Dangerous Refuge

chapter Thirty-four



Shaye tossed the phone onto the bed, got dressed, and went to the tiny balcony that had a slice of a view of the parking lot. The angle of the sunlight transformed the asphalt into a charcoal landscape, ripples of cracks and rivers of tar like veins throughout. The lot had been patched together a hundred times over the years, but never would be whole.

I used to think I was like that, never able to be whole again.

But I don’t anymore. When did that happen?

Maybe loving Tanner would be a kind of freedom I’ve never known, never even dreamed of. Free of the past that ripped me apart. Free to take a chance on the future.

Believing, finally, in a future, instead of simply gutting my way through every problem alone, every day, every week and month and year until I’m as old and dead as Lorne.

She knew she could keep living alone and doing a good job of it. She had done it for years.

Her phone rang.

Shaye hurried back to the bed to pick up her phone and answer.

“Tanner?” she asked quickly.

“It’s Kimberli. Where’s tall, dark, and sexy?”

Shaye frowned. Despite the teasing words, Kimberli’s voice was flat, thin, stretched by an anxiety she’d never heard from her boss. And she wasn’t using her own phone, or the ring would have been different.

“What’s wrong?” Shaye asked.

“What isn’t?” Kimberli said shakily. “Somehow the Conservancy is the bad guy because Lorne had a senior moment and pulled out before he signed the letter of intent.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“When do emotions make sense?” Kimberli retorted. Her voice was rough, like she had been screaming or crying. “I was told that growing old meant outliving your enemies and dancing on their graves. Now I feel like someone is dancing on mine. Lorne changing his mind screwed us. Ranchers are saying that the Conservancy tried to pull a fast one and get him to sign a contract that gave us everything and him nothing.”

Shaye knew she should tell her boss, It’s not your fault, everyone makes mistakes, but she wasn’t feeling charitable right now. If she had made the kind of mistake Kimberli had, she’d have been fired, and rightly so.

“Who are the ranchers?” Shaye asked. “Are they mine? I can talk to them and—”

“The head of the National Ranch Conservancy called and reamed me over Lorne,” Kimberli said as if Shaye hadn’t spoken. “He said the Conservancy can’t take that kind of scandal. Something would have to be done. I’m afraid that ‘something’ is firing me.”

Shaye waited while Kimberli fought to control her voice. After long, long moments she succeeded.

“You know what the real hell of it is?” Kimberli asked, then rushed on without waiting for an answer. “My guess is that Lorne never was going to sign the ranch over, but thought he could have a little fun and keep a pretty woman at his beck and call for months and months.”

For a moment Shaye was too shocked to speak. “I know you and Lorne didn’t like each other, but we all managed to be civil and keep our ultimate goal in mind—saving Lorne’s ranch for future generations.”

“Yes, yes, that’s just good business,” Kimberli said in her raw voice. “But now the Lester family up north is one lawyer’s appointment away from withdrawing their offer and the Gunthers on the east side of the valley are talking to realtors about putting their land on the market. We’ve been blindsided. The Conservancy is reeling and looking around for people to blame and they’re dumping the load on me. But I’ve poured everything into the Conservancy. No one will hire me and my great-uncle’s inheritance can barely keep me, much less Peter. I’m too old to start over. I’m ruined!” she wailed. “I have nowhere . . .”

Shaye gave up trying to interrupt Kimberli’s monologue. There was no point. Though the presentation was over-the-top, what she said was the simple truth. If the Conservancy fired her, Kimberli was finished. All the attention, all the galas, all the businesses and politicians courting her for the Conservancy’s approval . . . it was all gone.

When Shaye realized that her job right now was to listen, she went to the bed and settled in for as long as it would take Kimberli to run down. With her boss, it could be quite a while.

Shaye looked out the window. Somewhere in the Sierras above and north of Carson City the fire was still burning, smoke rising thick and black from the far side of the closest mountain ridge. The color of the smoke announced the arrival of a fire trying to get big enough to generate its own furious winds. She hoped it was burning in an unpopulated area, but those were getting harder and harder to find.

Someone tried to beep through twice, but she didn’t feel right about putting her distraught boss on hold. Then the line went dead. She checked her own cell battery. Plenty of juice. Apparently Kimberli had talked her borrowed cell phone’s battery into the ground.

She listened to Tanner’s call-me message and was just getting ready to hit the callback button when someone slid an electronic key into the lock on the only door into the motel room.

Crap. Tanner must have forgotten to put out the Do Not Disturb sign.

“Maid service,” said a muffled voice.

“I don’t want—”

She had an instant to realize that she hadn’t put the chain or dead bolt back on after Tanner left. Then the door opened and Ace stepped into the room, with Kimberli right behind him.

Part of Shaye’s mind noted that Ace wore hiking boots, jeans, a warm shirt, a waterproof jacket, and a floppy fishing hat that all but concealed his face. He was friendly, smiling as warmly as he ever did, but there was something about him that was off.

He’s wearing surgical gloves.