He figured the kid had some right to his foul mood. When the woman of your heart turned you down for a job, it was bound to stick in your craw. Still, if things didn’t improve in the morning, he might need to sit the kid down for a little serious one-on-one.
He was still reflecting on what a pain in the neck employee relations could be when he realized everybody else had taken off and he and Annie were alone in the kitchen.
She stood suddenly and began silently clearing the table. Her jerky movements reminded him of the way she used to scurry around trying to do her best to make herself invisible around Charlie, so much that an eerie chill skulked down his spine.
He stood it as long as he could then clamped his teeth together and rose to his feet. He cursed the abrupt motion almost as soon as he made it when she jumped like a startled mare.
He’d worked hard after Charlie left not to move too suddenly around her. Not to speak too loudly, not to gesture too much, not to do anything else her subconscious might interpret as a threat. Over the last eighteen months she had lost much of her edginess, but sometimes it reemerged.
Like tonight.
“Sorry,” he muttered, feeling the hot ball of rage explode in his gut like it always did whenever he thought about what his brother had done to her. He drew several sharp breaths until he forced it down. “Didn’t mean to spook you.”
“It’s not you,” she said distractedly.
“What, then?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Annie. What’s wrong?”
She fiddled with the stack of plates in her hand. “What makes you think something’s wrong?”
“Well, let’s see. For starters, you’ve been more quiet than a barn mouse, then you jump if anybody so much as looks at you wrong, and to top it all off, you don’t say a single word to Leah when she skips out on her night to do dishes.”
She winced and glanced at the chart hanging on the refrigerator. “It was her night, wasn’t it?”
“I’m guessing that’s why she was in such a rush to get back to her homework.”
She blew out a breath. “I should probably make her come down and take her turn, shouldn’t I?”
With that reluctance in the green of her eyes, it was obvious the idea appealed to her about as much as an IRS audit. He shrugged. “I’m afraid this really isn’t my area of expertise. You’re the mother here.”
She flashed him a quick, unreadable look then focused on the stack of plates in her hands. “Right. I’m really not up to another battle tonight. Sometimes it’s just easier to just do things myself. Does that make me a terrible mother?”
“No. You’re not a terrible mother. Give yourself a break, Annie. You’re a tired mother. Why don’t you let me do these?”
“No, I’m fine. Thanks, anyway.”
She would argue into the night if he let her, so Joe just went to work clearing the rest of the dishes from the table then filling the sink with soapy water. He started washing the dishes and a few moments later she joined him with a towel to dry.
They worked in silence for a few moments. He was painfully aware of the way she smelled sweetly, innocently, of apples. No matter how hard he tried to block it out it reached him even over the lemony scent of the dish soap.
He scrubbed hard at a dish, annoyed with himself.
“So are you going to tell me what’s got you so jumpy?” he asked to distract himself.
She focused on the plate in her hand. “Just the wind, I guess,” she mumbled. “Sometimes it gets to me.”
Since when? he wanted to ask, but held his tongue, knowing damn well she wouldn’t answer.
The old Annie had always loved wild weather. When they were kids, she never wanted to be cooped up indoors during summer storms. With the same kind of giddy delight other girls her age reserved for the latest heartthrob, she would sit out on the wide porch at the big house while the sky flashed and growled around her.
One time when she was about twelve, she was tagging along after Colt and him while they went looking for strays up near Lone Eagle Peak. Halfway up the mountain, they had been surprised by an afternoon thunder bumper and like any sensible teenagers, he and Colt had rushed to find cover under an overhanging rock formation.
He could still remember turning around to find Annie, her wild red curls already plastered to her head, standing out in the rain. With her arms wide and her face lifted to the sky in supplication, she looked like some kind of mystical creature from a storybook.
He remembered gazing at her, entranced, until lightning scorched an old pine no more than a hundred yards away. Then Joe had finally braved the pelting rain to yank her to safety.
The old Annie had thrived on the power and majesty of mountain storms. Had his brother taken that from her, too?
That ball of fury hissed and seethed to life in his gut again as he thought of how that laughing, crazy, courageous girl had changed. He allowed the anger to writhe around for only a few seconds but before it could slither out, he inhaled a sharp breath and caged it again. Venting his anger only upset her more and left him feeling hollow and achy.
With effort, he turned his thoughts away from the grim ghosts of the past and focused on something more benign. “When I was up on the roof of the hay shed, I thought I saw Colt’s pickup coming down the road.”
She nodded. “He and Maggie dropped by on the way home from a doctor’s appointment.”
“Everything okay with the baby?”
“I think so. The doctor moved up her due date, to mid-April. She looked wonderful.”
He had thought so too the last time he’d seen Colt and Maggie, and had been filled with a sense of loss so profound it had stunned him. He would never share that kind of magic, never watch a woman he loved grow huge with his child, and the realization had hit him in the chest like a hard fist.
He had decided a long time ago that he would never marry, had resigned himself to going it alone for the rest of his life. What choice did he have? He didn’t have a whole hell of a lot to offer a woman, not considering the kind of family he came from.
What woman would want a convicted murderer, especially one who came from a legacy of violence and abuse?
He thought he had accepted the way things had to be. But seeing Colt and Maggie so excited about bringing a new life into the world had made his own life seem hollow in comparison.
Yet another of the many reasons driving him toward making a fresh start away from here.
“So why did they stop in?” he asked abruptly. “Just for coffee?”
She took the last pan out of the rinse water without looking at him. “Colt heard about your new job. He came over all worked up, ready to horsewhip you for deserting me.”
He shouldn’t feel this guilt seeping through him like spring runoff, dammit. He had to learn to let go. How was he going to carve out a new life for himself when he feared he would never be completely free of the old one? “So why didn’t he?”
Before she could figure out how to answer, a dog’s angry barking cut through the low, distant moan of the wind. The pan she was drying slipped from her hand, landing harmlessly in the sink. She paid it no attention as she strained to search the menacing shadows out the window.
“What is it?” Joe asked.
“I…I’m not sure. Dolly’s barking at something.”
“Probably just a couple of deer looking for food.”
She