Dark Paradise (14 page)

beyond his control, sliding through his hands like wet rope. "We got

cattle to move in the morning. Remember that? If you're not downstairs

by four-thirty, I'll haul your sorry ass out of whatever bed I find it

in and tie it on a horse. You hear me?"

"I hear you fine."

J.D. leaned down into his brother's face, his voice a razor-edged

whisper. "You might try to remember once in a while that the Stars and

Bars is your responsibility too. Responsibility, not a toy, not

something you bet on in a goddamn poker game. Responsibility. Look the

word up in the dictionary if you have to, college boy."

Tossing some crumpled bills on the bar, Will slid off his stool.
 
"I'm

out of here.
 
I don't need to take this bullshit from you."

He headed for the front lobby and toward the Hell and Gone, his mind

turning to thoughts and the charms of a cowgirl with a tight ass and

loose morals.

J.D. stalked across the room to a side door that led out into the

parking lot, tipping his hat to Samantha as he went.

Sharon Russell sipped her scotch and smiled to herself, knowing that

Bryce would be pleased to know about the dissension among the Rafferty

brothers.

Outside, J.D. was able to breathe a little better. The Jack Daniel's

seeped into his bloodstream and calmed him a bit. He turned away from

the refurbished lodge and focused on a view he had loved since boyhood.

The night sky was a sheet of deep blue velvet studded monds. A

wedge of moon was scaling the peaks of the Absarokas to the east,

spilling its white glow down the forested slopes.

As he stood there, staring up at it, the anger that seemed so much a

part of him these days slipped away, even only for a moment, tension

ebbed. The madness of life raced with something that was real and meant

something, and he was left enduring. The mountains would always be here.

The moon would always rise. Not wanting to think beyond that, he stepped

off the veranda and headed toward his truck at the back of the lot.

He didn't want to think about Will and the resentment that always

managed to seep into their conversations from both sides. He didn't want

to think about the mental slip he'd made in calling Will "college boy."

He didn't want to think why he should consider it a slip at all, the

showing of a weakness.

It wasn't Will's fault he hadn't been able to finish his degree at

Montana State. That was Tom's fault for dying, was Sondra's fault for

breaking him. Nor was it his fault he had gotten a full ride to the

university in Missoula. That had been Sondra's doing too. She had

insisted her baby get a complete education; had seen to it with the

money of her lover. Never mind that Will had majored in partying and

minored in rodeo and let his grades skid down the shitter.

The memory set J.D.'s teeth on edge. Waste. God almighty, how he hated

waste.

The sound of music caught his ear and he pulled up short, glancing at

the lodge. Lights glowed through the array of French doors along the

back of the bar. From farther down the street came the drift of noise

from the Hell and Gone. But this music was softer, warmer, nearer. He

walked on, scanning his surroundings with a narrow gaze.

A split rail fence marked the back of the parking lot.Beyond that lay

the rumpled hills that formed the feet of the mountains,

dotted with trees and rock outcroppings that loomed in the stark

contrast of moonglow and shadows. J.D. slipped between the rails of the

fence and walked out into the meadow, his senses filling with the scent

of grass and wildflowers, the sounds of a warm, smoky voice and the

sweet, tender notes of a guitar. A woman's voice, low and strong. The

song she sang was poignant and reflective, poetic in a way that went far

beyond simple rhyme. It was the song of a woman trying to navigate her

way through life despite the obstacles and her own stubbornness, despite

mistakes and missed opportunities.

The beauty and the truth of it stopped J.D. from walking up on her. He

just stood there and listened as she sang of the moon and St.

Christopher. And when it was over and her fingers had plucked out the

final notes, he almost backed away out of respect. Then it struck him

who she was. Marilee Jennings.

She sat on a small boulder, the guitar cradled across her middle and a

tall bottle by her side. She wasn't alone.

Zip, his cattle dog, sat at the base of the rock, staring up at her, his

ears perked attentively. It was Zip who noticed him first and bounded

toward him with a jubilant yip.

Marilee followed the dog with her eyes, her heart slamming into her

breastbone when she saw the man standing no more than a dozen feet away.

The brim of a pale gray hat shaded his face, but almost instantly she

recognized the set of his shoulders and the stance he had taken with his

hands jammed at the waist of his jeans. It seemed odd that she should

know him by such subtle signs when she had met him only twice, but she

dismissed the thought as he took a step toward her.

"You missed your calling, Rafferty," she said, her tone wry. "You would

have made a great spy the way you sneak up on people."

J.D. ignored the commentary. He waded a little closer through the lush

grass, until he could almost read the label on the bottle that sat

beside her. "You always sit and sing to the moon?" he asked, trying to

shake the enchantment of her song. He couldn't afford to be enchanted.

"Doesn't everyone?"

"No, ma'am. Not around here."

She raised a shoulder in a careless shrug and tugged a hand back through

her tangled hair to anchor it behind one ear. A lazy smile turned the

corners of her mouth.

"Oh, well. At least I'm not naked."

The joke was almost lost on him as the image filled his head. He could

too easily picture her sitting there on that smooth boulder in nothing

but pale creamy skin and her moon-silvered mop of hair.

Marilee sensed the tension in him. It was telegraphed to her on a

wavelength of instinct she didn't understand, nor did she care to

understand at the moment. Not at this time and certainly not with this

man. Pretending ignorance, she lifted the bottle that sat beside her and

held it out to him.

"Champagne?
 
Compliments of the Mystic Moose."

"You're staying here?"

She gave him a look. "While the place you sent me to had an undeniably

unique ambience, I prefer not to listen while the trucker in the next

room gets a lube job."

He almost smiled at that. Dangerous thinking, letting her charm him. Not

like him either. He didn't have time to waste on feminine wiles. The

occasional roll between the sheets was all he ever wanted from a woman.

Not charm, not friendship. Those were things women gave away on a whim

and snatched back in the blink of an eye. He had no desire to be on the

other end of that exchange.

He focused on the bottle she held by the neck. "You always Offer drinks

to men you consider jerks?"

Marilee had the grace to wince, though more for what she was about to do

than for anything she'd said before.

She needed information from J. D. Rafferty. It seemed only polite not

to antagonize him, even if it did make her feel like a hypocrite, even

if he deserved to be antagonized.

She slid down off the rock, holding both the champagne bottle and her

guitar out away from her. The guitar she propped carefully against the

boulder. The champagne she took with her as she moved toward him,

holding it out as a peace offering. "Look, we got off to a bad start.

Maybe we should just take it from the top, huh?"

J.D. narrowed his eyes, assessing her from head to toe.

She wore a pair of old black leggings, a T-shirt from a Cajun bar in New

Orleans, and a blue cotton shirt five sizes too big for her. She hardly

looked dangerous, but his guard stayed up just the same. "Why?
 
What do

you want from me?"

"Civility?" Marilee ventured, swallowing back the question she had held

inside her most of the afternoon and evening. When he only went on

watching her, she forced a laugh and shook her head. "Christ, you're a

suspicious son of a gun."

"I've got reason to be. I knew your friend Lucy, remember?
 
She never

offered a damn thing that didn't have strings attached. Why should I

think you're any different?"

She put her head on one side and hummed a note of consideration, the

champagne dulling the edges of her temper. "This is a first. I've never

posed a threat to anyone before. Unless you count social embarrassment.

My family has always lived in fear of me eating with the wrong fork at

dinner parties - to say nothing of eating with my fingers, which I have an

uncontrollable urge to do. My mother considered my lack of social grace

a birth defect. I'm sure she would have organized a telethon for the

cause if the shame hadn't been too much for her."

He just stared at her for several moments until she began to wonder if

she hadn't suddenly begun speaking in a language he didn't understand. A

blush of embarrassment and champagne fizzies warmed her cheeks, and she

anxiously shifted her weight from one sneaker to the other. Finally he

said, "You always talk this much?"

"No. I am capable of deep and abiding silences. But not after half a

bottle of champagne," she confessed. "I tend to wax poetic and bay at

the moon."

"Naked."

"That was a joke. You know, a brief oral narrative with a climactic

humorous twist meant to provoke laughter." Marilee peered up at him,

trying to see past the shadows of his low-riding hat brim. "Is it too

much to hope that there might be a sense of humor lurking behind all

that granite and testosterone?"

He gave a snort that might have been disgust or a sinus condition, and

started to turn away, motioning the dog to follow him.

"Wait!" Marilee rushed to catch up, the grass and the lethargy of

alcohol pulling at her feet. "I have to ask you something."

He stopped, but didn't turn around, forcing her to step in front of him.

His expression was inscrutable, but she could feel tension emanating

from him. She wondered where the wariness came from, wondered if Lucy

had been the one who jaded him. She thought of chickening out, but

forced the words past the knot in her tongue before she could. "Who is

Del Rafferty?"

"Why?"

"He found Lucy's body. Is he a relative of yours?"

"You thought you had to ply me with liquor for that?"

J.D. sneered, letting his temper run freely through him and heat the

blood in his veins. He welcomed it. It made more sense than the odd

exchange they had just shared.

It made a hell of a lot more sense than notions of enchantment. This was

the face of femininity he knew best - deceit.

She wanted something from him. Plain and simple.

Like every other leech who had come into his domain from the outside

world. They all wanted something: piece of this, a scrap of that, a

chunk, a rock, an acre, a ranch, a pound of flesh. They wormed their way

in with smiles and platitudes and stroked with one hand while they stole

with the other. They insulted his intelligence and mocked his basic

honesty, and suddenly he wanted very badly that someone pay.

"Damned city bitches," he snarled. "You don't know how to ask a straight

question, do you?
 
Everything has to be wrapped in some kind of

disguise. Why didn't you just ask?"

"I did just ask!" Marilee said, feeling at once both wrongly accused and

justly convicted.

His lip curled in derision, he took a step toward her, looming over her.

"'Sorry, J.D., we got off on the wrong foot. Can we start again?
 
Do