The Rancher's Sanctuary
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Linda Goodnight
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HarlequinChapter One
What happened in that house?
Nathan Garrison stopped his blue F-150 Ford truck at the end of a long, curving driveway shrouded in brush and overgrown trees. Twenty-four years had passed since he’d last seen this once-glorious property on the outskirts of Sundown Valley, Oklahoma. Twenty-four years and a lifetime of questions.
He’d never expected to see his childhood home again, didn’t know it still existed until last week, but now Persimmon Hill was his.
If he could keep it.
So many lies and half-truths surrounded his childhood and this property that he was determined to unravel the tangled weeds and find answers.
Six months was a short amount of time, but that’s all he had.
If he didn’t succeed, he’d lose more than money, he’d lose the final piece of himself.
He could not live the rest of his life with this emptiness inside him.
From this half-mile distance, Nathan couldn’t see the house, but newspaper clippings displayed a property of significant beauty. The sprawling guest ranch on Persimmon Hill now belonged to him. His father’s dream. The house where both his parents had died.
Twenty-four years later, he still didn’t understand why.
With a slow, steadying inhale, he filled his lungs with southern Oklahoma’s clean, rural air, the first he’d breathed since being whisked away from here when he was barely old enough to comprehend what he’d seen and heard.
Today, the images were as vivid as they’d been that morning when he, at age six, had trotted down the stairs stretching and yawning, innocently unaware that his life was about to change forever.
After stepping out of the truck, Nathan unlocked the wide gate and swung it inward toward the property. A basic iron structure that he might see on any number of nearby ranches, this gate was different from the fancy wrought-iron double estate gate that had once proclaimed the letter V to passersby. V for Vandiver, his father’s name, a name no longer his. Another mystery. Another half-truth.
A faded no-trespassing notice tied with rusted baling wire rattled against the silver gate. He had no idea who’d put it there or when.
Tattered and barely readable, a Realtor’s sign leaned half-hidden against a stately brick column that had once served as one end of a pair that bracketed the estate gate. The long grass around the bricks waved in the soft breeze as if whispering secret warnings.
Go back. Go back. You don’t really want to know.
He couldn’t. He was in too deep, both emotionally and financially. Turning back was no longer an option.
In defiance of his imagination, Nathan jerked the sign from the ground, scattering moist earth and roots before tossing it in the bed of the truck.
Some go-getter real estate agent could forget it. Persimmon Hill had never been for sale.
He hadn’t known that, of course, until now. His grandparents had led him to believe Persimmon Hill was sold long ago.
When the attorney’s phone call had come on his thirtieth birthday, he’d been shocked to learn that not only was Persimmon Hill intact but that the guest ranch now belonged to him.
When he’d demanded answers from his grandparents, Grandmother had burst into tears. Grandpa told him to sell out and forget Persimmon Hill ever existed.
“For your own good,” they’d claimed.
That was the way it had always been.
Anytime he’d asked about his parents or the home he remembered, Grandmother cried and Grandpa drank.
He knew what his father was accused of doing. So, why the secrecy? Was it shame? Were they afraid the stigma would destroy him? Or were they hiding something more sinister?
What could be more sinister than what he’d seen that morning when he was six years old?
And why could he never shake the feeling that he remembered something that he could not quite bring to the fore?
Nevertheless, he’d learned to remain silent, keeping the questions and fears to himself. He’d been a quiet child, tiptoeing through his grandparents’ broken hearts.
But everything was different now. He was a man and, though he never wanted to hurt his loving grandparents, he’d never be completely at peace until he found answers.
The memories of his childhood were locked away inside him and inside Persimmon Hill. The only photo of his parents he owned was from an old newspaper he’d discovered as a teenager.
And always, always he carried a vague, gut-deep knowing that made a lie of the official police report.
Leaning his forearms atop the pickup bed rails, he gazed out over the quiet Kiamichi countryside.
Maybe it was jitters, nerves, whatever. Maybe he feared failure. No maybe about it, for suddenly Nathan was in no hurry to drive around the curves and go beyond the thick trees.
He knew little about ranching. Nothing about investigating a long-ago crime.
One thing for certain, his past was a muddy, bloody river he’d needed to swim for so long he wasn’t sure what part was imagination and which was real.
His entire future and much of his past was riding on the next six months.
A prickle of sweat beaded on his neck that had nothing to do with the sun, already high in a sky as blue as his mother’s eyes.
Beneath the cotton-ball clouds, a red-tailed hawk circled, a predator ever on the hunt. As the winged shadow passed, a covey of ground birds scattered into the underbrush.
As if in defiance of the predatory hunter, a roadrunner zigzagged in madcap fashion along the grassy edge of a barbed wire fence.
The zany, comical bird with his straight back and head high reminded Nathan of a cartoon he’d loved as a kid. Still watched sometimes when he wanted to laugh and remember the good times in the house on Persimmon Hill.
While he would lie on his belly watching Saturday morning cartoons, Mother would sit at the table, listening to Dad over coffee and waffles. Though saying little, Mother would lean her chin on upraised knuckles and smile as though Dad was the smartest man on earth. He’d hold her other hand across the table, tender and loving. And they’d both loved him.
Even though memories were vague, he knew deep down in the very core of him that they’d been devoted to each other and to him.
His life had been Camelot.
So what had happened?
Why had his grandparents refused to talk about them? About it? Why hadn’t they told him that he was heir to his parents’ dream guest ranch? Why had they led him to believe Persimmon Hill had long ago been sold?
He didn’t know, and he had only a six-month leave of absence and a substantial but short-term loan to juggle everything into place or lose it all.
Sighing, he climbed back inside the truck and started the engine. The rumbling noise seemed out of place in the cemetery-like stillness.
A cottontail rabbit scurried across the driveway in his path. Overhead the red-tailed hawk made his move, diving at breathtaking speed.
Nathan put the truck in Drive, revved the motor and roared up the overgrown road. The hawk swooped over the hood, missing the hapless bunny and his lunch. There would be no death at Persimmon Hill today.
Fighting morbid thoughts, Nathan eased around the curves and past the brooding overhang of oaks and sycamores. Their leaves dappled the roadway in shadows and swished against the truck’s top and sides as if trying to hold him back.
This part of rural Oklahoma was as remote as it was beautiful. Bad things shouldn’t happen here.
And never would again if he had any say in the matter.
When he rounded the last curve and broke into full sunlight, he noticed the house first. Mouth dry, eyes wide and fixated, Nathan scanned the stately two-and-a-half-story structure. Persimmon Hill stared back at him with heavily shuttered, darkened windows like eyes that could not bear to open again.
A rush of emotions clogged Nathan’s throat. His whole being seized up, still yearning for the young parents he’d never stopped missing but barely remembered.
If houses could talk. This house. Would it tell him what he needed to hear? Or would it only confirm the worst?
Nathan reached for the travel cup at his side and swigged down a gulp of bittersweet emotion.
Movement dragged his attention to the sprawling front porch with its glorious white columns reaching two stories like something out of a Grecian painting. A long-legged woman leaned her back against one of the columns, a booted foot resting on the porch, the other trailing the grass. A gaggle of dogs of all sorts and sizes roamed around her, as if vying for her touch.
His first impression was that she was a cowgirl version of a beautiful dream. Miss Cowgirl USA or a rodeo queen. Posture relaxed, maybe a little insolent, she looked up and glared at the interruption to her solitude.
His mind took snapshots.
Covered in snug, faded jeans stuffed into brown cowgirl boots with turquoise accents, her legs were long enough to notice. And Nathan definitely noticed. He was a Christian, but he wasn’t dead. God made beauty to appreciate.
This beauty was a Western painting.
A gauzy turquoise blouse of Southwest design fluttered in the gentle breeze of early spring. Thick blond hair swooped over each shoulder and caressed the sides of her face. The hand stroking the head of a small, homely black dog bore a turquoise ring on each of four fingers.
Who was this intriguing stranger and what was she doing here, trespassing on his property?
Monroe Matheson was annoyed. Plain and simple, some rhinestone cowboy in his business suit, cowboy boots, hat and fancy truck had intruded upon her favorite place of solitude. No one was allowed to come here. No one.
At least twice a week, she and her dogs escaped to Persimmon Hill, knowing they would be left alone.
No one had ever disturbed them before. Not even once in all the years she’d used the house on Persimmon Hill as her secret escape.
Then, he had to show up. And she didn’t even have a weapon.
Stranger danger didn’t scare Monroe. She was a military veteran. She could take care of herself. She just wanted him to go away.
The man sauntered across the raggedy, overgrown grass and approached the porch. Monroe braced herself for fight or flight, though she refused to appear ruffled. Never let ’em see you sweat. That was her motto. One of several.
“Are you a real cowboy or did you just find the hat?” She sounded as bored and cold as she could manage. Which was considerable. She practiced a lot.
The stranger laughed. Perfect white teeth and stunningly attractive smile lines appeared. Somewhere a choir broke out in a chorus of exaltation.
Handsome was a pale word to describe this one.
He removed the hat, a black Stetson that had set him back at least $500, and rested it against his trouser-clad thigh. A black hat to boot, like the bad guys in a movie. But in the sunshine, he was all golden-boy handsome with a smile to break a woman’s heart and an easy, confident air. He was a cross between a young Brad Pitt and the hunky guy who played Thor. If he wasn’t in movies, he should be.
Anywhere but here on this deserted old ranch where Monroe came to think and, when the mood struck, to pray and be mad at God without censor from her grandpa.
The city slicker—for he must be city in that getup—was confidently beautiful in the way only the most masculine men can be.
Whoever he was, Monroe loathed him on sight.
She kept up her assault, hoping to send him scurrying away like the squirrels that fled up the giant pecan tree whenever she and her pack of once-stray dogs loped into the yard.
“Can’t you read?” Keeping her face in profile, she nonchalantly rubbed the ears of Torpedo, the part terrier, mostly mutt with the energy level of a nuclear power plant.
The man replaced the hat, shading silvery-blue eyes. “Sure. Can you?”
She ignored his question. “I don’t know where you come from, but out here, no-trespassing signs mean business. You could get yourself shot.”
“Houston. You gonna shoot me?”
“Maybe.” She didn’t laugh. Men, in general, needed shooting, to her way of thinking. “How did you get that truck through a locked gate? Run it over? Pick the lock?”
He extracted a key from his shirt pocket and held it up. The cone-shaped silver glinted in the sunlight.
Monroe frowned, calculating the meaning of this man, in his big, fancy truck, with a key to the abandoned property on Persimmon Hill. Her spot for years, even before leaving for the navy.
“You a Realtor?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You look like one.” The kind who wore a cowboy hat and boots for effect, hoping to appear good-old country boy while he charmed people out of their ranchland. The Matheson family had already encountered a creep like that. Only this new guy was far better looking.
“What are you doing here?” She shifted, careful to keep her face averted, and eased the terrier to the porch. He snuggled close to her side, needy like all her strays. “Don’t tell me you’re buying this place.”
The stranger shrugged. An annoying little tilt edged his mouth, as if he found her questions amusing. “Okay, I won’t tell you.”
Jerk. Typical male. Thinks he’s all that and a ticket to the moon.
Letting herself grow angry, which was easy to do anytime an unrelated male came around, Monroe slung both booted feet to the ground and stood up so fast three dogs tumbled over each other and the ever-trembling Torpedo yelped, insulted but unhurt. The other two rushed in to wrestle and play around her legs, something Monroe was in no mood to do. This man had ruined her tranquility.
Too bad none of her dogs would bite. Even Peabody, the battered and scarred pit bull mix, was a sissy. Silly animals. They accepted anyone and everyone who was nice to them and even those who weren’t.
“Didn’t the Realtor tell you the story of this place?” she asked. “Warn you away?”
“From what? The property is beautiful. Pretty neglected but the bones are excellent.”
Seriously? He didn’t know? How could he have purchased an estate of this size without learning its history? Granted, the incident happened years ago and people had long stopped talking about it. The secluded property attracted little attention these days. That’s why she liked it.
“Bad things happened here.”
Something in his expression shuttered. The quirky smile flattened. “Like what?”
“Murder.”
