking he'd done at
Buffalo's, or maybe it was someone picking up Rick Matheson. The lawyer's light was still on upstairs. If he decided to take on Max Dewy's case, he'd be working late every night. Rick was a good lawyer who took the hard cases. He was running for district attorney. If he got it, folks said he'd never have time for a wife and family. He'd grow old single like the last DA did.

Beau continued to watch the night, lost in his own thoughts of settling down.

The minute Kare Cunningham stepped from a truck, Beau made her out through the gaps in the tree branches. Even in the night he could see her scarves flying as she ran toward the back door. Too late for her to be at the bookstore, but maybe she'd forgotten something.

An instant later, he saw a shadow rise like smoke from the landing on the back stairs. A thin figure, dressed in black and wearing a hood. No one had opened the upstairs door to the offices. Whoever had been there was waiting for Kare.

Beau swung off the balcony into Martha Q's flower bed and started running. Kare was in trouble. Maybe the same guy who'd mugged him was planning to attack her.

He hit the creek bed at a full run and tumbled into the dried branches and leaves, then crawled up the other side and started toward the back door of the bookstore. The shadow was almost to her. Kare looked like she was frantically trying to get her key to open the door.

A shot, close, shattered the silent night.

For a moment the world froze. No one moved. Not Beau, or the shadow, or Kare.

Millanie raised her weapon, preparing to fire again, but the shadow grabbed Kare just as she opened the door and he shoved her into the bookstore. They vanished, out of range. The girl Millanie thought she had covered had disappeared.

With her Glock in one hand and her cane in the other, Millanie struggled from the cab of the pickup just as she heard footsteps behind her.

“Captain. It's Beau.” A voice came out of the night before she saw his figure. “What's happening?”

“He's got Kare,” was all Millanie had time to say before yelling came from the bookstore. Pounding sounded from the open door as books began to fly out like missiles.

To Millanie's shock, the shadow of a man backed out, dodging not bullets, but books. Kare was yelling from inside. “Get away from me!”

When the man turned to run, Millanie raised her weapon and he froze.

She didn't move as Beau circled the guy and grabbed his arms from behind. The bar fights he'd probably had to stop
during his career came in handy now. A deputy pulled his cruiser into the parking lot, lights flashing. He jumped out of his car, trying to draw his weapon at the same time.

Kare stepped to the doorway of the bookstore. She flipped on the back light Mr. Hatcher had finally put a bulb in after Beau was mugged. A circle of bright light shone like a stage and now there was no problem seeing who the criminal was among them.

“That's him,” Kare said calmly. “That's the man who stood between me and my car.”

“What do we do with him, Captain?” Beau asked. “This is my first capture.”

Millanie smiled. She'd been working with total amateurs tonight, not a trained man in sight, including the new deputy, who was looking for his handcuffs. “Just hold him, Beau, so I don't have to shoot him.”

Before Millanie could stop Kare, the fairy stood on her toes and slammed a book into the shadow's head. “That's for scaring me and for hurting Beau.”

“I didn't hurt Beau,” the man growled as he turned back to glare at Kare. When he did, his hood slid off and Beau jerked hard on the man's arms.

“I know who this guy is. He works at the bank. Lark told me he disappeared a few days ago. He's been embezzling money.”

“People are innocent until proven guilty,” Kare announced as she raised the book again. “Make a move, mister, and I'll clobber you.”

“Take him away, Deputy,” Millanie ordered, “before you have to arrest them all.”

The young deputy had found his handcuffs and had no trouble doing his duty.

Kare hugged Beau for saving her life.

Beau claimed she'd saved her own life by tossing books. “You've got quite an arm,” he complimented.

Kare grinned. “When I was mad as a kid I used to throw all my schoolbooks out the window. I got mad often.”

“We have to get back,” Millanie said, wondering if she'd be
able to explain how it was possible that a fortune-teller, a singer, and a crippled captain had captured a major criminal.

Kare had no trouble going over, in detail, everything that had happened.

When they finally made it back to the homestead, she ran right straight into Johnny's arms and he swung her around as if he hadn't seen her in years.

Millanie slid from the pickup and saw Drew standing, his feet wide apart, his fists on his hips. He didn't offer to help her. He didn't say a word; he just stared at her as if he weren't sure he'd ever seen her before in his life. She didn't miss the fact that the men were dressed. The truck must have awakened them when Kare drove away. They'd had no choice but to wait and worry.

When she was almost to the house, he said, “I thought we agreed on total honesty, Millanie.”

She didn't have to answer. He'd used her real name. They were no longer together. In going along with Kare. In doing her job. She'd lost him, the one man she might have loved forever.

Straightening, she told herself she'd take it like a soldier. She'd be strong. She'd always been alone and she would survive alone again. She'd tasted real passion, what caring and being cared about might feel like. Since she'd met him she hadn't trusted Drew and now, at the end, it hadn't been him, but her who'd broken trust.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. A hundred reasons came to mind. She knew she could protect Kare alone. He or Johnny might have gotten hurt. It was Kare's idea.

None of it mattered. Trust was the most important thing between people and she'd broken his.

The light from the lantern in the house was behind him. She couldn't see his face. She wasn't sure she wanted to. The frame of the old house closed in around him. For as long as she lived here, she'd see him standing there. Cold. Withdrawn. No longer caring about her.

Finally, he turned and went inside, where Johnny and Kare were dancing around the kitchen.

A moment later he returned and walked straight to Millanie. Without a word he lifted her up and carried her to the truck.

“Hey, where you going, Professor?” Johnny yelled.

“I'm borrowing your truck to take Millanie back to town. There's no danger. We can all go back. I'm sure Martha Q won't mind if we wake her up and all stay there tonight.”

Kare slid under Johnny's arm. “No thanks,” he said. “I think I'd rather stay here with the bugs than go back to a fancy bed-and-breakfast with my brother-in-law.”

Drew waved. “See you in the morning.”

“Bring food when you come and make it closer to noon.”

Drew drove away. He didn't say a word on the ride back to town. She decided that he was being what he'd always been, a nice guy. As he had the first night, he was seeing that she got home safely.

When they pulled up to the inn, he helped her down and they walked together to the porch. She wasn't surprised the lock code hadn't changed so there was no need to wake Martha Q. They let themselves in.

He walked her all the way to her door and opened it. She limped in and turned to face him. One last look. One quick good-bye.

“Thank you.” She straightened, knowing that she'd ruined any chance of ever being with him. She was an expert at knowing people, but she hadn't trusted the one man she'd met worth trusting. She'd been too slow to care, too slow to love. “Good-bye, Drew.”

He frowned at her, obviously still angry. Finally, he let out a long breath and said, “I'm not leaving, Millie, so stop saying good-bye.”

He stepped into her room and closed the door. “I'm angry. I'm hurt, but I'm not leaving, and if you want me to, you'll have to use that weapon you've been hiding in your purse for days.”

She set the bag down and waited.

“We agreed to trust—” he started as he began unbuttoning her dirt-covered blouse.

“We did,” she agreed. “And I thought about telling you but—”

He knelt and unstrapped her brace, then slid off her trousers as she held his shoulder and balanced on one foot. “You need a shower, and then we'll talk. But get one thing straight, Millie, we will talk this out. I'm not leaving.”

“I'll need a crutch for the shower,” she began, too exhausted to complain about being almost nude in front of him. Her thoughts were circling so fast in her mind she wasn't sure she could think, much less talk things out.

“No, you won't need the crutch. You can lean on me.”

Millanie fought back tears as he stripped off his clothes.

When he looked up he smiled. “I'm pretty beat up and scarred, Millie, but I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. I'm through running and hiding. You can lean on me from now on. You don't have to be a soldier anymore.”

He lifted her in his arms and moved to the shower. As the warm water washed over them, they held each other without saying a word. Finally, he turned off the water and wrapped a towel around her.

When he carried her to bed and began drying her, she closed her eyes and smiled. As he strapped on her brace, she whispered, “Can we talk tomorrow? I'd like to sleep with the man I love tonight.”

He bunkered her leg with pillows. “Honest, Millie?”

“Honest.”

Without a word he moved beside her, holding her body against him as they listened to Beau a floor above.

A gentle melody of a lonely man finally finding one true heart.

Read on for a sneak peek of the new Harmony novella from Jodi Thomas

M
IDNIGHT
B
ET

Appearing in the anthology ASK ME WHY, coming July 2015 from
Jove!

J
ULY
6, 2014

M
ATHESON
R
ANCH

Rick Matheson dropped off the side of the wide porch of his cousin's home and walked toward a stand of cottonwood trees that were old when he'd played among their low branches as a kid twenty years ago.

Summer Sundays in the South, he thought. Everyone still dressed in their church best and stuffed on a potluck meal that was better than any restaurant could serve. He heard laughter from the under-forty crowd scattered in folding chairs on the front lawn and porch. They were supposed to be watching the little Mathesons play in the afternoon shade but the kids pretty much ran free range on the wide lawn.

The half dozen teenagers, who usually had the babysitting job, were over in the corral saddling a few of Hank's horses so they could ride. In an hour the shade in the canyon behind his headquarters would be perfect for an afternoon gallop.

Mathesons lived on farms and ranches for fifty miles
around Harmony, Texas. A few, like him, even lived in town, but Rick knew all considered this old place as the family home. It wasn't the original homestead. That had burned generations ago. But, Hank Matheson's ranch had been built on the first small acreage the family settled on. It was home base. Rick had grown up chasing fireflies in the front yard and racing his cousins on horseback across the open land. At thirty, he'd always thought he'd be married by now and have joined the kid watchers on the porch.

Only life and his apparent dangerous career choice had derailed his plan.

He looked back at his family and swore he could feel his heart turning to lead. He was in trouble this time, bad trouble and he had to keep it from them for as long as possible.

Rick was four years out of law school and, for the second time, someone wanted to kill him. He had no proof, just a feeling. Hang-ups on his phone. His old office had been broken into twice. A car, with the brights on, almost ran him off the road last week. Trouble was stalking him.

When revenge came after him this time, murder might succeed. If Rick told his family, they'd protect him, but he couldn't allow that. One of them might get caught in the crossfire. So he had to go on living his life exactly as always and pretend a storm wasn't blowing full out toward him.

Rick tried to shake his mood. Maybe he was overreacting? Hell, maybe he should change careers. Being a lawyer didn't seem to be working out. He thought of himself as good-looking, came from an upstanding family, well-educated, had all his own teeth. But, the last woman he'd asked out had simply smiled and said that she didn't date lawyers.

Maybe he should have made an objection to her rejection, but he hadn't been that into her to start with. She'd simply been someone he might go to dinner with or maybe move into a casual relationship with eventually. He didn't see love and offspring with the lawyer-hater, or with any woman he met. He didn't see passion either, which bothered him. He was working far too hard. Monks had more of a social life than he did.

Rick turned and walked back toward the house. When he stepped inside the kitchen door, he heard his old Aunt Fat telling one of her favorite stories to the new bride of his second cousin.

“There's an old bridge near downtown that runs across a dried up creek bed where water used to flow wild.” Aunt Fat, like the teacher she'd been for forty years, paused, making sure she had everyone's attention. “The bridge doesn't look like much now, it being old and all, but there's a legend about the spot. Word is if a couple kiss while standing in the exact middle of the bridge, they'll never stop loving each other.”

The bride winked at her new husband and he nodded. Everyone in the kitchen laughed knowing exactly where the newlyweds would be heading as soon as the family dinner broke up.

Rick smiled. Aunt Fat had told that story for as long as he could remember and it always had the same effect on brides.

“You all right, Rick?” his mother asked as he passed her. She was one of those magic moms who could look at any one of her children and know their mood or temperature or if they needed to eat something.

“I'm fine, Mom,” he lied. “I just got a lot of work waiting for me at the office. I think I'll head on in.”

“You work too hard, Rick.” She patted his back. “You're just like your father was.” When her arm circled around his waist, she added, “And you need to eat something. You're thin as a fence post.”

“I know,” he answered, “but the work has to get done. I forget to eat.” He'd moved into a bigger office last month and hadn't had time to unpack before he went to work. Now he felt like a prisoner barred in by boxes every time he showed up at the office. “I really need to leave,” he said, knowing he'd have to say it at least one more time before he made it out the door.

Only tonight his mother surprised him. She simply kissed his cheek and whispered, “Offer Lizzie a ride back to town. She wrecked another car.”

Rick might be tapping thirty but he knew a direct order from his mother when he heard it.

Looking over her head, he spotted Lizzie dressed like a hooker in mourning. Black fishnet hose. Black, almost see-through dress with one shoulder cut out to show off her tattoo. Platform sandals that could have doubled as stilts. The only color she wore lately was the green streaks in her hair. Elizabeth Lee Matheson. The only nut to ever fall off the Matheson tree. She'd gotten every wild, weird gene in the family and she'd always been a bother. She was a few years younger so he'd had to play with her when none of the other cousins would and teach her to ride when she didn't want to learn, and drive her to high school when she wrecked three cars her sophomore year. Her hardship license was hard on cars.

Rick could continue, but the list was too long and too painful. He didn't bother to argue with his mom now. “Sure. Glad to drive her home,” he lied again.

Walking over to the long bar that separated the kitchen from the den, Rick tapped Lizzie on her bare shoulder. “You about ready to go, Lizzie Lee? I could give you a lift.”

She looked up from trying to pop the top on her latest beer. “I'm sooooo ready to leave.” As always, she'd brought a six pack to the potluck and drank most of it herself.

Rick helped her off the stool thinking that the high-heeled shoes almost made her normal size. For a woman who didn't tip five feet or a hundred pounds, four or five beers must make her dead drunk.

Lizzie waved goodnight to everyone while he tugged her around the crowd. Almost every family gathering, someone had to take her home and this must be his time.

He poured her into his new car and prayed she wouldn't throw up on the way to town.

“Hey, Ricky, you want to stop for a drink on the way home?” She giggled. “Oh, it's Sunday, I forgot. Every place is closed. Guess you'll just have to give me a rain check.”

“I couldn't tonight anyway, Lizzie, I have work to do at my office.” Another thing he hated about Lizzie, she called
him Ricky when she'd been drinking. No one called him Ricky. Plus, if his dating life wasn't already dead, showing up with his wacky cousin in public would probably do the trick. She seemed to always say the wrong thing in a crowd or accidently spill something. His favorite flaw of his cousin's, if anyone can have a favorite flaw, was the way she always mixed up peoples' names. She called his cousin Hank “Hunk” and the preacher's second wife “Two” instead of Lou. Since birth she'd called the Leary twins, “Pete and Repeat.”

“Could we stop at the bridge Aunt Fat was talking about?”

“No,” he answered, starting the engine.

“I'd really like to see it. A legend in Harmony. Too bad my parents hadn't kissed on the bridge. I think my dad took every deployment he could sign up for to get away from mom. My first memories are of them yelling in the middle of the night.”

He drove under the ranch arch and headed toward Harmony on the Farm to Market road everyone called Lone Oak Road. “All right. We'll stop. Five minutes.”

She leaned back and closed her eyes. “Thanks for offering to take me home. You're the only one in the family I can stand to talk to or who wants to talk to me.”

Rick tossed his jacket over her bare shoulder and cranked up the air conditioning even though the afternoon hadn't reached ninety degrees. Maybe the circulation would help clear her perfume from the air. “You're not so bad, Lizzie.” In truth, she'd had it rough. Her dad had been in the Navy. When he was listed as missing in action, her mother couldn't stand the pressure and sent Lizzie, about eight-years-old, to live with her Matheson grandmother. He'd heard her mother cracked up completely when her husband was moved from missing to killed in action. Granny always said Lizzie's mother just went to sleep, but Rick thought a bottle of pills may have helped the process. Anyway, Granny and Little Lizzie grieved and the money they inherited from her parents helped keep food on the table.

Granny loved Lizzie, but she never let the girl out of her
sight. Rick remembered Granny even made Lizzie go everywhere with her. Quilting. Widows' Sunday class. She had to sit in the beauty shop while Granny got her hair curled and sprayed every week. Rick remembered Lizzie called her grandmother's Sunday school class the “Nearest to Heaven” class and the all day quilting bees “Stitch and complain.”

From grade school on she'd never fit in. Somewhere in middle school, she'd given up trying. Lizzie seemed to go out of her way to be unique. Half her outfits looked like they'd been on the Halloween close-out special rack. Granny always told people Lizzie simply marched to a different drummer, but if so Rick had never heard the beat.

“The whole family just tolerates me and I feel the same way about them,” Lizzie said as she fought with her seatbelt. “They're all nice folks, but I feel like I've been assigned to the wrong family, you know?”

He didn't know, but he answered, “They all love you, honey.” Lies were starting to dribble out of his mouth. At this rate he'd need a bib before long.

“That must be why they all want to change me into someone else. I swear if they thought they could get away with it, half of them would vote to have me stretched so I'd at least look more Matheson.” She poked her head beneath his coat like a turtle retreating into a shell. “I just want to find my people, you know? Somewhere, someplace probably far away, there are people just like me waiting supper, wondering where I am.”

“Right,” Rick answered, thinking that if anyone ever found that place, it would take about a second to collect the money to send her there.

Ten minutes later, they pulled up to the bridge and climbed out of the car. She leaned against the fender pulling his jacket around her as if it were cold. “I'm never going to fall in love,” she whispered. “This is probably the one time I'll ever stand on this bridge and I'm here with my cousin.”

He agreed. “I almost fell once. Met a woman I thought was perfect but it turns out she didn't want commitment, she only wanted my body.”

“Yeah, I played that game a few times in high school.”

Rick didn't comment that he'd heard all about it from some of his friends.

She straightened. “I think I'd better head home. I don't feel so good. Beer and pot roast seem to be fighting in my stomach.”

He reached for the handle on his side as she did the same.

Something sounding very much like a shot whistled through the still air. Rick ducked inside his car as if the glass would somehow protect him.

Lizzie, with less skill, did the same. As she leaned out to close the door on her side, his coat tumbled off her shoulders and into the dirt. She reached down, grabbed it and tugged it over her.

For a few heartbeats they were both silent, listening for another shot.

Without a word to Lizzie, he gunned the engine and threw the car into drive. They flew off the bridge and headed toward Lizzie's place on the other side of town.

Rick's mind raced. The shot could be another attempt on his life? One of these days whoever was out there wanting him dead might get lucky.

Lizzie didn't say a word as he drove down sleepy streets, past the tiny mall and bounced over railroad tracks. Nothing much had been built beyond the tracks in fifty years. A few grain elevators spotted the horizon. A dozen houses were scattered out along the winding road, not close enough to be town streets, or far apart enough to be called in the country. Half a mile farther Lizzie's house hid behind one of the town's veterinary clinics. Corrals and trailers scattered around the vet's office almost hid her place from view.

Rick bumped along a dirt lane to her property as he circled the corral to get to her house. An adobe fence, overgrown with morning glories, separated her land from the vet's. Rick didn't breathe until he neared her back door.

“You really should get this road paved, Lizzie. One day a car is going to disappear in a rut.”