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Tara Taylor Quinn

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Autore

Tara Taylor Quinn

Letto da

16,5K

Capitoli

Harlequin🏰 Historical

CHAPTER ONE

“YOU SURE YOU DON’T want me to come in with you?” Shelley asked.

“I’m sure.” Ellen Moore’s voice, infused with confidence and cheer for the sake of five-year-old Josh climbing out of the backseat of her sister’s car, sounded strong and healthy to her.

Because she was strong and healthy. She could do this. No big deal. Thousands of women all over the country shared parenting with divorced spouses.

Though maybe not all of them had their younger sisters driving them to the airport for the month-long parental switch.

Martha Moore Marks, the girls’ mother, had been adamant about Ellen not making the trip alone. That was fine with Ellen. Her sister Shelley wanted Ellen’s opinion on an outfit she was considering for an upcoming vocal performance with the Phoenix Symphony, so they could take care of that while they were in the city. Then the sisters were treating themselves to lunch at their favorite Mexican restaurant in Fountain Hills—a quaint Phoenix suburb—before heading home to Shelter Valley.

“I want to wear my backpack.” The solemn voice of her son grabbed Ellen’s attention. And heart. “I don’t want Daddy to think I’m a baby or something.”

“He’s not going to think that, bud,” she said, resisting the urge to run her fingers through her little guy’s dark, silky hair. At home, especially when he was sleepy, he’d let her get away with it, but not here. Not now.

Instead, she helped him secure the straps of the new full-size backpack he’d specifically requested for the trip. The canvas bag—loaded down with his electronic handheld game console; extra discs; dried fruit snacks; animal cookies; cheese crackers; his Cars insulated water bottle filled with juice; two of his favorite nighttime storybooks, both starring Cars characters; and the stuffed Woody doll she’d bought him for Christmas the year before—replaced the smaller plastic one that had been suitable when he’d been going to preschool and day care.

He was starting kindergarten a couple of days after he returned from visiting his father.

“Remember, put Woody under the covers with you at night,” she told him as Shelley popped the trunk on her Chevy sedan. Ellen hauled out the first of two big suitcases, pulling up the roller bar.

“No one will know he’s there,” she said, dropping the second bag next to her and closing the trunk while her sister picked Josh right up off the ground with the force of her goodbye hug.

“You be a good boy and have fun, okay?” Shelley said, nose to nose with Josh.

Josh, arms wrapped tightly around Shelley’s neck, rubbed noses with his aunt. “I get to go fishing in the Colorado River,” the little boy said.

“I know, pal. And you better call me if you catch anything.” Shelley let Josh’s thin body slide to the ground.

“I will.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Shelley nodded at Ellen, climbed behind the wheel and drove off to the call lot where she could wait until Ellen was ready to be picked up.

With a roller bar in each hand, and Josh’s hand next to hers on one handle, Ellen pulled the bags to the curbside check-in station. Josh didn’t need a special-needs tag because, while he was checking in alone, he wouldn’t be flying alone.

Then they were in the terminal, Josh’s hand in hers whether he liked it or not, and Ellen swore to herself that the smile would stay pasted on her lips if it killed her.

It wouldn’t kill her. She was a survivor.

The squeeze of her son’s fingers around her own made her own angst seem selfish and petty.

“You’re going to have a blast,” she promised him.

“Why can’t Daddy and I have a blast right here?”

“Because he doesn’t live here. His job is in Colorado. And he has a room all ready for you in his new house and you’re going to love it.”

The terminal was bustling, with as many families as businesspeople hurrying around them in spite of the fact that it was a Monday morning.

“Then why can’t you come?”

“Because my job is here. Besides, Jaime is there and is looking forward to hanging out with you. You like Jaime, remember?” The beautiful model her ex-husband Aaron had chosen as a replacement for his damaged wife loved Josh and had taken off the entire month of August to care for him.

As far as Ellen was concerned, Josh was all that mattered.

“Yeah.”

She couldn’t really blame Aaron for choosing someone who oozed feminine perfection and sexuality. He’d been far too young to handle the emotional and physical backlash that had consumed Ellen after her attack. Too young to handle her physical rejection of him.

She would have opted out, too, if she’d had that choice.

Aaron had needed to get out of Shelter Valley, to start a new life away from the tragedy, and Ellen couldn’t imagine ever leaving Shelter Valley. There was no future in that kind of standoff.

Josh’s grasp did not loosen even a little bit as they approached the bustling rotunda where they’d arranged to meet Aaron. There was less than an hour’s turnaround between his arriving flight and his departing one with Josh. Aaron and Ellen had both decided whisking Josh off quickly was the best plan.

She was searching the crowd for the familiar dark hair of her ex when Josh stopped suddenly.

“What’s up?” she asked, gazing into his solemn face.

“I don’t want to go.”

“But you miss your daddy, Josh. You say so a lot.”

“I know.”

“You’re going to have such a great time with him. You always do.”

“But he always comed here.”

“Came here. You’re older now, bud. And Daddy wants to have time with you in his house, too. He bought you your own bed and it has Cars sheets and everything.”

Josh stared at her then his lower lip started to tremble.

Kneeling in front of her son, Ellen held him by the shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. “Josh? What’s going on?”

His eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to leave you here by yourself. You’ll be sad.”

“Ah, buddy, I’m going to miss you for sure. Remember the list we went over last night? The one on the refrigerator?”

He nodded.

“Those are all the things I’m going to be doing after work while you’re gone. And that list is so big, I won’t have a chance to get too sad.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“Name some of them for me,” Ellen said. “What am I going to be doing today after work?”

“Going running. Every day.”

“And then what?”

“You’re going to help Sophie make the nursery in their new house.”

He’d paid attention—and hopefully had pictures in his head of her busy and happy.

“What else was on the list?”

“Babysitting for Aunt Caro and Uncle John when they’re in Kentucky at their farm. Do I ever get to go to their farm like you said?”

“I’m house-sitting,” Ellen corrected him. “They’re taking the kids with them.” Caroline had moved to Shelter Valley, alone and pregnant, at a time when Ellen had been lost as well, and the two, though more than ten years apart in age, had formed a bond that Ellen cherished. “And yes, we’ll go to Kentucky. Maybe next summer.”

Which gave her another year to work up the desire to leave Shelter Valley for a few weeks.

Ellen took a seat on a bench with a clear view of the entrances to the A boarding gates, pulling Josh, backpack and all, in between her legs, keeping her arms linked loosely around him.

“And you’re going to put junk in jars,” he said.

“Canning tomatoes and peaches and corn and green beans to send to the food pantry in Phoenix,” she said, knowing he probably wouldn’t remember that part. A group of older ladies from the three churches in Shelter Valley met every year for the service project. They had lost a couple of members of their group during the past year and needed extra hands. Ellen was good in the kitchen—and eager to learn how to can.

Aaron still hadn’t appeared. Josh was shifting weight from one foot to the other and picking at a thread from the flowered embroidery on the front of Ellen’s T-shirt.

“What else?” she asked. “What am I going to be doing for you?”

“Painting my room.”

“Painting what in your room?”

He grinned. “Trains.”

“That’s right. What colors?”

“The engine is black, of course.”

“Of course.”

“And the caboose is red so the trains coming behind it will see it.”

“Okay.”

“And blue for my favorite color.”

“And purple for mine.”

“And—” Josh stopped when Ellen stood.

“Daddy’s coming,” she said.

Please, heart, don’t make it difficult for me to breathe. Don’t let me need anything from Aaron Hanaran. With her son’s hand in hers, she approached the man she’d once vowed to love, honor and cherish—and sleep with—until death did them part.

“Hey, sport!” Aaron’s grin was huge as he sped up the last few steps and scooped his son into his arms, hugging him tight. “I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” Josh said.

Ellen stared at those little arms clutching his father’s neck. Josh needed this time with Aaron. He needed his father.

Then, with their son perched on his hip, Aaron’s eyebrows drew together in concern as he looked at her. “How you doing, El?”

“Fine! Great!” The smile she gave him was genuine. “It’s good to see you.”

“You, too.”

Then they stood there with nothing to say. There had been no big angry outbursts between them, no hatred or resentment or bitterness. Just a sadness that had infiltrated every breath they took together.

“I better get him through security.” Aaron’s comment filled the dead air. “Our flight will be boarding in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay. Well, then…”

Aaron put Josh down. “We’ll call you the second we land, El, I promise,” he said, his gaze filled with the sympathy she’d learned to dread. “And you have my cell number. Call anytime. As often as you…need.”

She knelt in front of Josh. “You be a good boy and listen to your daddy.”

He nodded, tears in his eyes again.

“I love you, bud.”

“I love you, too.”

Ellen kissed him. Josh kissed her back. Like usual. Then the little boy threw his arms around her neck, clutching her in a death grip.

Ellen couldn’t breathe. Without thought she jerked the boy’s arms apart, stopping herself in time to keep from flinging those tiny arms completely away from her. She held on to Josh’s small hands, instead, squeezing them.

The boy didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. A glance at Aaron’s closed face told her his father had witnessed her reaction.

She gathered her son against her, close to her heart, and held on before finally letting go. “Now, have fun and remember to store up all kinds of things to tell me when you call,” she said with a smile as she stood.

“’Kay.”

She watched as the two men who used to be her entire world walked away, her jaw hurting with the effort to keep the smile in place in case Josh turned around to wave goodbye.

She made it outside the airport before she let the tears fall. But she let go for only a second. Josh was going to be fine. And so was she.

ELLEN WAS COMING AROUND the corner of Mesa and Lantana streets Tuesday afternoon, her second jog since Josh had left, when she heard the bike roar into town. Without conscious thought, she took stock of her surroundings. Ben and Tory Sanders’ home was on the corner. Bonnie Nielson—owner of the day care Josh had attended the first four years of his life and would attend after school once kindergarten started the following month—had a home around the next corner. Bonnie and Keith wouldn’t be home. Tory would be. It took only a second for the awareness to settle over Ellen.

Staying safe was second nature to her. She always knew, at any given moment, where her safety spots were.

She didn’t alter her course, though. Not yet. Though she wanted to. But because she wanted to run for cover, she maintained her trek.

Slowing her pace, Ellen controlled her breathing with effort, her gaze pinned to the spot where the bike would appear—a stop sign at the corner. Waited to see who would roar past her.

Sam Montford had a new motorcycle. But it had a muffler, or something that made it run much quieter than the noise pollution she was hearing.

Sheriff Greg Richards had one now, too. He’d bought it as a gas saving measure. His bike was like Sam’s—the quieter variety.

And there he was. A body in black leather on a black machine framed by shiny chrome. She didn’t have to know anything about motorcycles to know that this monstrosity was top-of-the-line. It even had a trunk-looking thing that was big enough for a suitcase.

Ellen noticed, without stopping. Shortening her stride, she jogged. And watched.

Black Leather was not from around Shelter Valley. Of that she was certain. The bike and black leather were dead giveaways. The ponytail hanging down the guy’s back was advertisement for outsider.

Tensing, Ellen paused, jogging in place at the end of Tory’s driveway. If the guy turned onto this street, she was running to the front door.

If not, she’d continue with her run. Her day. Her life.

Her mother was having a family dinner tonight— Rebecca and her husband, Shelley and, of course, Tim, who still lived at home—and Ellen was bringing brownies for dessert. Brownies that weren’t yet made.

She also had to stop by the Stricklands’ house to collect the mail. And she wanted to call Josh. It was an hour later in Colorado. Her son would be in bed before she got home from her mother’s.

With his feet on the ground on either side of his mammoth machine, the biker mastered the weight between his legs, seemingly unaware of the disruptive noise he was emitting along the quiet and peaceful streets of Shelter Valley.

A light blue Cadillac drove by. Becca Parsons—the mayor. Becca was Martha’s best friend. Ellen’s youngest sister, Rebecca, was named after her. Ellen could see the woman’s frown from a block away.

Hot-rod engines simply didn’t belong in Shelter Valley.

BLACK LEATHER DIDN’T SEEM to see the car at all. He sat there, gunning his motor with a gloved hand, unaware that within minutes Sheriff Richards would be all over him.

Or at least, right behind him, finding a reason to stop him and determine his business in town. And if that business wasn’t just passing through, Black Leather would be on the radar. The heroines of Shelter Valley—the core group of women whose strength and nurturing of each other and everyone else in town were the glue that held Shelter Valley together—would convince him so sweetly to exit their borders, he would never know the departure wasn’t his idea.

That was how it worked around here. The people of Shelter Valley would help anyone. They were compassionate. Welcoming. And anyone who didn’t emulate the town’s values and ways was encouraged to find happiness elsewhere. That’s what kept Shelter Valley what it was—a town that embraced and protected in a balance that was even enough to create a form of heaven on earth.

At least most of its residents, including Ellen, thought so.

Black Leather picked up his feet, his gaze locked straight ahead as Becca drove past. He yanked on his throttle one more time.

Ellen watched the thirty-second episode, her chest tight, and wondered at the man’s audacity. Wondered why she didn’t simply go say hello to Tory. Ask how the kids were doing during this last hot month of summer.

“Ellen? You okay, sweetie?”

Tory’s soft voice floated to Ellen from the front steps. The thirty-one-year-old stay-at-home mother looked as put together and beautiful as always.

“I’m fine,” Ellen called with easy assurance, staring down the street.

Black Leather leaned. He was turning in the opposite direction. She breathed a little easier and with a wave to her mother’s much younger friend, resumed her course down the street. As she increased her pace, Black Leather glanced her way, pinning her with a stare that struck at her core.

Then he was gone.

But the memory of him wasn’t.

The man had guts. And the seeming intelligence of someone who would house bulls in china shops. Fortunately, he was not her problem to worry about.

HE’D SPENT TIME IN MORE boring places. But Jay Billingsley couldn’t remember when. Or where. He was ready to leave. Every place and every activity the quiet desert city had to offer he’d already been to and done. And he’d been in town only twenty minutes.

Didn’t bode well for his future, since for the foreseeable part of it, he was here—living in the furnished home a few blocks from the clinic where he’d be working part-time at a job that satisfied him. He’d already made arrangements to rent the property on the edge of Shelter Valley on a month-to-month basis. The hours he wasn’t at the clinic he’d be hell-bent on completing the tasks that had forced him to come to Shelter Valley.

He’d driven by his new place. Didn’t try the key he had in his pocket because the boxes he’d had shipped weren’t due until tomorrow morning. The pool in the backyard was pristine with a rock waterfall. And there was a fire pit for grilling. For once the real thing was even better than the picture.

Really, it wasn’t Shelter Valley’s fault that he was in a rank mood. Wasn’t anybody’s fault. Not even his.

Not many guys would like being forced into distasteful situations.

Best get on with it. His life’s motto. Which was why an hour after he’d driven into—and around—his latest home base, Jay showed up at the clinic looking for Dr. Shawna Bostwick, the psychologist who had so effusively accepted his offer to practice clinical massage under her auspices. She had a small room at her clinic ready for him to use and some patients to refer to him.

“You’re Jay Billingsley?” The young woman’s shock wasn’t carefully enough disguised.

“Yes, ma’am.” He bowed his head, his hands crossed in front of him, standing the way he’d learned while waiting in the mess line during his eighteen months on the inside.

Back to the wall and cover your balls, as he privately described it. Those months had taught him other life lessons. Accept what you can’t change. Don’t expect anyone else to watch your back. Being still is the best way to assess the opposition. Adopting a subservient stance is the fastest way to disarm others’ defenses.

Eleven years on the outside and, whenever he was being negatively judged, he still reverted to the man he’d become while doing time for drug possession.

Some lessons lasted a lifetime.

“You, uh, ever been to Shelter Valley?” The pretty blonde seemed to be somewhere around his own thirty-two years.

He waited until she looked him in the eye and said, “No. I’d never heard of the place until a month ago.”

Her smile, though tentative, seemed genuine. “You might be in for a surprise.”

“I doubt it,” he said easily. Then something about her, or about the damned town, had him adding, “I’m good at what I do, Dr. Bostwick. I’m in this business because I care. Because I want to help people. You can rest assured that I won’t let you down.”

She grinned at him. “I’ve read your résumé. I’m not worried. But I do think you might want to get your hair cut. And lose the vest.”

“My only transportation is a motorcycle.” He told her what she’d find out soon enough anyway. Who would have believed he would find a Western town without a Harley dealership? Or any other signs of motorcycle ownership? “Leather deflects bugs and is more impervious to wind.”

“And the hair?”

He shrugged. He could have cut it, if he’d wanted to give a false first impression. Jay was who he was. A free spirit. A man who didn’t conform to social pressure. His hair told people that up front.

And it reminded him every single day that his freedom was in personal expression and belief, not in the making of his own laws—either moral or physical.

“It’s taken me eleven years to grow it.” That was all the explanation anyone would get.

Jay noticed the doctor’s firm backside at the tail end of the blue blouse that hung over her jeans as he followed her down the hall to his new space. The room would suit and, once his table arrived tomorrow, he would set up quickly.

He’d only been in town an hour and had already seen two very fine-looking women—a jogger and his new professional sponsor.

Too bad he wasn’t in Shelter Valley to have sex.

JAY SWAM IN THE NUDE. His temporary backyard was completely enclosed by a cement block privacy fence. He had to traverse the entire length of the pool four times to get what he determined to be one lap. Somewhere around forty lengths he lost count.

The cool water sluicing against his skin was like the wind pulling at his hair when he rode full-out. A communion between nature and man—raw life. Something he could trust. Count on.

When his body was tired enough to stay put on the stool awaiting him inside the house at the breakfast bar, he hauled himself out of the deep end and grabbed the jeans he’d left in a pile on the patio.

Zipping the pants with care born of practice, he grabbed a cola from the fridge and glanced at the neatly stacked folders awaiting him. Usually his investigative skills itched to be used. This time, Jay was reluctant to begin.

Finding the man who’d deserted him—who’d walked out only weeks before Jay’s mother’s murder—was on his top ten list of things he most wanted to avoid. Right up there with going back to prison.

Or ever again being out of control of his mental faculties.

His aversion to the task at hand was the only reason he was glad to hear the knock on his front door. The uninvited intrusion delayed having to open those folders.

He wasn’t so sure he hadn’t jumped from the frying pan into the fire when he saw a uniformed lawman standing on the front porch. “Jay Billingsley?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Sheriff Richards.”

Greg Richards, Jay read the official identification the man held out. “What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

He hadn’t done anything wrong.

“You have a second?”

As many of them as he wanted to have. “Sure.” Jay stepped back, leaving Greg to come in, close the door behind him and follow Jay to the second of the two bar stools at the kitchen counter.

He offered the lawman something to drink, retrieved the bottle of water Richards requested from the fridge. The sheriff perched on the stool, both feet planted on the floor. The man’s hair was dark. Short. Proper.

“I had some complaints about that motorcycle of yours.”

Jay met his gaze head-on, drinking from his can of cola while he did so, his bare feet resting on the silver metal ring along the bottom of his stool. “There a law against motorcycles in Shelter Valley?”

“No. I’ve got one myself,” Richards said, and Jay reminded himself that those who judged prematurely generally ended up making asses of themselves. “But we do have noise restriction laws.”

“No semi engines after six o’clock?” Jay guessed.

“No excessive noise within city limits, period.”

“Who defines excessive?”

“I do.”

Jay nodded. Less than twelve hours in town and he was already being run out. If only the sheriff knew how happy Jay would be to oblige….

“I’ll run my machine on low throttle in city limits.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

The lawman hadn’t opened his bottle of water. And he wasn’t leaving, either.

“There something else?”

“I talked to Martin Wesley. He says you’re renting this place month to month.”

Jay had found Martin’s rental ad on the internet. “That’s right.”

“He says you’re a medical massage therapist working with Shawna Bostwick.”

“That’s right.” And if Jay was a betting man, he’d put money on the fact that Richards had already been in touch with the pretty doctor for confirmation.

“We don’t have a lot of call for that around here. Seems like you’d find more work in a city like Phoenix.”

“Or Miami,” Jay agreed, “which is where I’ve lived a lot of the past ten years.”

“So why here? Why now?” The sheriff’s expression wasn’t unfriendly. But he wasn’t making small talk, either.

“I’ve got some business in the area.” Until he knew what he was going to find, his father was his secret. “Personal business.”

“And when you’ve completed your business? What then?”

Shrugging, Jay took another sip of cola and tried not to get depressed. “Who knows?” He wondered what the hell his life would look like when he was through messing it up.

“Is a life here in Shelter Valley among the choices?”

At least he could put one man out of his misery. “No.”

“You did some time in prison.”

Were there laws against that in Shelter Valley, too?

Jay didn’t respond. There was no point. Richards had access to Jay’s records. The man knew what he knew and he’d make of it what he would.

“Possession with intent to sell.”

Those were the charges. He hadn’t had a hope in hell of proving his innocence. Mostly because he’d been high on cocaine when the cops raided the frat party he’d been attending.

It didn’t help that his so-called friends had all been rich kids with daddies—or more importantly, daddies’ lawyers—who made sure that Jay, the scholarship kid without family, took the fall.

Still, he’d made choices. And he’d deserved to pay for them.

“I hope that it’s just coincidence that you’ve chosen to work in a clinical environment.” The sheriff’s words threw Jay for a second. Until he put it all together. Clinics had drugs, giving him potential access to them.

“I was arrested at a frat party. We were doing cocaine. No one there was making a living off the stuff,” he said. “My professional record is as available to you as is my criminal one, Sheriff. You’re welcome to take a look at that, too. I don’t use drugs, nor have I been caught with any in my possession.”

“I’ve seen your professional résumé. You come highly recommended. In the field of medicinal massage, but also as a private investigator. I’m told you’ve done some impressive work assisting detectives with cold cases.”

“Mostly volunteer.”

“You don’t make a full-time career at anything.”

“I’m not a white picket fence kind of guy.”

“Most people who can’t settle down have something to hide.”

“Criminal types, you mean.”

“You said it. Not me.”

“I did my time. And I learned my lesson. I do not make choices that could send me back to prison. Ever.”

“I’ll bet that makes your mother happy.”

“My mother was killed during a home invasion when I was a baby.”

“Your father then. Grandparents. Siblings. Whoever was hurt when you were sent to prison so young.”

“No one was hurt.” At this rate Jay was going to need another fifty or so laps in the pool to calm down enough to get to work. “My only living relative—the aunt who raised me—passed away during my freshman year of college.”

“You ever been married?”

“No.”

“What about girlfriends?”

“No one serious.” Not that it was any of this man’s damn business.

“Any close friends?”

“Not that I can think of offhand.”

“You have no one at all.”

Jay felt exposed by the shock in the sheriff’s voice. And forced himself to answer the question, too. “No.”

Now the other man knew Jay’s dirtiest secret. He was completely alone in the world. No meaningful relationships. He’d never had anyone with whom he felt close. Had no idea how to be a member of a family unit. Let alone the head of one.

“Any more questions, Sheriff?”

Jay’s voice must have had more of an edge than he’d intended. Leaving the unopened bottle of water on the counter, Sheriff Richards stood and moved toward the front room. Before he reached the door he turned, a look of concern lining his face.

“We aren’t unforgiving folks,” he said, his hands at his sides. “Nor are we unwelcoming. We’re just protective of our way of life out here. It’s why we’re all here, and not in some other place. The people of Shelter Valley have chosen a lifestyle that makes them happy. It’s my job to protect that as well as to protect them.”

And an ex-con with long hair and secrets roaring into town on the back of a Harley didn’t fit.

Jay couldn’t agree more.

“We’re a family here in Shelter Valley. A big, overgrown family sharing a homestead in the desert. We all look after each other’s kids, and after each other. But I guess you wouldn’t understand that.”

No, probably not.

And he sure as hell wasn’t selling his bike or cutting his hair to make them all happy.

At Jay’s continued silence, Richards opened the door. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around,” he said. “Call if you need anything.”

Jay had the oddest feeling that the guy’s offer was sincere.

“Come back anytime,” Jay offered in return. But only after he’d shut the door firmly behind the other man.

THE ROAD WASN’T WELL TRAVELED. Two dirt tracks was the extent of it. Ellen bumped along easily, breathing in the peaceful mountain air through the open window of her green Ford Escape, appreciating that the temperature dropped so drastically in mere minutes as she left behind the hot desert that she also adored.

Each time she made this bimonthly trek she felt torn. Part of her wished that Joe Frasier could open himself up to a move to town, to having more than only her and Sheriff Richards in his life. And part of her understood why Joe clung so voraciously to his mountaintop home. Life made sense out here.

Still, life was meant to be lived, not avoided.

Ellen slowed from the 15 mph she’d been going to climb the steep track to 5 mph as she pulled into the cleared bit of dirt in front of Joe’s rudimentary cabin. He’d cleared the spot for her—had that been almost five years ago?—when Sheriff Richards had first asked Ellen to be his partner in this effort to assist the lonely mountain man who’d helped the sheriff find his father’s killers.

“Joe?” Pulling the thin, short-sleeved button-down over the top of her shorts, Ellen climbed out of the SUV and stood.

Ellen was a trained social worker. Joe needed to be socialized in the worst way.

“Joe?” she called again. She wouldn’t go any farther, take another step, until the fiftysomething bearded man appeared. If this wasn’t a good day, she’d come back.

Joe knew that. He knew he could stay hidden.

He never had before.

They had something in common, Ellen and Joe. A shared awareness of the tragic effects of inexplicable violence against women.

“I’ve got your syllabus and textbooks,” she called. Joe had a thirty-year-old degree in engineering. Once Ellen had discovered that fact, she’d started planting the seeds of him upgrading his courses with the hope that a love of learning would be able to do what five years of visits had not—get him out of the hell he’d thrown himself into after his wife’s death.

She had bags of groceries, too, as always.

“Where’s the sheriff?” Joe’s gruff voice came from somewhere behind the one-room log cabin he had built by hand over thirty years ago.

Ellen and Greg usually made this trek up the mountain together. But not always.

“There was a traffic accident out by the highway.”

“You shouldn’t be here without him.”

“Of course I should be,” she called, completely without fear. “Sheriff Richards knows I’m here. And you need your groceries.”

Besides, Joe would never, ever do anything to hurt Ellen. Ever.

Now if she had been meeting Black Leather, as she’d come to think of the man she’d seen roaring through town the other day, she would have—

She simply wouldn’t have done it. Period.

“Can I come sit by the window?”

He’d built a seat for her there when she’d first started visiting him. Greg would sit in the cruiser and Ellen would counsel with Joe in plain sight but out of hearing range of the sheriff. Then somehow things had changed and Ellen and Joe had been more friends than social worker and hermit.

“Wait.”

She heard a rustle of grass then saw the thin, slightly stooped man, dressed in baggy overalls and a flannel shirt, skirt around the front of the house and inside. He promptly latched the door with the board Ellen knew he used to lock himself in.

“’Kay.” She only heard the word because she’d been waiting for it. Listening.

Leaving the cooler in the back of the Escape, Ellen grabbed the blue book bag she’d purchased at Walmart the same day she’d bought Josh’s and headed to the house.

With her back to the building, she pulled out a folder of papers and rested them on the windowsill.

Joe’s fingers didn’t come close to brushing hers as he gently tugged the folder away from her.

“It’s all there. Dr. Sheffield is glad you’re in her class. And she hopes she gets to meet you before the semester is through.” Classes didn’t officially start for another couple of weeks, but Phyllis had agreed to send along Joe’s work early. Ellen figured her mother’s friend shared her wish that the studies would interest him enough to get him off the mountain and into the classroom.

“If it was anyone else but you, I’d think there was a trick here. Psychology class. Like I need psychological help.”

“You probably do.”

“Not up here, I don’t.” It wasn’t the first time they’d had the conversation.

“I have an ulterior motive, Joe,” Ellen said, as honest with him as always.

Their ability to speak openly was one of the things she valued most about their peculiar relationship. Conversation with Joe was stripped of most social graces. Or pleasantries.

“I hope that you love the class enough that you’ll need to take more of them.” She chose her words deliberately.

Joe grunted. He didn’t believe himself capable of feeling anything as alive as love. “How’s Josh?”

“Lonesome.” Just thinking about her son hurt her heart. “But I think he’s having fun, too.” This was their first time apart for more than a few days.

“How are you?”

“Fine. Busy. Mom and David have had me over for dinner twice this week. And I’ve been going to work in the evenings. I’m helping some of the residents cheer up their rooms. We’re doing collages, mobiles and photo mosaics. I’d like to paint the multipurpose room, too.”

“How many dates have you been on?”

Josh was her usual excuse for not dating.

“None.”

“You’re not fine.”

She sighed. “Mostly I am, Joe. I’m busy at work. I love the center. How could I not? I get to spend my days helping senior citizens enjoy life. And Josh and I have a new house that I love. We even have a pool. And…” She fiddled with the hem on her shirt. “I’m really okay. I’m running every afternoon. I’m going to do a 10K with Randi Foster in November.”

“In Shelter Valley?”

“Of course. Montford is sponsoring it.”

“Is Randi training with you?”

“No. She runs at school.” Randi was the athletic director at Montford—and baby sister to the university president, Will Parsons, Mayor Becca’s husband.

“Who are you training with?”

“No one.”

“You’re running alone.”

“Yes.”

“You shouldn’t be running alone.”

“I’m careful. I carry pepper spray. And I’m not going to be held hostage to fear.”

“You shouldn’t be running alone.”

He wasn’t going to be convinced. She understood that. And even understood why. But she was still going to run.

Because it was something she had to do for her. Whether Joe understood that or not.

She could so easily end up like him.

“You should be dating.”

“You’ve done fine on your own.”