People were everywhere.
EMTS.
A nurse.
Jax.
Adeline, bent over a gurney, murmuring something in Janelle's ear. If Janelle was listening, she gave no indication; her eyes were closed, an oxygen mask over her face, a blood pressure cuff on her arm. She had a dark bruise on her cheek, a splint on her right wrist, and tears streaming endlessly down her face.
“Mom!” Brenna said, rushing to her side. “What's going on? Who died?”
Janelle's eyes flew open, her face losing even more color.
She didn't speak, and Brenna was terrified she'd had a stroke or a heart attack.
It wasn't Janelle she should have been worried about.
She heard her sister gasp, just a quick, sharp intake of breath, and then Adeline was falling, her tiny little baby bump heading straight for the ground.
“Grab her!” someone shouted, but Brenna was already reaching for her. So were River, Kane, and Jax.
Somehow they managed not to knock one another over as they lowered her to the ground.
“Addie,” Brenna cried, patting her sister's cheek, trying to get her to open her eyes. She could see the pulse beating in the hollow of Adeline's throat, could see the rise and fall of her chest, but she was still terrified.
What if she stopped breathing?
What if something happened to the baby?
What ifâ
“Breathe,” River said quietly, his fingers on Adeline's wrist, his gaze on Brenna.
She sucked in a huge gulp of air, tried to calm her frantic thoughts.
“Addie,” she managed to say again, her voice calmer, her pulse slowing. “Sweetie, wake up.”
“She's just passed out.” Rayna, crouching next to Brenna, waved a vial of something under Adeline's nose.
Addie's eyes flew open and she sat up, pushing away River's hand, ignoring Kane, who was telling her to stay down.
“Brenna! You're alive!” she cried, as if that had ever been in doubt.
“Of course I am.” Brenna wrapped her arms around Adeline. “Why wouldn't I be?”
“The blood,” Janelle said, her voice muffled by the oxygen mask. “It was all over the kitchen. Mack said you cut yourself, but there's no way a simple cut could have caused that much blood.” She struggled into a sitting position, the bruise on her cheek dark purple and red.
“I did cut myself, Mom.” She held up her bandaged fingers. “And you know me. When I do something I like to do it big. River brought me here to get it stitched up.”
“Holy cow! Are you kidding me?” Adeline struggled to her feet, eyed their mother with a mixture of frustration and bemusement. “You do realize what you've done, right, Mom?”
“I did what any mother would,” Janelle retorted.
“Got an innocent man carted off to jail?” Adeline shook her head. “Did you even ask Mack where Brenna was?”
“Of course I asked. He just stared at me like I'd grown two heads and mumbled something about a cut hand. That's when I noticed the bloody dish rag he was holding.” She shuddered, shoved the oxygen mask down. “There was blood everywhere, Brenna. How did you manage it?”
“It's a long story and I'd rather not tell it here.”
“You might as well,” Kane cut in. “No one is leaving here until I know exactly what happened.”
“What happenedâ” Janelle began.
She didn't get a chance to finish.
Byron appeared in the doorway, Huckleberry on one side of him, Angel on the other.
“Brenna!” he nearly shouted. “Thank God! We thoughtâ”
“I was dead?” Brenna guessed.
“I didn't think it,” Angel responded. “I thought you were just doing what you do best: causing trouble.”
“Cool it,” River said, and then he frowned. “Where's Belinda?”
“At the sheriff's department with Mack,” Angel spat, her gaze focused on Brenna. “You did it again, you stupidâ”
“Stop,” River said, his voice deadly quiet. “Name-calling won't accomplish anything.”
“It will accomplish making me feel better,” Angel huffed, but she didn't finish her thought, just stood glaring.
“What will make me feel better,” Kane commented, his voice just as quiet, just as sharp, just as filled with authority, “is an explanation.”
* * *
Blood. That was the first part of the explanation.
Misunderstandings and confusion were the next.
Janelle had stopped in at Chocolate Haven, hoping to speak with Brenna. Instead, she'd seen Mack, a bloody dish towel in his hands. There'd been drops of blood on the floor and on the counter, more blood near the trash can. And, of course, the abandoned cell phone had been lying in plain sight. Apparently, that had been proof positive to Janelle that her daughter had been murdered in cold blood, her body tossed in the Dumpster or hidden in the walk-in.
She'd panicked, run back toward the door, tripped over Mack's tool chest, and fallen face first into the kitchen island.
That explained the sprained wrist and the bruised cheek.
It didn't explain why she'd been so convinced Mack had murdered her daughter. It also didn't explain why Mackâwho'd been openmouthed enough to call 911 and ask for an ambulanceâhad allowed himself to be carted off to the sheriff's office.
All he'd had to do was explain.
Clearly.
Succinctly.
Without any embellishment or drama.
That seemed right up Mack's alley, but instead of speaking up, he'd let himself be driven to the local jailhouse.
If River remembered correctly from the three times Dillard had allowed him to be locked up there overnightâand he was sure he didâit was a small cell at the back of the sheriff 's office. Just a holding place for criminals to wait until the county police arrived to cart them off to prison.
Didn't matter what kind of jail it was, Mack hadn't deserved to be in it. A comedy of errors is what Adeline had called the entire fiasco. River called it a waste of everyone's time.
A little more thought on Janelle's part and none of this would have happened. A little more honesty on Mack's and it wouldn't have continued.
Instead, they'd all spent three hours sorting everything out. Three hours he couldn't get back. He was tired. He was pissed. And the last thing he wanted to do was return to the ranch with the mismatched mess of humanity that was currently filling Brenna's car.
“I guess you have a reason why you didn't just tell the sheriff the truth,” River growled as he pulled away from the sheriff's office, the smell of sweat and fear and stale perfume filling the vehicle.
Mack grunted.
“What the hell kind of answer is that?” River demanded, and Belinda touched his arm, her fingers cool through his shirt.
“Language,” she scolded, and it was so much like old times, he shut his mouth.
“I told the first deputy to respond that you'd taken Brenna to the hospital,” Mack said, his voice gritty and tight. “But that dang woman was screaming so loud by that time, no one heard me.”
“Maybe you should have repeated yourself, or offered my phone number, or done any one of a dozen different things that might have prevented them from carting you off to jail.”
“I wasn't in jail,” Mack growled. “I was in a deputy's office answering questions. He should have passed the information along. It would have saved people some distress.”
Distress?
Janelle had nearly had a coronary. As far as River knew, she was still at the clinic, hooked up to a heart monitor. Adeline had been taken to another triage room. The last time he'd seen
her
, she'd had an IV in her hand and a frustrated look on her face. The doctor had been discussing the possibility of having her transported to the hospital.
Brenna had told River all that in a rush of words that he'd barely been able to make sense of.
Yeah. Distress wasn't the right word to describe what Janelle and Mack had accomplished.
Panic.
Horror.
Terror.
Soul-crushing fear.
Those were more the ticket, but sometimes silence was the better part of valor.
River kept those thoughts to himself.
“The deputy was very kind, too,” Belinda added. “He made me a nice cup of tea and offered me some cookies. What was his name, Mack?”
“I don't remember him introducing himself.”
“Tanner, I think,” Belinda continued, as if he hadn't spoken. “I taught him a few times when I worked as a substitute. Tanner Millwood; that was his name. Nice boy, and he's turned into a fine young man.”
“Did the fine young man say you were going to have to return for more questioning, Mack?” River asked. He hoped not. There'd already been enough talk after the incident with Brenna and the knife. This would just add fuel to the gossip.
“Maybe.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“The kind I give people who try to make my business theirs.”
“Boys,” Belinda said wearily, “let's not argue. Family always sticks together. Whatever happened tonight, we need to take one another's sides, not go at one another's throats.”
Family? River didn't think so.
At least it wasn't any kind of family he'd ever want to be part of.
He kept the thought to himself, speeding along the country road that led to the ranch, all his plans for the night shot to hell. He'd wanted to take Brenna to a couple of antique shops. Not the swank ones scattered along Main Street. The ones that dotted the countryside; old houses with signs stuck to their gates and their fencesâ
ANTIQUES, PICK YOUR OWN JUNK, TREASURES UNLIMITED
.
Instead, he was going back to the ranch to fix Belinda a good meal because she looked pale and seemed a little shaky. Lean protein, colorful vegetables, a piece of the rye bread he'd baked a few days ago. She'd enjoy that.
So would the rest of the motley crew of
guests
.
Speaking of guests . . .
He glanced in the rearview mirror, counting heads even though he knew damn well they were one person short. Joe had arrived the previous night. Right on schedule, he'd meandered off the little bus that always dropped him off, tripped his way along the driveway, a huge pile of books in one hand, a bouquet of wilted flowers in the other. He'd thrust those into Belinda's hands as soon as he'd seen her, then carted his books and his backpack up to his room.
The bouquet was currently sitting in a cup of water on the fireplace mantel.
River had no idea where Joe had gone.
That worried him. A lot. Joe had the mental capacity of a seven-year-old. That made him sweet and kind and sometimes capable of getting himself into trouble.
“Where's Joe?” he asked.
“Why do you care?” Angel nearly spat the words.
“Because he shouldn't be left by himself, that's why. He could get hurt or lock himself out of the house. Orâ”
“We dropped him off at the neighbor's place,” Huckleberry offered. “He's helping Elmer mow the back field. Elmer said he'd bring him back in a few hours.”
“It's been a few hours,” River pointed out.
“Elmer isn't stupid,” Angel snapped. “He knows Joe can't be left alone. He'll keep him until we get home.”
Which was right about then. Thank God.
River drove under the sign that had once shouted Freedom Ranch's presence to the world. Now the fading letters and tilted placard seemed more like a whisper of what used to be.
He glanced at Belinda. She'd shifted in her seat, was craning her neck to see the sign.
“I'm going to fix it,” he promised, and she shook her head.
“There's no need. The ranch is gone. Now it's just a house that needs some work on a piece of land that should probably be sold.”
“Don't say that, Belinda.” Huckleberry leaned over the seat and patted her shoulder. “This place is way more than a house and a piece of land. It's all your memories, and all those kids you and your husband helped raise. It's a legacy. A tradition. Without it, the town wouldn't be the same.”
That was a lot of insight coming from Huckleberry's mouth. It surprised River the same way the beautifully prepared and plated food had.
“Where'd you go to school, Huckleberry?” he asked as he parked the car.
“What's it to you?”
River ignored the rebuttal. He couldn't help someone if he didn't know what kind of help was needed. He'd asked these questions before and been ignored. This time, he was going to get answers. “Do you have your diploma? A GED?”
“I'm not stupid,” Huckleberry muttered, opening his door and jumping out of the car. “I got my GED when I was fifteen.”
“That's pretty early,” he pointed out, and Huckleberry shrugged.
“I was highly motivated to finish high school.”
“That was what? A year ago?”
“Almost two.” The truth slipped out and he scowled. “Yeah. It's true, River. I'm seventeen. Go shout it to the mountains, call in CPS, get me carted back into foster care. I'll just leave again.”
“I'm not going to call anyone,” he tried to reassure the kid, but Huckleberry was already halfway to the house.
“You know what you are, River?” Angel growled. “You're anâ”
“Language,” Belinda said with a sigh. “I'm really tired. I think it's best if I lie down for a while. Mack, can you make sure Joe gets home and make sure he eats?”
“You need to eat, too,” Mack said gently as he took her wheelchair from the trunk.