Betting the Rainbow (Harmony) (9 page)

Chapter 15

TRUMAN FARM

O
NE OF THE MEN LAYING PIPE FOR IRRIGATION IN A NEW
section of the orchard stopped by Reagan’s office to tell her he’d seen an old Chevy drive onto her land and park at the house.

Reagan stood. Trucks, tractors, and mail cars weren’t unusual, but none of the hands drove an old Chevy. Every man who worked for her knew she didn’t like company. She always took the news with a frown.

“Have any idea who it was, Joe?”

“A woman. Not from around here.”

Reagan was already moving to the open barn door. “How’d you know?”

“Drove right up to the front door.”

Reagan waved good-bye to the volunteers running off rules for the Texas Hold’em tournament. Everyone knew her office was in the barn, and she’d be there or roaming around the orchard from dawn till dusk, so whoever had come to call in the Chevy must be lost or selling something.

As she walked across the yard, Reagan remembered how run-down the old place had once seemed. She’d been a runaway looking for someplace that would let her work. Old Jeremiah had taken her in and paid her wages along with room and board, but he’d made her go to school. He’d treated her like she was worth something long before she even believed she was. She’d lied about being his niece, and he’d taken the lie and made it true.

The last Truman. That was what folks called her. If her dream of being with Noah didn’t work out, she’d stay on this farm and be the last Truman until the day she died. Like the apple trees, her roots dug deep into this earth.

As Reagan passed the beat-up Chevy, she saw the dents and bald tires. Mud was caked across the back and front so thick she couldn’t even see a license plate. Whoever owned the car wasn’t taking care of it and didn’t care what kind of shape it was in.

Looking up, she saw a woman only a year or two older than she was, twenty-five at most, sitting on the porch. She looked the kind of tired that settles into people who run double time through life like it’s a race. Her hair needed fresh color. Her western clothes were wrinkled and stained.

“May I help you?” Reagan asked.

“You Reagan Truman?” The woman stood, looking unsure of herself.

“I am,” Reagan said as the smell of cigarette smoke reached her. She must have been smoking as she drove, because the odor seemed baked into her clothes.

“I heard tell you know Noah McAllen. That right?”

Dread settled into the pit of her stomach. Whoever this woman was, whatever she wanted, it couldn’t be good. “We’ve been friends since high school. How can I help you?”

“I don’t need no help, miss, I just stopped to drop off something that belongs to Noah.” She straightened, apparently relieved to have reached the end of her journey.

Reagan let out a breath. Maybe he left his bag or a rope somewhere. “Whatever it is, I’ll see he gets it when he comes back to town.”

“You do that, honey. You keep it for him ’cause I sure as hell ain’t taking it home with me. My husband would throw a fit.”

Reagan waited as the woman walked to her car. Somehow the blonde didn’t seem the Good Samaritan type. She reminded Reagan of the women she’d stood with at the gate in Las Vegas. A party-hard woman looking for a one-night stand with a rodeo cowboy.

It took the woman a few tries to get the back door of the Chevy open, and then she leaned in and pulled out a box.

Reagan recognized the logo on the side. Truman Orchard.

“Noah don’t know about this, but I listed him on the paperwork. It’s his even if he was probably too drunk to remember what we did.”

As she swung around, Reagan saw the blue blankets and knew what was inside one of her custom-built apple boxes.

A baby.

Announcing his arrival, the baby cried out.

The mother didn’t seem to notice. She simply set the box on the porch and faced Reagan. “I don’t want to ever see it again. I got three others of my own to raise. The last thing I need is a bastard to feed. You see Noah gets the baby and tell him never to contact me. It’d only mean trouble.”

“But . . .” A hundred questions logpiled in Reagan’s mind. “You can’t leave a baby with me.”

The blonde frowned. “Look, lady, I’ve traveled three days looking for someone who knew Noah. Some rodeo clown told me he grew up in Harmony. Every person I ran into when I hit town and asked if they knew him clammed up like they was protecting a god. Finally I said I was really looking for Noah’s Reagan, and they pointed me this way. Truman Orchard, just like the boxes say that I noticed Noah packs his gear in.” She frowned at Reagan as if preparing for a fight. “You said you knew him. Well, you gotta keep what’s his. I told you. I ain’t taking that kid home.”

Reagan wasn’t buying her story. This could be a trick or someone’s idea of a sick joke. “How’d you know my name?”

The woman’s grin was wicked. “Easy, honey, that’s the name he called me when we was together. Never even asked if I had a name.”

The woman took a step toward her car.

Reagan blocked her way. “You can’t just leave your baby. You’ll be sorry. You’ll regret it. He’s yours too, just as much as your other kids. He’s got a right to know who you are.”

“No, I won’t miss him, honey, and he ain’t got no rights. That kid ain’t mine as far as anyone knows. I hid the pregnancy as long as I could, then I told my husband my sister was sick. I birthed him in an overcrowded hospital using a made-up name my sister thought sounded like a rodeo queen’s name.”

She let out a long breath that smelled of cigarettes and coffee. “I don’t want nothing tying me to this kid. He ain’t mine. You get that? He was just a mistake I made one night, and I don’t plan on paying for it the rest of my life.”

“But Noah will know who you are. He’ll find you.” Reagan felt like she was holding the pieces of her heart together. She couldn’t deal with what she was learning about Noah. Not now. Not here in front of this woman. Reagan refused to worry about herself while she dealt with this crazy woman. One of them had to think of the baby. The baby had a right to know who his mother was.

The blonde shook her head. “I’m betting he don’t remember the night, much less me. I was just out collecting a bull rider as a trophy, thinking I deserved a night out to forget everything but having fun. I didn’t even tell him my first name or where I was from, and he didn’t bother asking.” For a blink the woman seemed to see Reagan, really see her. “You know him. You said you did. Give him the kid, and then, if I was you, honey, I’d get as far away from him as you can. He’s a man riding for hell and he’ll take you with him.”

“But . . .”

“No
but
s, just deliver the box. Tell Noah I named the kid Utah. Maybe he’ll know why. Maybe he won’t.”

Reagan shook her head. None of this could be true. Noah had promised her he would never cheat on her. She knew he drank, but he always went home alone. He always said he loved her, only her.

Maybe someone wanted to hurt Noah, taint his reputation. Maybe this wasn’t the last she’d see of the woman in the Chevy. She’d come back wanting money or her fifteen minutes of fame.

Her belief in Noah fought the doubts she couldn’t shake. Reagan didn’t know this Noah. The man who walked away from a great ride without raising his hand to the crowd. The man who lied.

The car flew down the drive toward Lone Oak Road, sending dust flying.

The woman didn’t look back. She wasn’t coming back. Reagan knew it all the way to her bones.

Reagan had to get control of her emotions. She had to deal with what was real. The baby was real. Whether he was Noah’s or a plot to get money, she didn’t know.

Reagan watched the Chevy disappear along with all her dreams of what might have been. Two lies, she thought. Noah had lied to her twice. How many more were there that she didn’t know about?

He was the first boy she’d trusted. The first man she’d loved. The only lover she’d ever had.

Only he hadn’t loved her, at least not enough to stay true. She wanted to run to the orchard and curl up among the roots. She wanted to cry so hard she had no feeling at all left inside her.

Only, a baby in a box was already doing that.

Reagan forced her body to move. She picked up the box and walked into the house. She knew she’d have to call the sheriff but hesitated. Alex Matheson was Noah’s sister. Everyone in the county would know about the baby.

The town’s hero would tumble to the dirt before anyone even knew if the story of the woman in the Chevy was true. If others knew what had just happened here, right or wrong, Noah would never live down the gossip, and neither would the child. Little Utah would walk with the scar all his life.

Reagan picked up the tiny bundle and the crying stopped. Two letters lined the box. One was a birth certificate listing the mother as Marilyn Stardust, twenty-four, homeless, and the father as Noah McAllen of Harmony, Texas.

Reagan let tears roll down her eyes as she saw the birthday. Utah was exactly twenty-one days old. The same age she’d been when her mother abandoned her.

Chapter 16

HAWK HOUSE

F
OR THE SECOND NIGHT IN A ROW
A
USTIN
H
AWK DRESSED
in black and joined an organized hunt for wild hogs. At first he’d thought there was only one big boar roaming the area near the lake, but a farmer on the other side of Rainbow Lane said he’d seen three, maybe four plus piglets. They’d also found half-eaten remains of a half-grown pig.

Wild hogs have been known to eat their young or any other animal weak from sickness or injury. They were on the move and hungry.

As he walked among the trees behind his house, Austin listened. The game warden had told everyone who’d met yesterday to join the hunt that he’d been down in south Texas a few years ago when wild hogs charged a hunting party.

One man hesitated to run or shoot and was gouged in the leg. All he got out was, “I’ve been hit,” before he passed out. He was dead before anyone could get a tourniquet on his leg.

Against the warden’s advice, Austin decided to hunt alone. All his years on the army’s special oil fire units, he’d worked as part of a team. Now he didn’t want to trust anyone with his life. Or maybe, he decided, it was more that he didn’t want anyone else to trust him.

The memory of being the only one to survive ate away at him. Had he missed something? Could he have done more? They were all highly trained professionals going in to fight the fire. They went in together. They came out together. They lived and died together.

Only one time, the last time, that hadn’t happened.

Austin pulled his mind from the dark place he’d had to fight to keep from living in since he woke up in the hospital badly burned, but alive . . . the only one alive.

As he stepped from the trees walking toward Rainbow Lane, he thought of the night he and Ronny had pulled Dallas Logan out of the mud. The knowledge that Ronny had grown up with such a dominant mother bothered him. Ronny was one of those gentle souls. Hell, she probably shooed spiders out of the house. He didn’t like to think of her in the same county as the bossy woman he’d met that night in the rain.

He’d heard of people like Ronny, but he couldn’t ever remember meeting one. As a kid he’d had bossy housekeepers who were usually fired by his father long before Austin ever got attached to them. Once he was in the army, girls like Ronny didn’t hang around the bars near the forts. The only women he’d known since he’d joined up were one-night stands. The kind who were just passing time, not falling in love.

Hell, half of them didn’t bother to say good-bye at dawn.

The rustle of leaves pulled Austin to full alert. He raised his rifle and looked through the scope.

A squirrel jumped from one branch to another.

Austin forced tight muscles to relax. He should have slept in this morning and not gone with Ronny over to the Delaney place. Two sleepless nights in a row couldn’t be smart. Only he hadn’t said no to the gentle lady; he wasn’t sure he ever could. Even when he snapped at her accidentally, she saw right through him. If he thought about it much, he’d probably decide that he was far more afraid of her than she’d probably ever be of him.

He might have been in the army, but she’d grown up in a combat zone.

But this morning Austin told himself he really had no choice but to go along with Ronny. When she asked him if he wanted to deal cards, it was either go with her or worry about her crossing the lake alone. Plus, sitting next to her had been pure pleasure. Though he was polite, almost formal during the practice session, his thoughts were definitely R-rated about what he had planned as soon as they got back to the other side of the lake.

The few kisses they’d shared still cluttered his thoughts. He might have been the one who kissed her at first, but she’d taken it to a new level. He knew she must have been thinking about him also, and wondered if she wanted more as much as he did.

She wasn’t some girl just out of high school. She was full grown, maybe a few years older than he was. When they’d talked she’d said something about living with a guy who left her. If she wanted a little action, he had no objection. It might even be good for him, but still he hesitated. Ronny wouldn’t be easy to walk away from.

He could feel a habit coming on and he wasn’t a man who carried habits in his luggage.

Maybe it was the innocence in her eyes, or the way she stared at him as if afraid to trust. He had a feeling, no matter how much he thought about it, he wouldn’t be making the next move. She would.

Still, as he’d dealt cards in the Delaney dining room, he thought of later when he’d have Ronny alone. Several times she’d accidentally brushed against him, stirring up his brain like a cement mixer. He was lucky he had enough sense left to deal. All he could think about was later.

Only there was no later after the game. She’d let the Delaneys talk her into helping them make pies. They’d promised to watch her cross safely before dark.

Since they hadn’t invited him to join them, he’d hiked along the border of the lake to his place looking for any sign of hogs. All he found was the game warden waiting at his door.

Before dark Austin joined the hunt again and tried to forget about what might have happened if he and Ronny had come back together. He might not be spending his second night plowing through brush and mud looking for pigs.

A sound pulled him to full alert.

In the quarter moon he saw two more hunters walking the fence line across the road. They were lanky and thin, with rifles carried carelessly over their shoulders like baseball bats. The two sons of the farmer. Austin had complained that they were too young to be on the hunt, but the farmer said they could go as long as they promised to stay on his land.

Austin swore. They were making so much noise they weren’t likely to come across any animal in the night except roadkill. At least the farmer had been smart enough to make them walk. Maybe they’d get tired and quit.

He melted back into the shadows, not wanting the boys to see him and decide to tag along with him. The plan was that they’d stay on their side of the road and he’d patrol the land between Rainbow Lane and the lake.

As the boys’ footfalls faded, the night came alive with sounds. Most he recognized. Carefully, Austin stepped to the edge of the shadows and focused on a clearing. Something was rummaging through roots near where Ronny’s old road used to be. It could be a raccoon, or an armadillo. It could be wild hogs heading in his direction.

Austin stood his ground and raised his rifle. They’d have to move out into the clearing in order to keep moving. If it was hogs, he’d take his best shot then.

He knew he could get off two, maybe three shots before they could turn and run back, or reach him if they charged. If they didn’t see him, he could swing up in the oak behind him and fire from there. He was a good enough shot to get them all.

As they drew closer, there was no doubt there were hogs coming toward him. They were ripping through everything in their path, snorting and eating as they came closer to the clearing.

Austin waited until he had a clean shot at all three. A huge reddish-brown boar was in the front, with two sows that had to weigh three hundred pounds each behind him. They’d been living off this land for a year, maybe more. If so, there were more pigs than three, he’d bet on it.

Just as he lowered his rifle and raised his hand to grab the nearest branch to swing up, the boar saw him and grunted as if sounding the alarm. The hog probably smelled him more than saw him, but Austin wasn’t taking any chances.

He swung up, holding tight to his rifle. As his feet left the ground he heard shots, and for a second he thought the hogs were somehow firing at him.

Fire plowed through his leg halfway between his knee and hip.

The pain skimmed across his nerve endings and he lost his hold on the branch. He tumbled back into the muddy grass, fighting to keep from screaming.

The hogs didn’t have guns. Someone, somewhere had fired and hit him by mistake. But the hogs were heading toward him now at full speed, as if they smelled fresh blood and wanted the main course. He had no time to think of the pain in his leg or where the bullet came from. If he wanted to stay alive, he had to act fast.

Austin rolled to his stomach, raised his rifle, and fired. One. Two. Three. The earth stopped rumbling as the last wild hog fell.

Rolling over, flat in the grass, he listened to the farmer’s sons shouting as they ran toward him.

“I got one! I know I got one!” a boy’s voice not low enough to be a man’s shouted.

Austin tried to control his breathing, hoping it might slow the blood pumping out of his leg.

He heard horses traveling fast toward him. The warden and Kieran would reach him soon.

They’d know what to do, he kept saying in his mind. They’d stop the bleeding. The last thing he wanted was the boy who shot him to try first aid.

Voices coming from several directions filled the night.

He waited. Trying to stay calm. Trying to picture Ronny beside him. He should have kissed her one more time. He should have told her how she made him feel. He should have . . .

For a few minutes the air stilled and he was barely aware of the men around him. Kieran’s big shadow. The warden shouting orders.

One tied his leg. Told him to hang on. Another called 911.

“Hold tight, Hawk,” the warden kept shouting. “We’ll get you to the hospital.”

He tried to nod, but it seemed too much effort. Just before he passed out, he reached for Ronny’s hand, but she wasn’t there. She’d vanished into the blackness closing in on him.

Austin welcomed the silence. He’d been here before, far beyond where he could hear the world.