“I can castrate with the best of them, thank you very much, Deputy. I’ve delivered breech calves by myself and spent three days alone on horseback rounding up cows lost in a blizzard. There’s nothing on Walking Stones I can’t or won’t do.” She stood up. “Now, if you’ve finished your coffee, it’s late and I’m going to be at work before sunrise.”
He got to his feet and picked up his hat. Under the bright kitchen light, his cheeks were a dull red. “I apologize yet again, Ms. Maxwell. I seem to be stepping in it whichever direction I turn.” Without waiting for her guidance, he made his way to the front of the house, fast enough that Thea had to hurry to keep up with his long strides. Before she quite reached the door, he’d crossed the porch and started down the steps.
The cold rain had gotten worse, whipping across the driveway like bullets. Rafe Rafferty drew up his shoulders as he jogged out to his truck. The engine roared to life, the lights blazed, and for a second she could see him through the water-glazed windshield as he wiped a hand over his bare head. He glanced her way, and his mouth tightened.
Then the tires squealed against the stones of the driveway and the truck disappeared into the night. Heedless of the damp chill, Thea stood there for a while, knocking her forehead against the edge of a door.
I can castrate calves, she mocked herself in a prissy voice, and deliver breech births and round up cows in a blizzard.
But she didn’t know jack when it came to men.
ROBERT MAXWELL WAITED to check on his son until the upstart deputy had left and Althea had gone back to her bed. Standing in the doorway of Bobby’s room, he shook his head at the sight of his boy, spread-eagled on top of the blanket. In the dim light, he looked so much like his mother…the same thick, wavy black hair, the same dark sloe eyes, the fair skin and curved lips. Helen had given beauty to all of their children, but especially to their son. If only she had lived to give them her good sense.
Instead, his three daughters seemed determined to flout his authority at every turn. Jolie, the eldest, now a doctor in California, had gone as far away from home as she could just as soon as she graduated high school. Cassie, their middle girl, had married the first wastrel she’d set eyes on and was now raising her seven-year-old son on her own. Althea, on the other hand, had turned down every man who looked her way—including the governor’s boy, a fiasco that had nearly quashed an important land deal requiring his dad’s approval. Damn, the girl was stubborn. Wouldn’t even agree to get the sale papers signed first, before she booted him out.
As for his son, his hope, his pride…the next generation of Maxwells and the future of Walking Stones Ranch depended on a boy who did everything he could think of to shirk the work, escape the responsibilities. Robert knew that time and trends were against the individual rancher these days—without constant and diligent work, without cunning and education and insight, a man’s property could be taken from him by one bad season, by an unexpected epidemic, by a few unlucky investments.
But Bobby didn’t give a tinker’s damn. One hundred fifty years of Maxwell sweat and blood stood in serious jeopardy, unless something changed the boy’s attitude and bound him to the land.
Only once in his life had Robert Maxwell failed to get what he wanted. He had not been able to save his wife’s life 15 years ago, not with prayers, or money, or even with the force of his will. He’d accepted that defeat as a circumstance beyond his control.
But as long as he lived, he would not tolerate the loss of even a square foot of Walking Stones land. The ranch would remain intact, no matter what it took in terms of time, cash and determination. This was the legacy Maxwell men labored under from birth until death, a legacy Bobby would come to understand. To embrace.
He simply had no other choice.
WHEN RAFE FINALLY reached the questionable shelter he’d been calling home for the past few weeks, Jed waited by the door. “Not even a dog should have to go out in this,” Rafe told him. But Jed just heaved a heavy bloodhound sigh and headed into the dark. By the time he got back, Rafe had changed his clothes down to the skin and started a fire. After he toweled the dog off, they both settled down near the blaze.
“You’d think I wouldn’t be so surprised,” Rafe commented after a swallow of beer. “I’ve seen folks like this before. The Maxwells own more of Montana than God. Which, at least in their opinion, puts them above the law.”
Jed thumped his tail twice. “Yeah, I know it’s bull, too. But they don’t. And it’s gonna get worse. Bobby’s a nice kid, I’m thinking, who’s got a serious problem with alcohol. If his family has a clue, they’re not doing anything about it.”
Rafe finished the beer and settled into the lumpy couch he was using as a bed until the moving company found his furniture. “Princess Althea almost had me fooled into thinking she was different. That smile of hers could keep a man warm through the worst Montana blizzard.”
He pictured her as she’d looked across the kitchen table—her greenish-blue eyes wide and friendly, her mouth deep pink and richly curved, the crisp layers of her shiny black hair begging to be played with. He’d admired her stamina, her patience with her little brother, the fact that she didn’t get flustered about sharing cookies with him at one in the morning in her pajamas. She was far and away the best part of Montana he’d come across yet.
Then, in a split second, the mask had crumbled, leaving him with just another Maxwell, arrogant and totally out of reach.
“Doesn’t matter.” Rafe punched the couch pillow and pulled the mothball-scented blanket over his shoulder. “This town—and the family that appears to own it—may not want a deputy who does his job.” The guys in the county office had warned him about his likely reception in advance. So far, the locals had lived up to expectations. Strangers of any kind were greeted with suspicion by the citizens of Paradise Corners. A deputy of the county sheriff automatically represented an attempt by somebody in faraway Big Timber, the county seat, to assert control over local affairs. And if that deputy hailed fron somewhere foreign—say, Los Angeles, California, as Rafe did—then he was guaranteed a hostile reception at best. “Unfortunately for Paradise Corners, I’m here and I’m planning to stay. The Maxwells and everyone else might as well get used to having me….”
Jed lifted his head and gave him a soulful, understanding stare.
Grinning, Rafe reached out and rubbed the wrinkled head of his best friend and only real family in the world. “The Maxwells had better get used to having both of us around.”
TWO SILENT MEN sat the breakfast table when Thea came into the kitchen the next morning. Her father glanced up and nodded, then returned to his eggs. Herman Peace, manager of Walking Stones, gave her his usual lopsided smile. “Lazybones.”
Thea returned the smile and stepped to the coffeemaker on the counter. “Guilty as charged.”
Déjà vu—pouring a mug of coffee brought back last night’s interlude with Rafe Rafferty. She’d regretted everything about those minutes—what she had said and what she hadn’t—through the remainder of a mostly sleepless night.
“’Morning, Thea.” Beth Peace, Herman’s sister, bustled in from the hallway leading to the pantry and laundry room. “I’ll have your plate ready in a flash. Your dad needed some more juice.” Standing beside his chair, she filled his half-empty glass to the brim.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Robert Maxwell’s smile was sweet when he chose to use it. Which was seldom outside of Beth’s kitchen.
“Take your time.” Thea shuddered as she swallowed her black coffee. She preferred sugar and cream, but with the day ahead, she figured she needed a straight shot. “I won’t starve.”
But Beth was already cracking eggs into the big iron frying pan with one hand, punching slices of bread into the toaster with the other. Never hurried or flustered, but always busy, she’d been running the household as long as Thea could remember, even before their mom died. Bobby had been four at the time—Beth was the only mother