Against the Wind (4 page)

Jackson clamped down on the image. He needed to go a couple more rounds with the heavy bag, maybe let the speed bag hit him a few times in the head.

He had been fooled by Sarah Allen once. It wasn't going to happen again.

 

Sarah's cell phone rang. Sitting behind the desk Smiley had assigned her, she jumped, startled by the unexpected jangle. Ever since the break-in, her nerves had been on edge. Thank God nothing else had happened, which made her think she might be wrong, and it was, as the sheriff believed, just teenagers bent on making trouble.

The phone rang a second time before she could dig it out of her oversize leather purse. Hoping someone might be calling with a news story, she flipped open the phone without checking the caller ID and heard Martin Kozak's rusty smoker's voice on the line.

“I've been trying to reach you, Sarah. Don't you check your messages?”

Her hand shook. Vaguely she heard the bell ring above the door, but didn't look up to see who it was. “I've been busy, Marty. And my phone's been out of service.” That was the truth. There were only certain places around the cottage where she could get cell reception. She reminded herself to get a landline, though she had few people to call.

“I need to talk to you, Sarah.”

“I don't have anything to tell you, Marty. I don't have what you're looking for. I don't know anything about Andrew's business. We never discussed it.”

“You moved out of the condo. Where are you, Sarah? Tell me where you are, and I'll meet you.”

She swallowed. Her hand kept shaking. She tightened her fingers around the phone to make it stop. “Leave me alone, Marty.” Sarah hung up the phone. She was breathing hard, her pulse racing. She closed her eyes, trying to bring herself under control, and when she looked up, Jackson Raines stood next to her desk.

“Who's Marty?” he asked. The look in his eyes said he had overheard her conversation. He expected an answer, and he wasn't going to settle for less.

“H-he was a business acquaintance of my husband's.”

“What did he want?”

She moistened her lips, worked to make them form the words. “I don't know.”

Jackson slid a hand beneath her elbow and urged her up out of her chair. “You're trembling. Come on, let's get out of here.”

She didn't argue. Marty's call had shaken her. She
had been so sure he would leave her alone once she left L.A. Now she wondered if Marty had been lying about not knowing where she lived and had followed her to Wyoming.

If he had sent his thugs to search the cottage for whatever it was he was looking for.

She waved to Mike as they walked out, letting him know she was leaving, and stepping outside, into the crisp mountain air. Sarah took a deep breath, felt a little steadier. Jackson just kept walking, hauling her around to the passenger side of his truck, opening the door and boosting her up into the seat. His hand accidentally brushed her thigh as he helped her get settled and a little tingle of awareness went through her.

She was wearing a lightweight apricot sweater and a pair of tan slacks—and it was a darned good thing. She imagined what that light touch might have felt like on bare skin and a rush of heat slid into her stomach.

Embarrassment sparked a little burst of hysterical laughter.

“What's so funny?”

She shook her head, then sobered at the sudden memory of Martin Kozak's call. “Not a damned thing.”

One of his dark eyebrows arched up. He pinned her with the same look he had used in her office. “Why don't you tell me what's going on.” It was an order, not a question.

Sarah sighed and leaned back against the black leather seat. “I suppose, since I'm living in your house, you have a right to know.” And there was something about him that made her want to tell him. Maybe it was just that she had known him from before, or maybe it was that he
seemed so strong and capable, a solid shoulder to lean on. Whatever it was, she just hoped that once he knew, he wouldn't toss her out in the street.

He drove the truck to a shady area off the road at the edge of town and turned off the engine, then shifted on the seat to face her.

“I overheard some of your conversation. Does the guy you were talking to have something to do with what happened at the cottage?”

She looked over to where he sat. His dark eyes were mostly hidden by his battered cowboy hat, but the hard line of his jaw and the indentation in his chin were clear. “I don't know. I don't think he even knows where I live.”

“Then why were you so upset?”

She bit her lip, wondering how much she should tell him. “To put it bluntly, my husband—that is to say, my
late
husband—was a crook. I didn't know it when I married him and I was never involved in any of his shady business dealings, but I knew whatever he was up to wasn't good.”

“Why didn't you leave him?”

“I tried more than once. He was…determined I would never get a divorce. He said he would do whatever it took to keep me from taking his daughter.” An ugly memory surfaced of Andrew's fist connecting with her cheek and Sarah fought not to flinch. “I believed him.”

She looked out the window, into the dense grove of dark, shadowy pines trees that climbed the sides of the hills. “I came here to start a new life. I just want to be left alone.”

For several moments, Jackson said nothing. Maybe he was the one person she knew who understood what
it was to want to start over. In high school, Jackson Raines had a wild reputation. He was in trouble off and on all through his early teenage years. Until he'd been recruited by the boxing team. After that, he had settled down, come up with a solid set of goals, and become the sort of boy she found attractive.

She hadn't dared let on. He had made an enemy of the varsity quarterback, Jeff Freedman, the most popular boy in school. Jeff had taunted him into a fistfight then taken a beating for his foolishness. Jackson had been completely ostracized, and unless Sarah wanted that same treatment, she was forced to ignore the attraction she felt for him.

But Sarah was a woman now and Jackson no longer a boy. It was far more difficult to ignore that attraction today than it had been back then.

“What's this guy's name?” Jackson's deep voice jolted her back to the present.

“Martin Kozak.”

“You said you didn't have what he was looking for. So what is it he's looking for?”

She sighed. “Marty called me a number of times before we moved. He said Andrew had something he needed. A list of some kind, maybe a computer disk or a notebook. I told him I didn't know anything about it and I don't.”

“So what makes you think Kozak's not responsible for ransacking the cottage?”

“On the phone Marty asked me where I lived. He said if I would tell him, he would come and meet me. It seemed like he really didn't know. I said to just leave me alone.”

Jackson watched her closely. “Why do you suppose
he's come after this now? You said your husband passed away some months back.”

“I don't understand that, either.”

Jackson cast her another penetrating glance. “Do you think Kozak is a danger to you and Holly?”

She looked away. There was something about Marty Kozak that frightened her. She wasn't sure what it was. “He lives in L.A. I can't imagine he would come all the way up here, even if he knew where to find me. I'm just hoping the sheriff is right and it was just a bunch of kids.”

Jackson studied her face, searching for the truth, she supposed. “All right. For now, that's the assumption we'll go on. In the meantime, let's forget about Kozak and go buy that sofa. We'll worry about the rest of it as it comes.”

She looked at him and something squeezed inside her. “You're…you're going to help me?”

“If we're lucky, you won't need my help. This guy will stop looking for you and that will be the end of it.”

“And if he doesn't?”

He shrugged a powerful set of shoulders that must have been a nightmare for his boxing opponents. “If he doesn't, we'll figure out where to go from there.”

Her throat closed up. It had been so long since anyone had done anything at all to help her. One by one, Andrew had managed to destroy her personal friendships. Oh, she had tennis partners, mostly the women at the country club, and there were the wives of his business acquaintances. But none of them were real friends.

Her grandmother was still alive, but she was in her seventies and she had a heart condition. Sarah had been
afraid that if she called her, she would inadvertently spill out her pain and it might aggravate her heart condition. With no friends or family she could talk to, she had no one to depend on but herself.

“I know what you must think of me,” she said. “I know you haven't forgotten what I did to you in high school.”

He flicked her a glance. “Maybe not. But we're not in high school anymore. And we're both too old to play games.” He cranked up the engine, started to put the truck into gear, but she caught his arm.

“I'm sorry about what happened that day. I know it doesn't change anything, but it's true. I've regretted the way I behaved, the way I treated you, a thousand times.”

Jackson said nothing, just shifted the truck into Drive and stepped on the gas. She didn't think he believed her. He probably thought that she was just being nice to him because he was successful now, obviously a man of some means, instead of a boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

Maybe he was right and what she'd done no longer mattered.

Oddly enough, it still mattered a great deal to Sarah.

J
ackson called himself ten kinds of fool. It was sheer insanity. Total stupidity. But every time he saw her, watched her doing some simple task, desire for Sarah Allen hit him like a fist to the solar plexus.

Something had shifted, changed the day she had told him about her husband's shady dealings and the man she was afraid of, Martin Kozak. Maybe it was the vulnerability he had seen in her face, maybe it was the way she had looked at him when he had offered to help her. Whatever it was, since that day, the attraction he had felt had grown into full-blown lust.

Jackson lifted his cowboy hat and settled it low on his forehead. He told himself it was just that he hadn't had a woman in a while. He wasn't like his brother, Dev. He wasn't into one-night stands. He dated, got to know a lady before he took her to bed. His relationships usually lasted until the heat was gone and the affair turned into
friendship. The women knew from the start he didn't make promises and didn't want a woman who expected them.

Which didn't mean he was
completely
opposed to marriage. Hell, he always figured someday in the distant future he'd get married and have a couple of kids. Just not right away.

Still, he liked sex and he didn't have much trouble finding a willing bed partner, even in a town as small as Wind Canyon. It was just that lately, he'd been busy.

Or maybe he just hadn't met a woman who appealed to him.

As he strode toward where Jimmy Threebears worked with a couple of new saddle horses, he passed Sarah's cottage and caught a glimpse of her sweeping the porch. She bent over to use the dustpan, pulling her jeans tight over a very round, very nice ass, and pressure began to build in his groin.

It was insanity. Total stupidity.

He told himself he ought to give Maddie Gallagher a call. They had dated off and on. Maddie was a few years older, divorced, always up for a round of steamy sex. Maybe he should call her…but he didn't really want to.

He forced himself not to look back at the porch, carefully kept his attention on the big man working one of the geldings on a lead line in the pen. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jimmy's two boys tossing a ball to little Holly, whose black-and-white puppy sniffed and yapped at her feet. The boys had already grown protective of her.

Just as Jackson had grown protective of Sarah.

It was insanity. Total stupidity.

Sarah was probably playing him, just like she had in high school.

“Hey, boss!” Jimmy waved, dark-skinned and dark-eyed, his long black hair pulled into a ponytail fastened low on his neck. He handed the lead to one of the hands and walked out of the pen.

“You been up to the ridge today?” Jackson asked as Jimmy approached.

“Not today. But it sure didn't look good the last time I was there. There's slash clogging the water upriver, making it overflow the banks, and with the trees clear-cut on the north side of the hill that last storm washed a shitload of dirt into the stream. Those cows in the upper pasture are having a helluva time getting anything decent to drink.”

“Let's move 'em down into Pine Meadow. The grass isn't quite as good, but at least the water will be clean.”

“I'll get a couple of the hands and trailer some horses. Won't take long to move 'em.”

“Keep an eye open while you're up there. I don't trust those loggers. The Barrett brothers are in for the quick buck and they don't care what they do to get it. If we aren't careful, they'll do something else we'll have to pay for.”

Jimmy nodded, turned and started organizing the men. He was hardworking and efficient. Jackson couldn't run the place without him. On top of that, not counting Gabe and Dev, Jimmy was his closest friend.

Jackson left the men and returned to the house. As he walked into his study, he saw the message light blinking on the phone.

He pushed the button, heard his youngest brother's deep voice. “Hey, bro, what's up? Give me a call.”

Jackson dialed Dev's home number and his brother picked up on the second ring.

“Thanks for calling me back,” Jackson said. “Sorry to bother you, little brother, but I got what could turn into a problem and I was hoping you might be able to help.”

“What's going on?”

“You remember a girl in your high school class named Sarah Allen?”

“Sarah Allen…Sarah Allen…dark hair, big blue, heartbreaker eyes and a luscious little body? The girl who had you tied in knots half your senior year? Nah, I don't recall.”

“Very funny. The thing is, Sarah is back in Wind Canyon and I think she might be in some kind of trouble. I want you to find out everything you can about her and get back to me.”

“What can you give me to work with?”

He dug out the application Livvy had taken from Sarah over the internet and read what little was on the printed page: her social security number; her residence address in Santa Monica, a former address on Sunset Drive, the make and model of her Mercedes, which had now been sold. Jackson told Dev about the break-in, and about the call from a guy named Martin Kozak, who wanted some kind of list that Sarah's husband supposedly had.

“I'm trying to tell myself the break-in had nothing to do with Sarah's past, but I don't believe in coincidence.”

“Neither do I. What else can you tell me?”

“Sarah has a six-year-old daughter named Holly. Her husband's name was Andrew Hollister.”

“
Late
husband, is it?”

He could almost see Dev's knowing grin. “Just do what you can, will you?”

“You got it, bro.” Dev signed off and Jackson hung up the phone.

His brother was an ex-Ranger. Both his brothers had gone into the service after high school. Gabe had enlisted in the Marines, then a year later, Dev, the youngest and determined to prove himself, had joined the army and become a Ranger. Once he got out, he had used the specialized skills he had learned to start a security company, and eventually became one of the best investigators around.

Officially, he didn't take cases anymore, just ran his business. Unofficially, he still got involved whenever a case intrigued him—and he was always there if one of his brothers needed his help.

Jackson thought of the destruction in Sarah's cottage, of the ominous phone call she had received, and hoped his brother called back soon.

 

Three days later, Sarah stood at the window in the living room, watching Jackson at the barn. She liked the way he moved—his long, confident strides, the purpose that was clear in every step. She liked the narrow, masculine span of his hips in contrast to the width of his shoulders.

Something had changed between them the day she had told him about Marty. She still wasn't sure why she had done it—not that he had left her much choice.
Maybe it just felt good to talk to someone instead of being afraid to open her mouth.

She hadn't told him everything, of course. The years she had spent with Andrew were too ugly, too frightening—the end too terrible to recall. And she had no idea how much she could really trust him.

Still, she didn't leave the window, just stood there watching, smiling at the way he angled his hat over his eyes, how natural he looked in his worn jeans and boots, as if he'd been born to ranching—which she knew he hadn't.

In truth, he had lived in a ramshackle house at the edge of town. His mother had been a drunk and his father had left when Jackson was a boy. Thanks to boxing, he had been able to stop the downhill spiral that had been leading him into trouble and turn his life around.

He paused to talk to some of his ranch hands, saw them nod and head out to do whatever it was he asked. He was truly a man's man, but then he always had been. Maybe that was what she had liked about him even way back then.

“Are we going to work today, Mama?”

Sarah looked down to see Holly standing in front of her. “Yes, honey. I got a call from Mr. Wilkins at the mercantile. He reminded me about the big Memorial Day celebration coming up the end of the month. The paper needs an article written about it.” She loved the fact she was a freelance reporter. It gave her a wonderful control of her time—as long as she got her work done.

“So you're gonna write it?”

“That's my job, honey. There's a picnic and a parade
every year and the whole town turns out. Doesn't that sound like fun?”

Holly jumped up and down. “I love parades!”

Sarah smiled. “I know you do.” And the community spirit in Wind Canyon was one of the things that had brought her back home to raise her daughter. “After I get finished in town, we'll drive over and see your great-grandma, just like I promised.” Sarah had been anxious to visit her grandmother, a woman she hadn't seen in years.

Holly fell silent. She ran the toe of a small bare foot over the planked wooden floor. “Do you think she'll like me?”

Sarah reached out and caught her daughter's small hands. “Grandma Thompson is going to love you. I brought you to see her once when you were a baby, but you were too small to remember. She thought you were the prettiest baby girl she'd ever seen.”

But Sarah had paid for that defiant visit dearly. When she'd gotten back to L.A., Andrew had been furious. During the terrible fight they'd had, he had blackened her eye and broken her arm.

Sarah took a deep breath and shoved the painful memory away. She smiled down at her daughter. “Go get your socks and sneakers, grab your jacket, and we'll get going.”

Holly dashed off, and Sarah went to collect her sweater and purse. She glanced around the cottage. The new sofa and chair and the rest of the furnishings she and Jackson had purchased wouldn't be in for a few more weeks. She told herself the vandalism was never going to happen again. It was just out-of-control kids, nothing more.

But even if it weren't, she was home and she was going to stay. She had paid long enough for the foolish mistakes she had made.

And nothing—not even one of Andrew's crooked friends—was going to drive her away.

 

Jackson spotted Livvy's stout figure hurrying toward where he unloaded sacks of grain from the back of a flatbed truck.

“Jackson! Jackson, your brother's on the phone! He says it's important!”

Jackson waved, thought again that he should add a line out in the barn so he could take his calls. Then again, he didn't like talking on the phone. He'd talked from dawn to midnight when he had been in the oil business, which was the reason he hadn't put a phone out in the barn in the first place.

He started jogging toward the house, passed Livvy on the way and took the call in his study.

“Hey, Dev.”

His brother's deep voice reached him over the line. “Are you sitting down?”

He sank down in the chair behind his desk. “That bad, is it?”

“Afraid so. You said Sarah's husband was Andrew Hollister?”

“That's right.”

“Ever heard of Louis Hollister?”

“Seems to ring a bell, but I'm not sure why.”

“Louis Hollister was a blue-collar guy from the San Fernando Valley who made it big in the heavy equipment business. He owned Blacktop Tires, owned some big manufacturing plants, a couple of mining operations,
a demolition company—the list goes on and on. The guy dabbled in just about everything that dealt with machinery and usually made money. By the time he died, he was worth a nice round forty mil.”

“Not exactly chump change.”

“Not exactly. His estate went entirely to his son Andrew—money, business interests, even his Spanish-style house on Sunset Drive.”

“I guess Sarah found what she was looking for.”

“No quite. For a while, Andrew lived high on Daddy's money. So high, in fact, he began to run out. He was a big-time gambler and he liked life in the fast lane. He married Sarah and they had a kid, but it didn't slow him down. Andrew kept right on spending.”

“Sounds like a great guy.”

“Yeah, well, according to my sources, he made enemies wherever he went. Four months ago, he was murdered, apparently by someone he pissed off. Probably one of his business cronies or someone he owed money.”

“So the police never found the killer.”

“I don't think they were highly motivated. No one thought much of Andrew. The Feds were looking at him for tax evasion, probably the only thing they could hang him on, but everyone knew he was into a lot of bad shit. I think the cops wanted to pin a medal on the guy who offed him.”

Jackson mulled over the information, trying to imagine Sarah with a no-good like that. “I really appreciate it, Dev.”

“There's one more thing.”

He braced himself. “What is it?”

“Hollister was a wife-beater, Jackson. Sarah went
to the hospital on more than one occasion. It was fairly common knowledge that he used his wife as a punching bag whenever he felt the urge. Rumor mill says his wife was scared to death of him.”

He said he would do whatever it took to keep me from taking his daughter. I believed him.

Jackson took a steadying breath. He couldn't believe how angry he was. His chest was squeezing as if he'd fought ten rounds, and one of his hands had unconsciously fisted.

He forced himself to relax. “What about the little girl?”

“Hollister worshipped her. No record of any hospital visits. I don't think he ever laid a hand on the kid, just took out his frustrations on Sarah.”

“Thanks, Dev.”

“Listen, I'm supposed to head down to Mexico with a lady friend for the next ten days. If you need me here, I'll cancel.”

“So far I'm just trying to stay ahead of the game. Have fun in ole Meh-he-co.”

Dev chuckled. “You've got my cell number…though I'm not sure there'll be any service.”

“Not to worry. Watch out for bandits,” he said.

“You, too,” said Dev, and hung up the phone.