The Final Mission

Rachel Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Copyright

About the Author

RACHEL LEE was hooked on writing by the age of twelve, and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

Her bestselling CONARD COUNTY series (see www.conardcounty.com) has won the hearts of readers worldwide, and it’s no wonder, given her own approach to life and love. As she says, “Life is the biggest romantic adventure of all—and if you’re open and aware, the most marvellous things are just waiting to be discovered.” Readers can e-mail Rachel at RachelLee@ConardCounty.com.

For FarWestGirl, a dear friend who helped with all

her horse experience to bring this story to life. The

mistakes are mine, but I made a lot fewer of them

because of you, dear FarWestGirl. This one is for you.

Chapter 1

Dominic Mason stood behind his house, staring out over expansive pastures. The night held an autumn nip that warned of coming frost even though it shouldn’t happen for another month or so. Regardless, he was nearly ready for the change in seasons.

He’d already brought most of his horses in from summer pasture. Only a few still needed to be gathered up. The hay had been mown and moved into the drying sheds that would protect it from most of the winter snows and make it easy to feed his herd over the long approaching winter.

Next month he’d sell a lot of his stock to ranchers, rodeos and breeders. His announcement of his annual sale had drawn a larger than usual amount of interest. Apparently his reputation for quality was growing.

He could see the dark shapes of his horses scattered around, quiet in the moonlight, not moving much. There was still plenty of ground forage for them, as he’d mowed early enough to allow for some regrowth, but at the moment they seemed more intent on resting. Even the dogs were invisible right now, probably quietly lying among the herd they watched over.

Just as his two young sons slept in the house behind him. Seven-year-old twin boys, the light of his life, and his agony, too, since their mother had been killed.

Annoyed with the direction of his thoughts, he gave his head an angry shake, then reached up to resettle his battered Stetson.

Another winter coming. Another winter alone. At least the rest of the year he could keep himself busy enough for three men, keep so busy he couldn’t do much thinking. But once the snow flew, life would narrow. The outdoor activities that kept him so busy, the kids being off school, all that would give way to intensive training in the enclosed, battered arena off behind the barn.

But not yet. A chilly autumn night was a far cry from the blows of winter. And he had the sale next month to get ready for, the horses to choose to show.

He thought he heard a car coming up his drive, but sounds were deceptive at night, especially this close to the mountains. He couldn’t imagine a single reason why anyone would be coming out here so late. All the reasons for such a visit were safely indoors or already dead. Well, except for Mary’s parents, and they were about as hale and hardy as any sixty-somethings he’d ever known.

He turned anyway, because the boys were sleeping in their beds and he didn’t like them to be alone long. Not anymore. Not since the illusion of security had been stripped from him two years ago.

The dirt and gravel crunched beneath his feet. Moonlight reminded him he still needed to till the summer’s garden, now mostly a mess of weeds and stalks of dead plants, their bounty gone for the year.

With Mary, he’d enjoyed the winters. More time for them to spend together, fewer other demands. He’d been like one happy bear, burrowing into his den, venturing out only to look after his stock, work on training or to make an occasional supply trip to town.

Those trips lingered brightly in his memory. They’d always made a good time of the shopping, treated themselves to a meal at the diner, sometimes even sprang for a movie. But the long winter nights also remained bright in his mind—nights of playing games, laughing, reading, loving, just being together.

Now only desolation remained, and two little boys that he loved more than life. Two little boys he couldn’t see without experiencing a pang for all they had lost, for all he had lost.

“Boss?”

He looked around to see his foreman, Ted Walking Bear, coming his way from the bunkhouse behind the barn.

“Yeah?”

“A car just drove up.”

“I thought I heard one. I’ll take care of it. Probably somebody’s lost. Good night.”

Ted touched the brim of his cowboy hat and headed back for the bunkhouse.

Quickening his pace, thinking of his boys, Dom hurried around the outside of the two-story frame house, rather than entering through the back mud porch as usual.

Sure enough, as he rounded the corner, he saw a vehicle pulled up in front. One he didn’t recognize. The brilliance of the moonlight had kept him from seeing the headlights as the car approached, he guessed. They were off now, though.

Unease pricked at him a bit, but he tamped it down, telling himself it arose only because one time when strangers had driven up to his door it had been to tell him his wife was gone.

Other strangers had come since, but not at night. To buy horses. To sell him things. To try to convert him. To save his soul. The last always made him want to laugh. He figured any soul he had left had pretty much shriveled from grief and anger.

A sound drew his attention to the porch. He looked, and even though the roof cast deep shadows on the wide veranda, he could see a woman in a long, dark coat standing there.

“Can I help you?” he asked. Automatic courtesy.

“Mr. Mason?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Courtney Tyson. I knew your wife.”

He’d had other visits from Mary’s friends from the National Guard. Even so, his heart slammed a bit. When those friends wanted to visit, they called first, gave him a warning of what was coming, even gave him an out if he just couldn’t bear it.

This one had come without either courtesy. “A call would have been nice.” He hated the unfriendly edge to his tone, but anger had stirred in him. Showing up like this without warning didn’t seem either thoughtful or friendly.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Maybe I should explain. I’m from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. No, Mary didn’t do anything wrong. But I didn’t want anyone to know I was coming.”

“Why not?”

“Can we talk?”

Lead settled into his stomach, sickening him. He wanted to say no, to send her on her way, forbid her any chance to reopen the most painful chapter of his life. He’d mostly made peace with it, except for an occasional errant stir of anger or grief, and he wanted to keep it that way.

But curiosity had already set its hook, and he was a neighborly man by nature. You didn’t send a friend of your wife’s off into a dark, cold night without at least offering coffee, hearing her out. She’d come a long way, evidently, all because she wanted to talk to him.

He hesitated a moment longer, sensing his life was about to change inalterably once again, and that he wasn’t going to like it much more this time.

“Come on in,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound grudging. “Just be quiet. The boys are sleeping.”

“Kyle and Todd?”

So she knew their names. Maybe that made him feel a smidgeon better, maybe not. “Yeah.”

He rounded the porch until he reached the steps, then led the way into his house. A woman’s light step sounded alien now, and made him wince a bit, reminding him of the sound of Mary’s high-heeled dress boots, the ones he’d teased her about, swearing she was going to break an ankle. She’d always retorted that they made her feel feminine, which she needed after time in cammies and desert boots, or after wearing Wellingtons to muck out a stall.

He would give damn near anything to tease her like that again.

In the kitchen, he waved Courtney Tyson to a seat at the round oak table that was covered in some oilcloth and started a pot of coffee.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. “I want to check on the boys.”

“Sure.”

Her voice was soft, quiet, maybe filled with as much dread as he was. The sound, while it was appealing at one level, made his scalp prickle. Something bad was coming. He knew it in his gut.

Upstairs he found the boys racked out. They were seldom quiet sleepers, so he had to tuck legs and arms back onto the mattresses of the bunk bed, adjust the covers against the chill of night.

And he noticed, as always, how sweet they smelled after their bath, how they radiated warmth like little heaters. His heart squeezed as he tucked them back in, listening to their murmurs as he gently moved them.

He stood for a moment, looking at them, feeling the almost unbearable pang of a love so deep he couldn’t find words for it. His sons. His gift from Mary. Her legacy.

Then, reluctantly, he headed back downstairs to deal with his unexpected visitor. Or maybe to be dealt with himself, depending.

The coffee was just finishing up, and he pulled out two mismatched mugs. “Milk? Sugar?”

“Black is fine,” she answered.

After filling the mugs, he once again had to face her. Pretty enough, although she looked thin, and somewhat austere. Blond hair had been pulled severely back as if it were a nuisance she just wanted out of her way. She’d unbuttoned her coat, revealing jeans and a blue sweater that nearly matched her smoky blue eyes.

He placed the mugs on the table, one in front of her, then sat, facing her across the expanse of aging oilcloth. The pattern was bright, ripe cherries with stems on a white background. Chosen by Mary and in sad need of replacement as it had begun to crack. Somehow he couldn’t let go of it.

Then he waited, because he was damned if he was going to open the can of worms himself.

After a moment, she sighed. He watched her stuff her hand into a pocket in her coat and she opened a thin badge case, laying out her ID on the table for him to see.

“Like I said, NCIS. I’m not supposed to be here, but I’ve got questions, I need answers and the worst you can do is tell me to go to hell. I’ve survived worse.”

He sat back a little, studying the badge and the identification card, then looking at her. “Why don’t you just get to the point?”

“Good idea.” Her tone grew brisk, professional. “I knew Mary fairly well. She worked for us.”

At that Dom’s heart slammed. “Now, wait. She was a nurse.”

“True. She was a nurse. A damn fine nurse. Part of her ostensible mission was what we call ‘winning hearts and minds.’ She told you about that, I’m sure.”

He nodded. He’d been so proud of her for that.

“So twice a week, every week, she’d go into this Iraqi town and work with the women and their daughters on health issues. I’m not sure how much you know about sharia, which is Islamic law, but these women couldn’t be tended by male doctors.”

“I know.”

Courtney nodded. “So okay. Mary was a nurse practitioner. She could deal with most of the day-to-day stuff, and she even developed a network of female physicians she could call on for advice or to take cases she couldn’t handle herself. The women grew really fond of her.”

“She took a lot of pride in that.”

“I know she did. And because of that, when we discovered there was a problem, she agreed to work with us.”

“Work with you how?”

“We got wind that some of our guys were raping and intimidating these women into silence. We couldn’t prove it. The women wouldn’t talk. So we asked Mary to keep her ear to the ground.”

That certainly sounded like Mary. “She’d have gotten all steamed up about that.”

“To put it mildly.” A faint smile lifted one corner of Courtney’s mouth. “She really believed that line from that song she was always humming. You know the one.” She hummed a few bars.

Indeed he did. He closed his eyes against a sudden spear of grief, then quickly opened them again. Any doubt he might have harbored that this woman knew Mary vanished. In spite of himself, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Did she find out something?”

“I think she may have, but I don’t know for certain. She called me and we agreed to meet for coffee at this little local place we both liked. I thought our meetings looked innocent enough. But just the day before …”

When she trailed off, he filled in the blank. And he forced himself to say the words. “She was killed in an ambush.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t know if she knew anything. She never mentioned any of this to me.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“Then why—” He broke off as it clicked. Icy shock poured through him, leaving him feeling almost light-headed. “You think she was murdered?”

Her mouth tightened, her gaze lowered. He read her answer in her reluctance.

The simmering rage that he almost rid himself of had begun to heat again with her arrival, and now it began to glow hotter. But initial shock kept it from becoming a conflagration. He had to be sure. “You’re not saying she was killed by the enemy.”

At last she lifted her gaze and looked him straight in the eye. “The area was pacified. She usually traveled in a small convoy to town, but that day there was only the truck she was in. And she was the only person killed or wounded in that ambush.”

He jumped up from the table, knocking his chair over. The crash made him wince. The boys…. But even thoughts of them couldn’t still him now. He began pacing, his hands flexing with a need to break something. Anything. Anger rose like a force of nature, an anger he hadn’t felt since the VA had initially refused to give Mary a Purple Heart because she was officially a noncombatant.

He needed to pound something, smash something. He whirled on the woman who had brought this new horror into his life. “Are you sure?” He practically hissed the words.

“No.”

That word stopped him in his tracks. What the hell? His fury transferred to her, but before he could react to it, she continued speaking.

“I believe that ambush was planned. I believe Mary was killed by the people we were looking for. I believe it all the way to my soul. But when I tried to investigate, they stopped me and sent me home. I tried again while I was at Camp Lejeune and they stopped me yet again. Told me to leave desert ghosts alone, it wouldn’t do any good.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

She looked down again, but this time when she raised her gaze, he could see her eyes were damp. “Because I think your wife was a hero, Mr. Mason. A true hero. I believe she died trying to protect women and girls who couldn’t protect themselves. You should know that. And you should know that one way or another I’m going to find out who did this to her. It’s my fault she put her life on the line, and I want you to know that she hasn’t been forgotten. And I’m going to make damn sure she didn’t die in vain.”

A minute or more passed in utter silence. Then, feeling as if every muscle in his body were lead, he crossed the kitchen, picked up his chair, and sat. What else could he do?

Nothing, he told himself, had really changed. Mary was still gone, had been gone for two years. How and why hardly seemed relevant now that he’d adjusted to the fact that his wife, a nurse, had been a casualty of war. Nothing had changed, except possibly the vague identity he’d assigned to the person who had pulled the trigger. How did that matter now?

Numbness began to replace fury. Hardly aware of what he was doing, he lifted his coffee mug and drank.

Courtney spoke. “She was a real hero.”

“She was a hero to me all along.”

He saw her face pale a shade. “That’s true. I just mean she went above and beyond….”

“She went above and beyond every time she went to that town to take care of those women. Every time she left the security of her hospital. Hell, she went above and beyond when she put on that uniform.”

“True.” Courtney appeared unable to bear his gaze right now. Not that he could blame her. Numb or not, he was probably still shooting fire from his burning eyes.

“So what,” he finally asked between clenched teeth, “is your point in coming here?”

She shook her head, appearing a bit overcome, and he gave her space to collect herself. He somehow suspected this woman was rarely at a loss for words or arguments, but she seemed to be right now.

“I came,” she said slowly, “for a couple of reasons. Yes, your wife was a hero. But she was more of a hero than you know. She risked her life to tend our wounded troops. She risked her life to go into a potentially hostile town to deliver medical care to women and girls who would get it no other way. But those risks were part of wearing the uniform. She knew it, she did it, and that’s plenty for you to be proud of.”

“But?”

“But she was also willing to go beyond that, to risk her life in a way that wasn’t even remotely in her job description. A way she didn’t have to. A way she could have said no to. She did it because she couldn’t stand the thought that women were being terrorized, and she did it even knowing she might put herself in serious jeopardy. She did it because I asked her to.”

“So this is all about you feeling guilty?”

“Partly. I admit it.” Her eyes looked red. “I was just doing my job, but she did more than hers. I want justice for her, and for all those women.”

“But they stopped you?”

“More than once. I don’t know if they’re more worried that I might find the evildoers or if they’re more concerned about bad publicity. Basically, if I keep pushing this I can probably kiss my career goodbye.”

“But you’re still pushing.”

“Yes.”

He felt an unwilling flicker of respect for her. “Even though it might cost you everything.”

“It won’t cost me more than my job. It’s a paltry price compared to the one Mary paid, that you and your sons have paid.”

He couldn’t argue with that. And he was furious. Furious that all of this was being raked up again, that this woman was twisting his perception of what had happened to his wife from one of an accident of war to deliberate murder. It had been hard enough to live with the former.

He had sat here any number of times with one of Mary’s friends. He’d listened, he’d tried to soothe, he’d heard stories he wished he had never heard. He had offered comfort to people who had come to comfort him but who had turned out to need it every bit as much as he did. People who had been inalterably changed by their experiences over there, leaving him sometimes grateful that Mary would never have to live with those memories.

And now another one. Different, but the same. He watched her, seeing a degree of his own anguish, but worse, seeing guilt. Lots of guilt, as if she had pulled the trigger herself. If the last two years had taught him anything, it was that he couldn’t do or say anything to change what this woman was feeling.

She had to deal with her demons in her own way, in her own time. Clearly, coming here was part of her dealing, regardless of the reasons she offered. Regardless of the pain it reawakened in him.

He couldn’t hate her for that, or even blame her. Mary was still gone regardless. All he could do was to help make one of her former comrades feel a little better. Maybe ease a nightmare or two.

“Stay the night,” he said.

“No, I couldn’t possibly impose.”

“You’re not imposing. I’ve got a guest room all made up, hardly ever use it anymore. One thing for sure is I’m not letting you drive back alone down these dark roads at this hour. If you have a breakdown, it’s likely no one would come along before morning. We go to bed early in these parts.”

“My car is fine.”

“And you’re not. Just stay so I don’t have to sit up worrying. In the morning …” He hesitated. “In the morning I can let you go through the stuff I saved for the boys. Emails, letters, some videotapes. I don’t have everything. Some of it was too personal. I never wanted the boys to see it. But I’ve still got most of it.”

He didn’t miss the way her gaze brightened. Not enough to tick him off, but enough to let him know she’d been hoping for a little cooperation from him.

Of course she had. She had a nightmare to put to bed, and the answer might be in Mary’s things.

He might have grown mad again, but his capacity for anger had lessened with time. As if he’d burned out so much of it all he could do was simmer, and his flare-ups were limited in scope and duration. He’d lived with the unanswered questions for a long time now: Why Mary? Why her, why that moment, that place? There were no answers, at least none he’d ever gotten. It was war. No other answer.

But this woman was seeking a different answer. He doubted any answers she found would do him any good, one way or another at this point. But they might do her some good.

And finding good in much these days was like trying to wring blood from stone.

“You got a suitcase?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go get it and I’ll show you the room. Need anything to eat?”

“I’m fine.”

He doubted it. But he wasn’t fine, either.

Chapter 2

Courtney barely noticed the guest room and hall bath. She had driven almost straight through from Georgia, she was still on east coast time, and for her that meant it was nearly 1:00 a.m.

She should have fallen straight to sleep, but instead she was restless, dealing with the unexpected storm that had hit her the instant she saw Dom. God, he looked good enough to eat. She’d never felt that kind of instant attraction to a man, where her body wanted to melt the instant she clapped eyes on him.

And she hated herself for it. He was Mary’s husband. She’d come here to do a job, nothing else. And damn it, she should never have accepted his offer to stay. Awareness of him, so instant, unexpected and overwhelming, seemed to hang around her now that she was staying in his house.

She should have gotten the hell out as quickly as she gracefully could and found a motel. Somewhere she wouldn’t be lying awake wondering if she’d lost her mind, if she’d been alone too long or what?

Because a man’s appearance shouldn’t have struck her that way. It never had before. Damn, it was a wonder she hadn’t sat there drooling. And the waves of shame that washed over her were almost enough to make her weep.

Rolling over, she pounded the pillow a couple of times as if she could make it softer. Tomorrow. She’d stick out one day and then leave before she did something she’d feel guilty about forever. With that resolution, she finally fell into a sleep disturbed by nightmares that never left her anymore. Nightmares of unbearable heat, mutilated bodies and screams.

Morning arrived in twilight, early it seemed, but she could hear voices downstairs, and the wonderful aroma of cooking bacon. Her mouth started watering almost before her eyes opened. How long had it been since she had allowed herself a strip of bacon?

She heard the light patter of young boys’ voices, answered by the deeper tones of their father. The sounds were as inviting as the smells, and she hopped out of bed, heading for the bathroom.

She’d barely noticed last night, but she noticed this morning: the bathroom was spotless, as if awaiting a white-glove inspection. It struck her, because this was a bachelor household now, and most bachelors she knew didn’t care much about such things.

But as she walked downstairs, she noted that the entire house seemed to be orderly and spotless, far more than her own apartment and she thought she was a clean freak.

Entering the kitchen, she found the twins sitting at the oak table and Dominic standing at the stove, frying eggs. The boys immediately fell silent, and Dom turned. His smile seemed small but natural enough.

“Boys, this is Ms. Tyson. She knew your mom.”

The boys surprised her by pushing back from the table and politely standing. “Hi, I’m Kyle,” said one and his clone said, “I’m Todd. Nice to meet you.”

Kyle bounced around the table to hold a chair out for her and she sat. Two pairs of dark eyes, very like their dad’s, stared at her.

“Your mom showed me pictures of you,” she ventured. “I always asked how she could tell you apart.”

Kyle scoffed. “She never had a problem. We’re not exactly the same. Dad can tell us apart, too.”

“That doesn’t keep you from trying to fool me,” Dom remarked, which got him a pair of laughs.

There was already a hefty platter of bacon on the table, and now Dom brought her a cup of coffee. She reached for it, holding it in both hands as she tried to figure out how to talk to the boys. She didn’t have a lot of experience with kids.

Todd spoke. “Lots of Mom’s friends came to visit. I guess they liked her a lot.”

“I certainly liked her. And I admired her. Your mom was a hero.” She saw Dom’s back stiffen as he stood at the stove, and realized he feared she might get into her purpose in coming. She felt a moment of annoyance that he might think she was that insensitive, then reminded herself he didn’t know her at all, and she had come barging into his life with an upsetting story and no prior warning.

“Yeah,” said Kyle. “We have her medals. And a flag.”

A pretty pathetic substitute, Courtney thought, then looked down for fear her face might give away her darkening thoughts.

She was saved by the arrival of a platter of cheesy scrambled eggs on the table, and as soon as Dom sat, the platters began to move her way. She took a slice of buttered toast, a strip of bacon and a spoonful of eggs, trying not to think about cholesterol.

“You don’t eat much,” Kyle remarked.

“I don’t work as hard as you guys do.” Safe assumption, she supposed, although at her last physical the doctor had told her to gain some weight, that she’d slipped far enough for it to be a concern.

It wasn’t as if she was trying to lose weight. She just didn’t feel like eating much anymore. This whole thing with Mary gnawed at her like a hungry shark.

Conversation came to a halt as two ravenous boys ate, then jumped up to grab jackets and backpacks. She watched as Dom made sure they had everything.

“I’m going to take them to the bus stop,” he told her. “Back in about twenty minutes.”

She watched them go out the back door and felt an ache she couldn’t quite explain to herself. She had never been interested in the whole marriage and family thing. Not ever. All her life she’d been oriented toward other goals, and toward her career.

But she ached anyway at the sight of a big, strong man ushering two small boys gently out the door to catch a school bus.

Man, she was losing it.

Losing it enough that she helped herself to a second strip of bacon and another spoonful of eggs. Damn the cholesterol anyway. Enough was enough.

And enough was the entire reason she was here. She had helped lead Mary to her death, and she wasn’t willing to let the culprits go free. No way.

Dom returned in twenty minutes as he’d promised. His booted feet clomped on the mudroom floor as he doffed his jacket and hung his keys on a wall hook. He gave her another reserved smile and a nod before he went to freshen his coffee.

He was such an attractive man, attractive in a way she wasn’t used to: weather and work hardened, lean-muscled, not bulked up. And there was the easy way he walked across the kitchen, a man at home in his body.

She supposed she should feel guilty for even noticing. Guilty for a helpless, unwanted sexual response.

“I should clear up the dishes,” she said, feeling awkward about imposing again.

“Naw, it’ll keep. If you don’t want any more, I need to add it to the compost.”

“You made enough for an army,” she tried to joke.

A flicker of humor danced across his face. “Those two kids usually eat like one. And I made a bit extra because I don’t know your appetite.”

“Not usually good. But I enjoyed breakfast. So … do you have a lot of work to do? Ranching must be loaded with it.”

“It is. Less at the moment than other times of year, but yeah, I’ve got plenty to do. After you finish your coffee, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the family.”

“The rest?”

“The horses, of course. And a handful of dogs who seem to prefer equine company to human.”

“I can sympathize with the dogs.”

“Me, too, a lot of the time.”

A smile flickered across his face again, and brief though it was, it lit him from within. She couldn’t imagine the world he lived in, the way he must view things compared to her, but whatever his ranch life was like, sorrows aside, it seemed to have given him some kind of ineffable … understanding? Peace?

Crazy thinking, she told herself. Last night she had seen him furious. This was no Zen monk living above it all or beyond the reach of life’s misfortunes. Yet this morning he seemed quiet within himself, a state of mind she could only envy.

Maybe it was just the early hour.

He startled her by looking her over suddenly, as if measuring her. Before she could instinctively draw back, he said, “Do you have any jeans with you?”

“Yes.”

“And socks. A good pair?”

“I’m a jogger. I buy good socks.”

“Well, go get on some jeans and socks, then. I’ll find you a pair of boots, and then we’ll go out to meet the herd. Shoe size?”

“Nine.”

He nodded. “I can do that.”

So she went back upstairs and pawed through her suitcase, pulling out some faded jeans, a sweatshirt and a windbreaker she’d stuffed into a corner of her suitcase at the last minute. She didn’t think her long wool coat would be suitable for meeting his horses. She almost laughed at the thought.

When she came back down, he had a pair of rubber boots ready for her. “This way if you step in something we can hose you off.”

She hadn’t thought about that part, but she wasn’t squeamish by nature. If she had been, she wouldn’t have survived her job for long.

They exited the house through the mudroom into a crisp morning and warm light from the still-rising sun. He paused, using his arm to point things out.

“Arena and barn over there. I don’t usually need to stable the horses unless there’s a problem of some kind.”

She looked at the buildings, the barn an identifiable shape with a gambrel roof, the arena obviously the big round, weathered building. She glanced toward the pasture where she could see horses by the dozens if not a hundred. “How could you stable so many anyway?”

“They don’t need stabling. But a good number of them will be sold next month. Too bad you can’t be here for the shindig.”

“What kind of shindig?”

“I’ll probably have about forty buyers here, maybe more. They’ll come in RVs mostly, and I’ve even got power hookups for them out thataway.” He pointed. “This place is going to look like a campground on steroids, or even some kind of fair.”

She looked around trying to imagine it. There were two huge corrals, neither one of them occupied by a horse at present. All the horses were farther away, in what she assumed was a pasture.

“Is the arena for the buyers?”

“Yup, and for training. We put the horses through their paces one at a time in the arena, and interested folks can watch and come down to check on them more closely. Then we spend most of the winter on training.”

“How many will you sell?”

A quiet laugh escaped him. “That’s always the question, isn’t it? I hold back my youngsters unless I’m sure they’ll be handled properly.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can cut five years off a horse’s working life by overworking her during the first four or five years. I don’t like that.”

She looked at him, feeling a twinge of real respect. “That makes it harder on you, doesn’t it? All those extra years of looking after them?”

“Well, I won’t have to hold back many. I know the folks I invite to my sale, and most of them agree with my philosophy. I’m not saying you can’t work a young horse, but overwork is another matter. So I choose to let them go to buyers I can trust. It makes them healthier. It makes them better and happier. I don’t just own them, you know. I’m a steward.”

She nodded, liking his attitude. “So exactly how does this work? You keep the babies until they’re grown enough? You train them?”

He shook his head. “I keep a certain number for myself but I sell a lot of my mares while they’re in foal for the second or third time. That means they’re pregnant. But I make darn sure I know who I’m selling them to. Most folks want a good mare already in foal because they can get an idea of the quality of the foal from the mare, and because the mare is a proven breeder. It’s all about quality, and folks who respect quality are going to take good care of that foal.”

“Okay.” They were walking toward the pasture fence now, past the corrals. The horses began to take note of them, and there was a slow but steady gathering in the general direction of the fence where a huge wooden box sat just outside. “And the rest?”

“I keep most of my geldings to train, some to show. I can sell them to stables, to rodeos, to ranches, places where they don’t want to do the hard work of initial training. It takes a lot of work to train these horses to be the kind of animal you want. And of course I keep my best mares for breeding, and a handful of youngsters for showing. Have to keep my bloodline in good condition.”

“It all sounds complicated.” She glanced his way and saw his face, shadowed by the brim of his cowboy hat. He smiled faintly as he looked out toward the horses.

“Only if you aren’t familiar with it.”

“Still, it sounds like you have to weigh a lot of things.”

“I suppose so. But I’ve been weighing them for so long it kind of happens in the background.”

She looked out toward the pasture again, at the coalescing herd. “So most of them will be gone in a month?”

“That’s always the question. The word I’m most focused on is enough.” He let out a piercing whistle, and most of the horses heading their way picked up their pace. Like moles popping out of the ground, three black-and-white dogs appeared, running along with them. Border collies, she thought.

When they reached the fence, he lifted the lid on the big wooden box and began to pull out carrots. “Help yourself. They love them.”

She wasn’t ready to do that. She hung back a bit, aware that she was being regarded suspiciously by dozens of equine eyes even as they edged toward Dom for their treats. He seemed to enjoy handing out the carrots, and even gave one to each of the dogs.

“Dogs eat carrots?” The notion amazed her. She’d never had a dog, and mentally she associated them with bowls of dog food and scraps from the table. Which, she decided, made it rather silly of her to be surprised that they liked raw carrots.

“Dogs’ll eat most anything. They even to try to swipe watermelon when I give it to the boys.”

Watching, Courtney noticed that not all the horses came to the fence. Plenty hung back, as if interested but not hungry. Many of the hangers-back were still young-looking, coltish, and they seemed to hug the sides of mares.

After a bit, Dom stuffed some carrots in the back pockets of his jeans, closed the box and said, “Come on, let’s go see how the gang is doing.”

Passing that fence was a big step for her. She knew that horses were big, had even ridden a few times, and while these weren’t as big as draft horses she’d seen, they were big enough in their current numbers to intimidate, especially when they seemed to be regarding her suspiciously.

Or maybe that was her imagination. Maybe they were simply curious. They didn’t run away or anything. They shook their heads at her and made quiet little nickers but no threatening moves. Dom interested them more anyway.

For them he had plenty of pats and scratches and he called each by name. She couldn’t imagine how he told them apart but gradually realized that for all they looked the same, they weren’t.

They had different markings, sometimes subtle differences, different ways of standing and approaching Dom. They stood patiently as he lifted their feet and checked their hooves, nuzzled at his pockets for a carrot, and sometimes even nudged him gently. He always chuckled when that happened.

After a while, she began to feel more comfortable moving through the herd and apparently her comfort communicated because one mare with a light brown forelock came closer.

“That’s Marti,” Dom said. “She’s one of my oldest mares and you want her approval.”

“How do I get that?”

“Just hold still. If she comes close enough, pat her flank, not her head. Stay to her side and don’t get directly in front of her.”

She stood very still and waited. Marti edged closer, tossing her head in a manner that seemed almost like a greeting.

“Easy,” Dom said. “I think she likes you.”

Courtney wasn’t as sure about that, but surprisingly enough, she felt relaxed and not at all threatened. Maybe she was picking up on the horse’s energy?

At last Marti edged in until she stood only a foot away. Her big soft eye watched Courtney.

“You can pat her now,” Dom said. “Don’t move fast.”

So Courtney slowly extended her arm and gently patted the mare’s shoulder. Marti tossed her head again and edged a little closer. The message was unmistakable. Courtney tried to imitate Dom’s firm hard pats and Marti apparently liked it because she turned her head until it was behind Courtney and blew hot air between her lips before giving a quiet nicker.

Courtney felt a gentle nudge, possibly the horse’s version of a pat, then Marti pulled back, tossed her head once more, and meandered away.

“Good job,” Dom said. “You’ve been approved.”

Courtney felt a silly grin spread across her face. “Why does that make me feel like a million bucks?”

“Because it should.” He was smiling at her, the most natural smile she’d gotten from him, and it warmed her.

After a moment he spoke. “Okay, I’ve got to gather them in and check them over. That’s going to take most of the day.”

“Getting ready for the sale?”

“Partly. Partly it’s just normal care. Some of these head just came in from summer pasture, and while I check on them often, it’s not always as close and personal as I can get at this time of year. I need to move them into a pen and look them over.”

“What do you want me to do?”

He hesitated. “I’ll take you back to the house. You can look through that stuff of Mary’s that I kept.”

She had come here to do precisely that, so why did she all of a sudden feel so reluctant? Maybe because for a little while out here with the horses she’d forgotten everything else.

Smothering a sigh, casting a look back at Marti, who was still watching her, she followed Dom back to the house. He led her to a downstairs room that was clearly his office.

“I’m going to set you up on the boys’ computer,” he said. “It’s a good one, but the other is for my business and I just don’t let anyone touch it.”

“I understand. I wouldn’t let anyone else touch it, either.”

He pulled down a letter-size file box from a shelf. “This is it. Everything’s on CD, but I printed out a lot of it so the boys could look it over when they want because I’d rather not risk them messing up one of the CDs. She also sent a bunch of snapshots.”

“You need backups.”

“I’ve got it all backed up on an external hard drive, but nobody but me touches that.”

She looked at him as she accepted the box. “Are you sure?”

The last of the relaxation had disappeared from his face, and she could see that he was at least as tense as she. Damn. She thought she had known what she would do to this man by coming here, but now she wondered if she had even come close to imagining the pain she was inflicting.

“The videos are on the CDs, too. I take it you know your way around a computer?”

“Intimately.”

“Okay.” He paused just long enough to start his sons’ machine, give her a nod, and leave.

Her heart grew so heavy she couldn’t face the task she’d come to do. Not immediately. Instead she went to stand on the mud porch and watch Dom.

She heard him give a whistle, a different one that he’d given earlier, and the three dogs immediately dashed his way.

“Away to me,” she heard him call.

The dogs immediately separated, and she watched in amazement as they began to gather the herd, cutting back and forth, bringing the outliers in, and then gradually moving the entire group toward the east end of the pasture.

The horses didn’t seem bothered in the least, as if they were accustomed to being herded by the dogs. And she noted the dogs didn’t exactly seem aggressive in their behavior, just insistent.

Little by little, the herd coalesced. Then the dogs changed strategy. When Dom whistled and pointed, they began to line up all those horses so that soon they were filing toward the pen to the northeast. Amazing. She could have stood and watched all day.

Especially since it had been a long time since she had noticed an attractive man in this way. And he was attractive. Guilt pierced her again as she felt the unmistakable prickling of sexual interest. No. Not Mary’s husband. Talk about betrayal.

She was dragging her heels, she realized. She didn’t want to dive into Mary’s past, didn’t want to taste the sorrow once again. Didn’t want to be reminded of all that had been destroyed by a sniper’s bullet.

God, she still had nightmares about it, moments when she would simply freeze up, imagining how it had all played out. And she hadn’t even been there. She looked at the box full of Mary’s memories, the memories that were all her children and husband had left, and she felt a burst of self-hatred. But for her genius suggestion, Mary would probably still be here. Out there even now helping her husband with the horses.

But she didn’t know how much time she had. Dom might give her another night here, but there was no reason to expect he’d want her around tomorrow. He was a busy man, and she was a reminder of bad things. Things he probably couldn’t afford to think about too often.

Things she needed to take care of so they would stop haunting her.

She understood him. Oh, she definitely understood that much.

Outside, Dom walked down to the pen where he was going to process the horses one at a time. Ted, his only full-time help, was already waiting.

Times had changed enough that he could no longer afford to keep a full-time staff of hands to help him out, but all the local ranches were suffering to one degree or another, so they shared their hired help. Today he’d have three or four guys he knew well from a couple of his neighbors’ places. One of these days, he promised himself he was going to do well enough again to keep a couple more hands on permanently. In fact, judging by the response to his recent invitation to the sale, he might be right on the cusp of becoming one of the best breeders around.

It was his goal. When he’d been very young, and Granddad had run the ranch, selling horses had been simpler. Cowboys hadn’t yet faded into the mists of memory, rodeos had been more popular, and horses hadn’t been entirely about breeds and bloodlines. Good workers had been what most people wanted.

As times had changed, though, he had changed with them. A lot of his stock now was show stock, the kind people bought to strengthen their own herds in order to win prizes because those prizes meant good stud fees. He showed some of his own horses every winter and had gotten enough recognition that his line was doing well.

He still had his regular customers, too, everything from guest ranches, to rodeos, to people who just liked horses and could afford to keep a stable. Sometimes he even thought about branching out into draft horses, Belgians maybe, because there was a pretty firm market for horses that could pull wagons, sleighs and carriages.

So far his quarter horses hadn’t made a big showing on the race circuit, but they were getting closer. He had mixed feelings about that, so he was reluctant to push in that direction.

He paused, just before he reached the pen, aware that the horses were steadily closing in from behind at the dogs’ urgings. Ted gave him a quizzical look.

Why was he thinking about this right now? His business plan was pretty clear, and so far seemed to be working well enough that he was able to keep the ranch and keep his sons’ futures bright.

He was just distracting himself, he realized. Trying not to notice the anxiety churning in the pit of his stomach because that bit of a woman had walked through his door and opened up all the barely healed wounds once again.

She was kind of pretty, but he would have thought her a whole lot prettier if she weren’t so thin. The way she’d pecked at breakfast this morning had been disturbing. He wondered if she was one of those health-food nuts.

People like that always made him shake his head a bit. Of course, as Mary had always said, “If folks worked hard enough or exercised enough, they wouldn’t have to worry about everything they put in their mouths.”

True, he supposed. His family had always worked hard on this ranch, and most of them had lived to a very ripe old age. Right now he should have been working alongside his dad and granddad, and would have been except for an accident on an icy mountain road eight years ago.

Cripes. He caught himself, wondering why he couldn’t stay away from the paths of grief and loss. He’d made peace with all that. It was the way of life. All life.

Relief filled him as he heard the sounds of an approaching truck engine. His help was arriving, and now they’d be so busy he wouldn’t have time to think.

No time to think of lost family and wife, no time to try to avoid noticing that Courtney was appealing in a way he’d never thought he’d feel again.

Thinking had become an enemy of sorts. Something to be dodged unless it was squarely focused on work or the boys.

Well, he had plenty to do today and that would prevent him from having to play hide-and-seek inside his own head. Thank God.

Chapter 3

The boys came home from school between three and four. Evidently they must have a rather long bus ride. Courtney heard their return with relief, because other than an offer of lunch she had skipped, she had spent the day being a voyeur in the life of a dead friend.

It hurt. She felt guilty. But she also felt envious. Mary’s emails to her sons had been both beautiful and touching, and incredibly upbeat. Given that Mary’s days had been almost entirely devoted to dealing with the ugly consequences of the worst side of human nature, the tone of her communications was remarkable. She always found some cute and funny story to tell the boys, often about a dog some of the hospital members had adopted.

Courtney knew that adoption was officially frowned upon. Dogs in Iraq were considered unclean animals, and lived out their short and pathetic lives as scavengers who were often kicked and otherwise mistreated. Soldiers naturally wanted to save them, but official policy forbade it. Many rescued dogs were ordered killed if commanders found out about it.

So the tales of how the hospital managed to keep and hide a dog were filled with life, laughter and even a touch of amusingly wicked pleasure.

Another insight into Mary, one that made Courtney like her even more. And miss her even more.

An insight her sons would cherish more as they grew older.

But whatever Courtney had hoped to find, she quickly divined that she would not find it in emails to the boys. That left copies of their Skype conversations, photographs and any videos Mary might have mailed home.

By the time the boys returned from school, she was quite certain she was not up to viewing them. Not today. Not after the emotional morass she had hiked through in reading those emails. Seeing Mary’s maternal side made her acutely aware, as never before, of just what the twins had lost and would now never know.

She was just about to shut down her computer, but decided to check her email first. She had a few friends who might be wondering where she had gone, and she probably needed to assure them she was really just on a vacation, far, far away.

And indeed the first several were exactly what she expected, friendly demands to know where she was, requests for a photo or two, declarations of envy.

But the fourth in the list came from an address she didn’t recognize. Thinking it must be junk mail her filter hadn’t caught, she clicked on it, wondering why it hadn’t been shuffled to the correct folder.

What she found made her neck prickle.

I know what you’re up to. If you think you can get away with it, you’re wrong. I’m watching you.

Her heart slammed, and she could barely breathe. She’d felt the implied threat before, but always so subtly she had been able to think she was imagining it. Those orders to stop investigating had always been couched in reasonable terms, making it impossible to say for certain that there was any intended threat.

But there was no mistaking that email. A shiver trickled down her spine, but then she reminded herself that no way on earth could anyone know she was here. Before leaving, she’d made noises about going to the Pacific Northwest to enjoy a cooler climate and some time on the water. Heck, she’d even left a couple of brochures on her desk.

No. No one could know she was here. Absolutely no one.

Fear and shock quickly gave way to anger. Using the skills she had learned on her job, she tried to trace the email’s origin, and found it came from an anonymous account in Finland. Damn, she hated those things. They were virtually impossible to break through.

Finally, disgusted, she deleted the mail and shut down the machine. Her self-control back in place, she got up from the computer, packed up the emails and the CDs and went out to the kitchen where she heard the voices. The boys were already diving into an after-school snack.

As she entered the room, Dom said to them, “I’ve got another twenty horses to do, and then I’ll be done for the day and we’ll start dinner. Be sure to get going on that homework.”

“Okay,” came a pair of answers.

Dom saw Courtney and looked at her. The quietude had come back to his dark eyes, and it didn’t waver when he saw her. “You must be hungry by now. Ask the boys what’s handy. I need maybe another hour with the horses.”

“Thanks.”

He gave her the briefest of nods, clapped his hat back on his head and strode out the back door.

Kyle got her an apple and she joined them at the table.

Todd asked, “You got any kids?”

“No.”

“Are you gonna stay for a while?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe another day.” She wondered why the boys exchanged looks at that, but decided maybe they were relieved to know life would go back to normal soon.

And it was possible to tell them apart, she realized. There was the slightest difference in their noses, a small hint of a downturn at the corners of Kyle’s eyes. Not something to be noticed at a glance. And Todd had a very tiny mole on his left cheek. “I can tell you apart!” she announced with surprise.

That caused both boys to shriek with laughter. “They put us in separate classes cuz the teachers have trouble.”

“Let me guess. I bet you sometimes switch.”

They shifted, their guilty looks answer enough. Courtney laughed. “And I bet you don’t help them out at all.”

Kyle shrugged. “Why should we? All they have to do is really look at us.”

Courtney couldn’t really argue against that. Even if playing jokes and switching classes wasn’t a good thing to be doing. And that caused her to think of something else. “Does it bother you that they don’t look?”

Apparently they hadn’t thought of it in those terms before. And why should they, given their youth? Replies were slow in coming, almost as if they wondered if there was a right answer. Or as if they weren’t sure how they felt.

“I guess, sometimes,” Kyle said eventually. “Mostly it seems funny.” He glanced at Todd. “Right?”

“Mostly,” Todd agreed. “But sometimes it’s not so funny.”

“Like when?”

“Like … like when we can switch classes for a whole day and nobody notices.”

Courtney’s heart twinged. “Does it make you feel invisible?”

Todd shrugged. Apparently the waters were getting too deep for a seven-year-old. “I dunno. It just isn’t funny sometimes.”

“I guess I can see that.” And she could. “But you know what?”

“What?”

“You have different fingerprints, even though you’re twins.”

The boys perked up at that. “So we couldn’t get mixed up for real?”

“No way.”

“Can you take our fingerprints?”

“I don’t have a kit with me. But if it’s okay with your dad, I think your sheriff could do it and give them to you.”

All of a sudden, both boys were grinning again, happier in some way. Funny, she had always thought twins liked being twins, but faced with these two it occurred to her that being a twin might have impacts that had never occurred to her. Something to keep in mind.

As ordered, they dived into their homework, which amounted to a couple of worksheets that didn’t take too long. They wanted Courtney to supervise, so after warning them that it had been a long time since second grade for her and she might not remember enough to be useful—which got more giggles—she sat between them and helped when requested. Which wasn’t often, because these boys seemed to have a good understanding of what they were doing.

They were just finishing up when Dom returned. Courtney turned to join the boys in their greeting and noted the way he appeared to be arrested, as if something in the sight of the three of them gave him pause.

At once Courtney realized she might appear to be taking Mary’s place. She started to rise, but Dom waved her to stay.

“I need a shower,” he said shortly. “Back in ten.”

She watched him walk from the room, listened to the sound of his feet on the stairs.

Be careful, she reminded herself. Be careful. The man was a grieving widower, and her mere presence in the house had to be uncomfortable for him, never mind her mission.

The boys appeared oblivious to any undercurrents, however. They finished the last bit of their worksheets, tucked them in folders and away in their backpacks.

Then, like a pair of small whirlwinds, they grabbed their jackets and darted out the door, calling to her to come with them because they wanted to see the horses.

At once she jumped up, hunting for the boots she had worn that morning, grabbing her own windbreaker from a hook. The idea of those two little boys alone out there with those large horses didn’t seem exactly safe.

By the time she got out there, the two of them were perched on the fence rail looking absolutely comfortable and confident. A few of the horses had come over to take carrots from them, and the boys reached out to stroke, scratch and pet, their touches obviously welcome.

Watching in amazement, she remembered her own initial nervousness that morning, and realized she knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about growing up on a ranch and what that evidently meant.

Those boys knew these horses, were comfortable with them and the horses appeared to reciprocate. Indeed, the twins’ entire manner had changed, becoming quieter and more like their father than they had been in the house. Even their voices had softened.

Amazed and curious, Courtney walked slowly over to the fence and stood nearby. Part of her longed to be able to sit on the rail, too, and pass out carrots, but part of her was still reluctant. Oh, she had ridden horses before in her life. Every girl who could manage it did so, even if only for a short time. It wasn’t as if she was afraid to ride a horse. A nice tame beast already saddled, with an experienced horseman there to guide her every step of the way.

This was different, and she wondered why. Because there were so many of them? Because to some extent they appeared to be wild, rather than tame, since they were out there free of all halters and saddles?

Maybe. Yet as she had just seen this morning, these horses were as tame as could be. She took a halting step toward the pasture fence, then threw back her shoulders and walked over to stand by the boys.

Todd greeted her at once and handed her a couple of carrots. “Just hold it out and see who takes it.”

So, leaning against the rail, she did exactly that. Much to her amazement, a gangly-looking small horse came over, his soft lips barely touching her fingers as he took a carrot.

“Wow!” she said quietly. “That was amazing.”

Todd laughed. “It’s fun. They’re all good horses. Dad says that’s cuz we treat ‘em well.”

“We treat ‘em like horses,” Kyle corrected.

“Meaning?” Courtney asked as she handed out another carrot.

“They don’t think like us. They need different things.” Kyle sounded like he was parroting Dom, and he probably was. “Dad’s teaching us all about it.”

“That’s great,” Courtney agreed. “You’re lucky. I don’t know anything about horses, really.”

“Dad’ll take care of that. Unless you leave tomorrow.”

Unless she left tomorrow. She’d been ready to do that not so long ago, as she had been reading Mary’s emails and letters and learning to know a warm and wonderful side of the woman she had never met in Iraq.

But that anonymous threat, at first so shocking, seemed to have stiffened her spine. No way could she have gotten to this level in her job if a mere anonymous email could scare her off.

And somehow standing here with Mary’s boys and looking out over a sunny pasture full of horses, Courtney found herself wishing she didn’t have to go so soon. This place could grow on her, she realized. Seriously grow on her.

She caught herself and shook the thought away. She was falling for an image, she reminded herself. A pastoral scene that might have come out of a storybook. She hadn’t the least idea how much work this place required, or how much it took out of the family. How much those beautiful horses really needed.

What she must do was keep reminding herself that she was wearing rubber boots. Even on a beautiful horse ranch, you could step in manure.

After the boys were tucked in, Dom came back downstairs almost reluctantly. He’d been aware all day of Courtney’s presence on the ranch, the presence of a woman in the empty space left by Mary’s absence.

It made him uneasy. He’d gotten used to living alone, living with hours of silence, living without companionship. And, whether he wanted to think about it or not, he felt guilty for being so aware of Courtney. Logically he knew that life went on, that he was just a man, and a man had needs. Logically he knew that Mary wouldn’t want him to live out his life alone.

Hell, she’d even told him so before she shipped out. He hadn’t wanted her to speak the words, had even tried to stop her, but she’d insisted on saying them anyway. “If anything happens to me, Dom, you’ve got to move on. For yourself and for the twins.”

But his heart told a different story, as if the mere act of noticing that Courtney was a woman, a too-skinny woman even, was a betrayal of Mary.

Talk about a screwed-up head.

Right now he couldn’t even summon a work-related excuse to escape into his office or escape to the barn. No, he worked so hard to avoid thinking that sometimes he couldn’t come up with a single thing left to do.

Tonight was one of those nights. The paperwork was all up to date, the horses had been taken care of, the dogs fed, the dishes done. He didn’t even need to clean, since he’d already washed down the tub and bathroom after bathing the boys.

And maybe the real thing that troubled him was the fear that if he sat down with Courtney he might learn that she had discovered something today, something that supported her theory that Mary had been murdered.

Right now he wasn’t sure he could handle that.

Courtney sat in the living room on the sofa where he’d left her, cup of coffee on the table at her elbow. She appeared wan, he realized, as if she wasn’t any less tired or any more happy about this situation than he was.

That made him uncomfortable, and it took him a minute to realize what was going on: he liked having her here. He liked the distraction, the awareness that he was still a man.

Mentally he swore some words he would never speak in the presence of the boys, and wondered if he was going off his rocker or something.

The only thing that should be concerning him was whether Courtney had found out something.

The words escaped his mouth before he knew they were coming. “Did you find out anything?”

“No.”

“Much more to look at?”

She sighed, and he saw a glimmer of his own grief in her face. “Yes. Unfortunately. If it won’t kill you to have me around another day.”

“Won’t kill me.” Hardly that. Maybe having her around for a few days would make him face up to some stuff it suddenly occurred to him that he’d been avoiding. Stuff like maybe he needed to get on with a life apart from horses and the boys, just like Mary had told him.

Maybe his hermitage was comfortable for him, but judging by the way Kyle and Todd chattered at Courtney, it wasn’t enough for them. Heck, they’d even wanted her to read them a bedtime story, a request he’d nipped upstairs because he wasn’t sure he wanted them to have that intimacy with her. After all, she was moving on.

And maybe he was being terribly unfair to his sons. That caused a shaft of guilt to hit him in the gut. Here he thought he was protecting them and caring for them, when maybe he was cutting them off from things they just naturally needed.

He wouldn’t do that to his horses. Was he doing that to his sons?

Slowly he settled into the easy chair facing her and tried to think of how to deal with all of this. Find a way, any way, into a conversation that might help him, or his kids, or her. Anybody.

“What exactly are you looking for?” he asked her.

“Names. Maybe faces in videos. Somebody had to be close enough to figure out that she’d found something.”

“If she found something.”

“If,” Courtney agreed. “But I can’t think of any other reason she wanted to meet with me. Once she started working for us, we pretty much stayed apart unless we came together in the usual course of things.”

“So you’re not like a secret agent or something.”

“I’m not undercover, no. Not usually. And I knew Mary for a while before this issue ever came up. No reason to be unnecessarily covert. We’d already established a friendship that a number of people knew about.”

He nodded slowly, taking in the information, trying to imagine how things must have been for Mary. He’d probably always wonder. She never talked much about Iraq, not about the ugly stuff anyway. Like she was protecting him.

“Once,” he said slowly, “I tried to get her to talk about what it was like over there. She told me that when she came home on leave she wanted to recharge, not relive.”

Courtney nodded. “I can hear her saying that. She had a gift, didn’t she, for looking forward.”

“Yup. How did you two meet?”

“Oh, I was at her hospital. There’d been an accusation from someone in supply that medical stuff was disappearing and unaccounted for. And since the Marine Corps, and by extension the navy, supplied the hospital, I was one of the people tasked to look into it.”

“I thought she was at an army hospital.”

“Not exactly. Units from different branches of service share the same bases and use the same facilities a lot. Everybody’s got their own share of the job to do, but redundancy is expensive. Especially in hospitals. So, yes, her Guard unit was stationed there, but the hospital was being shared by everyone, and staffed by everyone. Anyway, when it came time to ask her about procedures and if she was aware of anyone stealing supplies, she gave me both barrels.”

Dom chuckled. “She would do that.”

“She asked me if I was an insurance company, wanting them to account for every roll of gauze, every bandage, every aspirin.”

Another chuckle escaped Dom. He could actually hear Mary speaking those words.

“Anyway,” Courtney continued, “she told us in no uncertain terms that everything was being used in treatment, that sometimes they gave supplies to Iraqi medical people who were desperate, and that if we wanted to know where all that stuff was going, we needed to be there when they brought in the next load of casualties.”

“Were you?”

“Yes. Sadly. And we didn’t have to come back to do it. We were still there investigating when it happened. After what we saw, we went back and reported that nothing was being stolen, everything was being used. And it was, Dom. I don’t know what annoyed that supply guy into making a complaint. All he had to do was leave his office and walk next door to the trauma center. The place was chaos, medical supplies were being used and discarded in huge quantities just to stabilize the patients. I don’t know.”

Her smoky blue gaze grew distant. “Maybe it griped him that they were treating civilians, too. If there were a lot of casualties, after they took care of their own patients, they’d grab supplies and head out to nearby Iraqi hospitals to help. It was humanitarian work, and we put in our report that in this instance they needed to call off the bean counters. Winning hearts and minds. That was part of the mission. And Mary was … well, Mary was a pure humanitarian.”

“Sometimes,” Dom said, hating to even admit it, “I’m glad she won’t have to live with those memories.”

“You should be glad,” Courtney said. “If there’s one blessing in any of this, it’s that she won’t have to live with that past. As good as she was, as kind as she was, she’d still have to live with the nightmare. I didn’t see nearly as much of it as she did, and I still have nightmares.”

He fixed his attention on her, realizing that she wasn’t just some cop who had known Mary, a cop trying to do a job he wasn’t yet sure he wanted her to do. In her own way, she was a vet, too. And she was a vet on a mission, whether he liked it or not. He had to respect that.

Damned if he didn’t feel she needed some time to wind down. Coming out here like this had been a desperate act, he realized. Not knowing how she would be received, risking her career if it became known what she was doing, all because she couldn’t let a desert ghost rest.

And that desert ghost had been his wife.

He sighed, struggling again against a torrent of emotions he’d tried to put in some isolated part of his heart simply because he had to get on with things, had to take care of two boys, couldn’t afford to give in or give up.

She was stirring all that up because she couldn’t lock it away as he had.

“You got any family?” he asked.

“Just my mother. We get together once or twice a year.”

Maybe that explained a lot, especially about her job, which was driving her into a dangerous place. Not necessarily physically. He couldn’t see any reason she should be in physical danger … unless those folks who’d been telling her to drop it might feel she was a threat.

For an instant his heart almost stopped. Had it occurred to her that whoever had killed Mary might come after her, too, if she seemed like a threat?

But then he dismissed the thought. She surely must have considered the possibility, and she’d said she was out here without telling anyone. No reason anyone should care where she took her vacation.

And whatever had happened had happened two years ago, just another atrocity among thousands and thousands of atrocities caused by war. However much dust and dirt she kicked up, she was up against powers she couldn’t fight solo. What did seem likely to him was that she would merely put her own neck in a career noose and make him a whole lot less comfortable with what had happened to Mary.

He’d been through hell since her death but the picture Courtney wanted to paint of what had happened presented a new version of hell. One he didn’t know if he could live with.

He wasn’t great with people, but he was good with horses, and right now he felt like he was looking at a mare who was frightened, and flailing about as she tried to figure out the best way to respond to a goad. Goads were bad. He wouldn’t even swat a horse, and this woman looked as if she’d been swatted good.

All he knew was the best way to handle a disturbed horse, and heading straight at the problem was often exactly the wrong way.

“We’re going camping this weekend,” he remarked. “The boys asked if you could come.” They had, but he’d put them off, not wanting to deepen this relationship any. But that had been his immediate response. His secondary response was the one he always got around to sooner or later: help the horse.

She’d probably hate him if she ever figured out he was thinking of her that way. But there it was.

“Camping?” she repeated uncertainly. “But, um …”

“You’re not going to finish going through Mary’s stuff tomorrow. We both know it. And I assume, since you’re here, that you’re on some kind of vacation. Because they sure wouldn’t have let you come otherwise from what you said.”

“You’re right.”

“So take some vacation. The weather is supposed to warm up, I need to go into the upper pasture to gather about twenty head that are still there. The boys have a great time. We ride up on Saturday morning, gather the herd and bring them back down on Sunday.”

“I … don’t know.”

“Think about it. I’m getting some coffee. You want fresh?”

“Please.”

Just a gentle movement of the bit, he reminded himself. Just a hint to let the horse know something was needed. No woman who had gotten into her car and driven out here in defiance of her orders could be weak. No, she had to be a strong woman. But right now she was looking weak, and that was because she was floundering as she tried to find a way to deal with a burr under her saddle.

That would change, he thought. If nothing else, her visit here would convince her it was a dead end. And maybe some mountain sunshine and fresh air would clear her emotions a bit.

Because, as he’d learned these past two years, sometimes you just had to live with the way things were, like them or not.

Chapter 4

Friday morning dawned misty as the warm front moved in, bringing the possibility of light rain.

Courtney rolled onto her side and stared out the window, struck by the lack of curtains. But why would anyone need curtains here? Beyond that window lay nothing but mountains and trees. The bunkhouse, barns and main pastures were on the other side of the house and behind it. In her world, though, no window was ever left uncovered because it was too easy for people to look in from nearby buildings, or even from the ground.

A different world indeed.

From below she could hear the sounds of Dom and the boys at breakfast, and she could even smell some of the aromas that had wafted under her closed door, but not even coffee could make her move.

Emotionally, she felt trampled. Last night she had determined that she would finish up today somehow and leave.

This morning she doubted she would be able to do much of anything. It was as if a load of grief she had been carrying around, carefully compartmentalized for two years, had finally hammered her. Reading through Mary’s letters to her sons had left her feeling positively battered.

Worse, it seemed to have awakened memories of things she had seen over there. Nightmares of war, of mutilated bodies, had plagued her all night. She’d awakened at least three times with the sounds of screams in her ears. But her exposure had been relatively small. Someone like Mary, someone who saw it almost every day, would surely have worse nightmares, worse memories. Worse everything.

I’m lucky, she told herself firmly. Lucky her job had taken her into hell so rarely. Other people had been there for years.

But the thought of opening those doors of memory any wider almost sickened her.

So what was she going to do? Give up her pursuit of justice? Let the desert ghosts lie in their hiding places? Because for her Mary wasn’t the only ghost. So were the women of that village who had never received justice. So was the person who had murdered Mary to protect himself and his buddies. Some of those ghosts she felt unable to leave alone.

Except that today it all seemed like too much. Way too much. Her plan of poring over letters, photos and tapes had been anticipated from a professional angle. It was the kind of thing she did all the time in her job.

But this was no job. This was personal. And it hurt.

Apparently not even two years had buried the anguish completely, and she could only imagine what it was like for Dom, surrounded by all his memories of his wife, taking care of two boys who looked quite a bit like her.

Of course, maybe that had helped him deal faster than her own burying of it had. Maybe he was further down the road than she.

Sighing, she at last rose, tended to her needs and went downstairs. Dom wasn’t there and she imagined he had taken the boys to the bus. Through one of the windows she could see Ted walking out into the pastures. He appeared to be carrying some tack with him.

Breakfast still waited on the table, and the coffee was still hot and fresh. Her place had been set, as if her arrival was anticipated. Somehow that made her feel a little more welcome.

She poured some coffee and then took some pancakes and link sausages from a platter and warmed them in the microwave. Blueberry syrup topped her menu. Not that she felt much like eating. Not after the nightmares, not after that damn email yesterday that was probably as toothless as an old hag, designed to frighten her, but unable to do anything else.

She forced herself to take a bite of pancake. No, that email was meaningless. It had probably arrived simply because she had gone out of reach of oversight. And someone was worried.

Wouldn’t they be horrified to realize that all they had done was confirm her suspicions that something was seriously wrong with the way the investigation had been quashed? For a moment, she almost smiled, and the taste of the pancakes became wonderful.

Yeah. They’d confirmed her suspicions. Now she would get to the bottom of this or die trying.

She tried to imagine Mary sitting at this table. All her memories of Mary involved the base, the hospital and a couple places where it was safe for an American to stop for coffee. Even in a pacified zone that wasn’t always a sure thing.

She ran her fingertips over the aging oilcloth, and figured from the pattern that it must have been Mary’s choice. She had loved cheerful things.

And she probably wouldn’t be very happy to see Courtney sitting here feeling as if lead weighted her down. That just wasn’t Mary. She probably wouldn’t be happy, either, that Courtney had gotten Dom all stirred up again.

Crap! She put her head in her hands as powerful, painful feelings grabbed her. Maybe she should have just let this lie and lived with her sense of outraged justice.

But as soon as she had the thought, she knew she couldn’t rest until she was absolutely certain that she had done everything possible. Everything.

She heard Dom come into the mud room, and didn’t even bother to look up. She didn’t want to know, in a moment of reaction he couldn’t conceal fast enough, how little he wanted her here.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” she admitted frankly. “But it doesn’t matter.” And it didn’t, compared to his problems.

“Of course it matters.”

She listened to him pour coffee for himself, then heard a chair scrape as he sat at the table. “What’s going on?”

She shook her head, still resting in her hands. “It’s hard reading those emails and letters.”

“I know.”

Yeah, she was sure he did. And it seemed petty of her to even mention it. “How are you managing?”

He shrugged a shoulder, seeming to indicate he wasn’t going to talk about it. But then he said, “With time I feel it less often. I still feel it, it still hurts like hell, but it happens less often. I guess you can get used to anything, given time.”

“I guess so.” She gave herself an inward shake and looked up at last, finding his strong face looking calm, even resigned. And then she caught a flicker of something else in his gaze, something hot. It was gone almost instantly, but she knew that look, had seen it often enough to know what it meant: he found her sexually attractive.

But as quickly as the heat showed, it was followed by a flash of puzzlement, as if he didn’t understand what he’d just felt.

Guilt. It was thick on the air, she realized. They both felt guilty, though perhaps for different reasons. She felt it because it was partly her fault Mary had died. He probably felt that an instant of attraction somehow betrayed her. And frankly, Courtney wondered the same thing, because as she had caught that flicker of sexual yearning in his gaze, she had felt herself respond all the way to her center.

Desire, evidently, had its own calendar and its own causes, and simple thoughts of propriety, ugly things like guilt, couldn’t entirely squash it.

Life went on whether you wanted it to or not. That was the hardest part. Just when you felt everything should freeze in time and space, that the whole world should halt because you had lost someone you loved, life intruded, reminding you that you had to go on.

“Have you decided whether you’ll go camping with us tomorrow?” he asked.

“I …” The hesitation, so strong earlier, the decision she thought she had made … all of a sudden they were gone. “Yes. Yes, I will.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Good. You’ll enjoy it. There’s a cabin up there, not much, but I’ve kept it up because the boys love to go up there in the summers when we look after the horses. You won’t exactly be roughing it.”

“It would be fun either way. I think—” she hesitated, then blurted it “—I think I need some fun.”

“I think you do, too. I think we all do.” His smile widened slightly. “How devoted are you to spending another day in my office?”

She thought about all those photos she still needed to review, all the tapes and CDs. “There’s a lot I need to look at still.”

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