“I’m no saint, Mom,” Max cut in, feeling the old, hard-edged emotions beginning to tear at him. “And I gave up being one of Dad’s yes-men years ago.”
“Still, you believed in him, and damn it, he believed in you. The least you could do is talk to Sheriff Polk, find out what really happened out on Elkhorn Ridge.”
“Nothing happened, Mom. Dad just misjudged the corner.”
She cut him a glance that silently called him a fool, and he stood to turn down the bed. “Come on, Mom.” Patting the crisp percale sheets, he said softly, “Take your shoes off. Try to get some rest.”
“I will not be coddled, son! And I’ll go to bed when I’m good and ready and not a minute before.” Sniffing back her tears, she angled up her thin face, glaring at her firstborn. “You do what you have to, Max, and so will I.”
“Mom—”
“Don’t you worry about me—I can take care of myself. And bring Hillary around more often. Just because Jonah is gone doesn’t mean that I won’t want to see my granddaughter.” She dropped into an antique rocker positioned near the bay window.
“I’ll have her this weekend.”
His mother snorted. “A weekend father. I always thought more of you than that, Max.”
He wasn’t going to get into this no-win argument. If he’d had his way, Hillary would live with him, but Colleen had fought him in court and won joint custody, which meant she kept Hillary five days out of the week and Max got the leftovers. The important thing was that his daughter seemed to be doing fine. He’d heard somewhere that kids were resilient. He hoped so. If a child was loved, Max believed the rest would take care of itself. Both he and Colleen loved their daughter; they just didn’t love each other. Probably never had.
Guilt was razor sharp as it cut through his heart.
He’d been at fault—the one to blame when the marriage had crumbled. He’d never really gotten over Skye, no matter how much he’d told himself that he had. She’d betrayed him, and he, wounded to the depths of his soul, had turned to Colleen to survive.
His father had been pleased.
But the marriage had been doomed from the start.
And now there were the letters... the damned letters. He felt as if acid had been poured into his gut because, until he found out the truth about Skye and why she’d left him, he’d never be satisfied.
He kissed his mother goodbye and left her sitting in the rocker staring sightlessly out the window to the dry, rolling fields dotted with white-faced Herefords. Somehow the ranch would survive. He wasn’t so sure about his mother.
Avoiding further conversation with Kiki, he snatched his hat from its hook and strode outside to his pickup. He climbed in and saw the wadded-up letters on the seat. Growling an oath under his breath, he switched on the ignition and tromped on the accelerator. Within seconds, he was tearing down the lane at a breakneck pace, dust and gravel spewing behind him, pine trees and fence line flashing by in a blur.
He didn’t want to think about Skye. Not now. Not ever. Thoughts heading in her direction invariably led to dangerous territory. Besides, what was done was done. If he’d wanted her—really wanted her—back then, he would have gone after her, wouldn’t he have?
Frowning darkly, he switched on the radio, looking for sports scores. Instead, a Bruce Springsteen song of love gone bad drifted out of the speakers. Tell me about it, Bruce, Max thought grimly as he squinted through the dusty, bug-spattered windshield.
The asphalt road he barreled along on stretched for miles in either direction, a straight, paved line that cut through this valley where the John Day River flowed swiftly between the rolling hills of dry grass and sparse juniper trees.
When he finally reached town, he stopped at the feed store, bought several sacks of grain and loaded them into his truck before walking the short distance to the Black Anvil. Where his father, just the week before, had consumed too much liquor before ending up at the bottom of Stardust Canyon, the nose of his Jeep plunged deep into the swift waters of Wildcat Creek. Jonah’s blood alcohol level had been near the stratosphere, he’d cracked his head on the windshield and died of heart failure, according to the county medical examiner. Jonah Phineas McKee, a Rimrock legend, had died, and the town had mourned.
Max would miss him, though for the past few years they hadn’t gotten along.
Ever since Skye.
Shoving open the swinging doors to the bar, Max strode past the cigarette machine to the interior where smoke hung in a hazy cloud near the ceiling and the air-conditioning system clattered and coughed. Men, just off work, clustered at the bar where they eyed a television suspended from the ceiling, sipped from frosted mugs of beer, picked at complimentary pretzels, and complained about the game, the weather and their wives.
Max ordered a beer and slid into a booth near the window. He stared outside, past a flickering neon sign advertising beer, to the street where heat waves rose like ghosts, though the sun was beginning to dip below the mountains.
“Didn’t expect to find you here.”
Max lifted one side of his mouth at the sound of his brother’s voice. “Can’t say the same for you.”
Jenner, a half-filled mug of beer in hand, slipped onto the opposite bench. Two years younger than Max, Jenner had always been the rebel, never doing one damned thing that was expected of him. Didn’t even finish high school—just up and left to join the rodeo circuit. A cowboy’s cowboy, he had only come home to roost a few years ago when his body, barely thirty, had been broken and taped together too many times from tumbling off wild broncs and Brahma bulls or crashing into the fists of indignant husbands. “Yeah, well, someone’s got to keep this place in business,” Jenner drawled with his go-to-hell smile stretching from one side of his face to the other.
Max and Jenner had been oil and water. Max, for years, had always tried to please their old man, while Jenner had done his best to thwart Jonah at every turn. If Jonah said white, then Max would say ivory, and Jenner was sure to bring up black.
“Mom thinks Dad was murdered,” Max said, then, watching the foamy head of his beer sink into the amber depths, took a long swallow. The liquor was cool and malty and settled deep in his gut.
Jenner lifted a shoulder. “He had enough enemies.”
“No one killed him, Jenner.”
“Probably not.”
“Probably?” Max couldn’t believe his ears.
“Contrary to what you’d like to believe, the old man was, well, borderline honest, would be the best way to put it. We both know it.”
Max didn’t want to be reminded of his father’s less-than-aboveboard dealings. “I know, but murder—”
“I’m not saying it happened. I’m just saying it’s possible.” He finished his beer and signaled for another round by lifting a finger. The waitress, a buxom woman named Wanda Tulley, winked at him. She was poured into a red-checked blouse and tight denim miniskirt. Her black boots reached midcalf on tanned legs that seemed to go on forever. A couple of years younger than Jenner, Wanda had been through two bad marriages and had been cursed with a crush on the younger McKee brother for as long as Max could remember. Max only hoped Jenner wasn’t taking advantage of her affections—he seemed to have no sense of responsibility when it came to women.
“Here ya go, sugar,” Wanda said, flipping her straight silver blond hair over her shoulder.
“Thanks. Put ’em both on my tab.”
“You got it.”
She slid the fresh mugs onto the table, then picked up the empties, allowing Jenner and Max a quick glimpse of the top of her breasts as she bent over, the red gingham of her blouse parting slightly.
As she left, Jenner ignored his beer. “I thought you should know...” he said, pausing as if something weighty was on his mind.
“Know what?”
“I ran into Doc Fletcher a little while ago. Seems he’s taking on a new partner. Maybe even selling his practice.”
“About time.” Fletcher had to be pushing seventy
and had been looking for a younger general practitioner to eventually take over his business. However, in today’s world, most of the medical profession was specialized, and nearly all of the newly graduated doctors preferred to practice in the cities and suburbs where the money was better and the services of hospitals were close at hand. Few were interested in a small clinic hundreds of miles from a major city.
“He said he wanted to go over some details on his lease with you. The estate owns the clinic building, doesn’t it?”
“Yep, but Fletcher can link up with anyone he likes. Long as he pays the lease, I don’t have anything to say about it.”
Jenner’s grin was downright evil. The first premonition of disaster skittered down Max’s spine.
“Okay, so tell me. Who’s the guy?”
“Not a guy,” Jenner said, his gaze steady on his brother. “A woman. Not long out of medical school.”
Max felt as if some great hand had wrapped around his chest and was slowly squeezing, because before the words were out of Jenner’s mouth, he knew what they would be.
“Yep,” Jenner drawled, little lines of worry forming between his dark eyebrows, “word has it that Skye Donahue’s finally coming back to Rimrock.”
Chapter Two
Skye rolled down the window of her ’67 Ford Mustang, then scowled as the handle snapped off in her hand. “Some classic,” she muttered, tossing the broken piece of metal onto the passenger seat already filled with her medical textbooks, notes and a bag of half-eaten French fries from the McDonald’s she’d driven through before leaving Portland.
She’d been in the car five hours and her muscles were beginning to cramp, but she wasn’t tired. No, as the miles leading to Rimrock disappeared beneath the balding tires of her little car, she felt a growing edge of anticipation. Adrenaline clamped her fingers around the wheel while she tried to ignore the feeling that she was making the biggest mistake of her life—second biggest, she reminded herself. The first was falling in love with Max McKee. Clenching her teeth together, she shoved aside the little tug on her heart at the thought of him. She didn’t have time for second thoughts about Max. She’d been young and foolish. She was lucky she’d forced herself to forgo listening to her heart and refused to marry him.
Max McKee may well have been her first love, but he certainly wasn’t going to be her last! Not that she needed a man. Being an independent woman had its advantages. She never had to worry about disappointing anyone else in her life, and if there was a void—an emptiness that sometimes seemed impossible to fill—well, that was all part of the choices she’d made. She wasn’t the type of woman to moan and cry about lost loves or missed opportunities.
From the carrier in the back seat, her cat, Kildare, let out an impatient cry.
“Not much farther,” Skye called over her shoulder. The cat, named for the doctor in Skye’s mother’s favorite medical show of all time, sent up another plaintive wail, but Skye ignored him and stared through her grimy windshield to the gorgeous Ochoco Mountains. The road edged the river as it cut a severe canyon through the towering hills topped with the stony red outcrop that had given the town of Rimrock its name.
The wind teased her hair and she rarely saw another car. She’d missed this—the solitude, the majestic stillness of the mountains, the peaceful quiet of the countryside—while she’d spent the past few years of her life in the frenetic pace of the city. Portland wasn’t a large town compared with New York, Chicago or Seattle, but for a girl who had grown up in a community with a population of less than a thousand people corralled within the city limits, Portland had seemed immense, charged with an invisible current of electricity. The streets were a madhouse where drivers surged from one red light to the next, anxiously drumming fingers on steering wheels, smoking or chewing gum or growling under their breath about the traffic. Where the smell of exhaust fumes mingled with rainwater. Where night was as bright as day.
At first, she’d loved the city, the change of pace, the demands of medical school. In her few precious hours of free time, she’d explored every nook and cranny of the restless town, indulging in the nightlife, the theaters, the museums, the concerts in Waterfront Park. She’d learned, as a matter of self-preservation, to be suspicious of nearly everyone in the city, and yet she’d met some of the most honest and true friends of her life while studying to become a doctor.
And yet she was drawn back home.
“Home.” She mouthed the word and it felt good.
She hadn’t been forced to return to the hills of eastern Oregon. She’d had options when she’d graduated and could have joined the staff of several hospitals in the Pacific Northwest, and another in Denver. Instead, after a year with Columbia Memorial, she’d decided to nose her little car due east and accept Doc Fletcher’s offer to buy out his practice in Rimrock.
Because of Max. Because there’s unfinished business between you.
Her fingers began to sweat over the steering wheel and she snapped her mind closed to that particular thought. Max was married, and she, perhaps romantic to the point of being an idiot, believed in the sanctity of marriage. Although her father was no longer alive, her parents had shown her love, laughter, trust and commitment.
So Max McKee was off-limits. Good. Even if he was still single, she wouldn’t have wanted him. She’d never met a more stubborn, arrogant man in all her life. A man just like his father. Her stomach turned over at the thought of Jonah McKee and she shoved his image out of her mind. She would have preferred a practice somewhere in eastern Oregon farther away from Max, but Doc Fletcher’s unexpected visit to Portland and his offer had been too tempting to turn down.
“We need young, dedicated, talented people, Skye,” he’d said in his slow-moving drawl, his words punctuated by snowy white eyebrows that dipped and rose above the gold rims of his glasses. “But most young doctors aren’t interested in a Podunk town so small you can drive through without blinking. So I thought you might want to come back home, be near your mother. I can offer you pretty good terms. Hell, I’ve made my money there, so I won’t need a down payment on the business—and you’re really just buying the practice. I lease the building, but there’s an option to buy in a couple of years. We’ll work out the contract so that you can pay me a balloon payment in five years....” He’d gone on and on, and though Skye had thought she’d turn him down flat, the deal had been too sweet to refuse. Fletcher had been right when he’d mentioned her mother. Irene Donahue, not yet sixty, wasn’t in the best of health, and Skye did want to be close to her. In the end, Skye had agreed. She didn’t regret her decision. The only hitch was Max.
As the road curved to accommodate the river and the mountains, she caught her first glimpse of Rimrock, little more than several blocks of buildings clustered around a single stoplight. She drove past the turnoff for the old copper mine and headed straight through the heart of town, past the small buildings, some ancient, some new, where afternoon shadows were slinking across the dusty asphalt streets.
On an impulse, she stopped at the Shady Grove Café, parked beneath an old oak tree and cracked open her windows before stepping onto the pockmarked asphalt of the lot. She set Kildare in his carrier in the shade of the tree, then walked to the twin glass doors of the old restaurant. An A-frame building with wings, the café had been through owners and names too numerous to remember.
Inside, the air conditioner rattled a noisy welcome. Several booths were occupied, but Skye didn’t recognize anyone. The place smelled of stale coffee and cigarette smoke, while the deep fryer added its own special aroma. She slid into a booth near the window, and despite all the efforts of the air conditioner, the heat seeped through the glass and the clear, black plastic curtain that had been drawn to offer some shade.
A short waitress with a frizz of brown curls took Skye’s order for a cola, then hustled, order pad and pencil in hand, to the next table. As it was the middle of the afternoon, the lunch crowd had dispersed and the dinner crowd hadn’t yet arrived.
/> Within minutes, the waitress left a sweating glass of soda and a bill on the table before passing through swinging doors to the kitchen. Skye took a long swallow as she studied the menu that hadn’t changed much in the past seven years. A bell tinkled and a gust of hot air whooshed into the room.
“I want chocolate and vanilla swirled together,” an impish voice commanded.
“Then that’s what you’ll have.”
Max! She’d know his voice anywhere—it still haunted her dreams and played with those memories that she’d sworn to tuck away forever. She froze for a second, then quietly took a breath and glanced up. Their gazes collided, and if she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn there was a tremor in the earth. Her heart kicked into double time as she looked at him, tall and lean as ever, wide shoulders hidden by a time-softened work shirt, his brown hair still streaked by the sun. Raw as the wind that swept through this part of the valley and rugged as the hills that surrounded the river, Max McKee generated a kind of sexual energy that should have been reserved for movie stars and professional athletes. His lips were thin, nearly cruel, and the spark in his eyes was as cold as a Blue Norther.
Skye could barely breathe. She reached for her drink, nearly toppling it over onto the table.
His large, work-roughened hand was clasped around the chubby fingers of a springy-haired girl of five or six. His daughter. An ageless pain ripped through Skye’s soul as she stared, speechless, at man and child.
She was vaguely aware that the other patrons had turned their heads, drawn to the silent scene unfolding in front of the counter.
Max, as if suddenly aware that he was causing a stir, pulled on the little girl’s hand and guided her toward the booth where Skye sat frozen. His features, already hard angles and planes, seemed to turn more grim, and his eyes, shaded by thick gold-brown brows, were the same piercing, angry sea green that she remembered.