Sheriff’s Runaway Witness

Chapter 7

“That must be it, I think-over there,” J.J. said, pointing.

Rachel nodded but didn’t say anything. He looked over at her, but she just sat gazing past him through the side window of his truck as they paused, idling, on the rutted and rocky dirt road. Across a hillside strewn with rocks and juniper trees, manzanita and sagebrush and pinon and bull pines, they could just make out a bit of red Spanish tile roof showing between guardian spires of tall evergreen and poplar trees.

She hadn’t said more than two words since they’d left the desert behind, and he hadn’t, either, content to let his navigation system tell him where to turn even though she had the map that had come with Sam Malone’s letter spread out across her lap. Except for the couple of times she’d turned around to check on her baby, still sound asleep in his carrier, she’d sat and stared out the windows. It seemed to J.J. there was something suspenseful about the way she gazed upon the passing scene. He could almost hear anticipation coursing through her body like a beating pulse.

Respectful of that tension in her and tied up in his own thoughts, he’d offered no comment as the road wound up and over a mountain pass, then down into a fertile valley where fat cattle grazed in lush green pastures along the highway. Here and there the pastureland was broken by flat brown fields where sprinklers offered up lacy plumes of spray to the wind, or tractors crawled along through clouds of dust, carving furrows in the silt. Across the fields, following the curves of mountains lumpy with boulders and steep slopes splashed with the vivid orange of poppies, a thick line of trees marked a river’s course, the dense thicket of willows and cottonwoods just now showing variegated shades of spring green.

They passed farmhouses in various stages of disrepair and tracts of modest homes shaded by cottonwoods and evergreens. And a church, a simple rectangle of old-fashioned, white-painted clapboard with its spire pointing heavenward, that reminded J.J. of the game he and his sisters had played when they were kids…fingers interlaced, palms together, index fingers forming the steeple. Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the doors and see all the people…

Just past the church, the breathy female voice of his navigation system instructed him to turn right, onto a paved road that arrowed across the fields and crossed the river-a mere creek by North Carolina standards, but not bad for Southern California, no doubt well fed by melting snow this time of spring-on a low wooden bridge before beginning the climb up into a canyon tucked away in those forbidding mountains.

Before long they’d left behind all other signs of human habitation and the pavement had petered out entirely, giving way to the track they were now on, which had led them up and over hills and down through boulder-clogged gulleys, negotiating switchbacks that meandered through fields of yet more boulders adrift in seas of wildflowers: lupine and poppy, owl’s clover and little yellow daisylike flowers J.J. didn’t know the names of.

He thought now-grudgingly-as he gazed across the hillside at the deep dark evergreen trees standing guard over Spanish tile rooftops, that at least old Sam Malone had chosen a pretty nice spot in which to retire from the world. It beat the hell out of a Las Vegas hotel.

“It’s beautiful,” Rachel said finally, as if she’d come to some sort of decision.

Because he didn’t want to admit she’d closely echoed his own thoughts, J.J. said sourly, “Wouldn’t want to have to evacuate this place in a hurry for a forest fire.”

“Evidently a cup-half-empty person,” she remarked without censure.

He shifted the truck into drive. “Just call it the way I see it.”

“Maybe you should try looking at things another way.”

He glanced over at her and found her looking back at him, and in the mirrors of her dark eyes saw twin images of himself he didn’t much care for. The locked gaze lasted longer than it should have, and when he finally broke it he felt edgy and frustrated and was thinking again about complications.

“Maybe,” he said, and drove on.

A short distance farther on, the road curved sharply to the left then dipped into a deep gully choked with willows and bumped across a graveled streambed now hubcap-deep in spring snowmelt runoff. It would be dry in another month, he imagined. In a summertime thunderstorm, a flashflood down the channel would be capable of washing a truck like his, or any vehicle unlucky or stupid enough to get caught trying to cross it, clear down to the river.

And that was just fact, he told himself, and had nothing to do with his cup being half-full or half-empty.

Not far beyond the creek, the road ended at a T intersection. Directly ahead, beyond a whitewashed rail fence, a grassy meadow stretched away to the foot of a mountainside covered with the same granite boulders and mixed vegetation they’d just navigated their way through. More fat black cattle and a few horses grazed in the lush spring grass or dozed in the dappled shade of new-leafed cottonwood trees. To the right, a dirt road followed the fence to the far end of the meadow and a cluster of buildings shaded by more of the huge old cottonwoods. J.J. could make out what appeared to be a farmhouse and an assortment of barns, stables and miscellaneous equipment, typical of a working ranch.

“We go that way,” Rachel said, pointing to the left. Her voice sounded as breathy as the navigation system’s, only not so much sexy as scared.

Moonshine, up on her haunches now and staring out the windshield, whined softly and licked her chops, as if she understood they were nearing their destination.

J.J. glanced at Rachel, and because what he really wanted to do was reach over and take her hand to let her know she wasn’t going to have to face whatever lay ahead of them down that road alone, he muttered instead to the dog, “Almost there, Moon…”

He made the turn onto a somewhat better-maintained road that ran along the edge of the meadow toward the sentinel poplars and evergreens they’d seen from a distance on their way up the canyon. The house with the Spanish tile roof was plainly visible now, a sprawling white hacienda built on a little knoll overlooking the valley below. Even to J.J. it looked pretty impressive.

Hearing a hitch in Rachel’s breathing, he slowed, stopped and looked over at her. “You okay?” He said it without much sympathy, afraid he might show too much.

She nodded, then said faintly, “It’s not…what I expected.”

“What were you expecting-a log cabin? The man’s a billionaire.”

What had she expected? Rachel wondered. None of this seemed real-no more real than the old movies she and Grandmother had watched together-and so different from the life she’d been living for the past two years.

It seems impossible…everything has happened so fast.

She now realized that from the moment the letter arrived, from a grandfather she’d never known, she must have been in a state of some sort of shock. Then Izzy had come, bringing with her a real hope of escape, and after that events had unfolded so quickly, recalling them now was like trying to take in a montage played at too fast a speed: The desert, the baby and J.J. The hospital, Carlos’s thugs, nearly being killed, thinking her baby had been taken…and J.J. again. Now…this.

“I’m having a hard time getting my mind around it.” She paused to listen to a replay of the massive understatement, then looked over at him as she amended it. “The fact that I have family, I mean.”

“Family? I thought you were assuming your grandfather is dead.”

“Don’t you think so? Why else would his heirs be called to claim their ‘inheritance’?”

“Ah-yes. The letter did say ‘heirs,’ plural.”

Rachel nodded. “Grandchildren. Which means, I might have cousins. Do you know what that means to an only child?”

“I know what it means to the one responsible for keeping you safe,” J.J. said darkly. “It’s just that many more people to worry about.”

As if on cue, from the backseat came an infant’s snuffly getting-ready-to fuss noises. Instantly, Rachel turned toward the sound, and at the same time felt a strange tingling sensation in her breasts. She gave a little gasp of surprise and glanced at J.J., her cheeks warming with embarrassment as if he could somehow see.

“What?” he said.

She shook her head and muttered, “Nothing.”

But she was thinking that trying to get her head around the idea of having a family, maybe some cousins, was nothing compared to getting it around the reality of having a child.

A baby. I’m a mother. When will it start to feel real?

She wondered if it was because she’d spent most of the pregnancy a virtual prisoner in Carlos Delacorte’s house instead of going to visit the obstetrician, watching her baby via the ultrasound monitor, watching him grow from a bean-sized lump with a heartbeat to a recognizable human, looking at pictures of the stages of pregnancy in posters on the doctor’s wall. Maybe because for the past few months she’d been grieving for Nicholas instead of visiting with girlfriends who’d already been through it all, shopping with her baby’s father for a crib and all the cute baby things, having her friends “surprise” her with a baby shower.

Intellectually, of course, because of her medical training she’d been able to mark the mileposts of pregnancy and monitor her own health and that of her growing baby, doing the best she could in her situation. And as her date of delivery had come closer she’d become more and more frightened and her instincts had focused mainly on finding a way to survive, for both herself and her baby. But emotionally…

She lifted her eyes to J.J.’s and said it again. “It just doesn’t seem real.”

“Sounds real enough to me,” he said dryly, as the unhappy sounds from the backseat grew more earnest, and Moonshine whined nervously. He slapped at the gearshift and the truck started to move again, winding its way between towering evergreens and newly leafed poplars, and well-kept beds filled with rosebushes already pruned and ruddy with fragile new growth. “Let’s hope they’re ready for us.”

From a window high in the bell tower above the hacienda’s tiny chapel, keen blue eyes followed the white pickup truck’s progress as it slipped in and out of view behind copses of trees and sunny beds of roses. Avidly, they watched as the truck drew to a stop next to the curving flagstone steps. The door on the driver’s side opened and a tall man got out, crossed to the passenger side and opened the door.

The watcher’s head dipped in approval.

He leaned forward, gripping the window ledge with both hands as the woman emerged, stepping carefully, gingerly, the man helping her. While the man turned to open the back door, the woman stood looking around her, then lifted her eyes to the bell tower. For a moment it seemed as if she was looking directly into the watcher’s eyes, but he didn’t draw back; he knew the tower’s thick adobe walls and the angle of the sun would make him invisible to her. He gave a cackle of laughter.

“Well, Elizabeth, should a’ known your granddaughter would be the first. Have to say, though-she sure don’t look like her daddy, does she? Our Sean…” He gave a sigh. “I know…I know, I got no right to call him mine, after I gave him up-and you, too. But…we both know what a damn fool I was, and that’s water under the bridge.”

Turning his attention once again to the tableau far below, he watched avidly as the man lifted the carrier holding his first great-grandchild from the pickup truck’s backseat. The kid was sure kicking up a rumpus-he could hear it all the way up here. He had to smile at that-fine strong set of lungs, it sounded like.

Then he grew still, and his old heart sped up a notch or two as he watched the girl bend over the carrier, then straighten up with the baby in her arms. He felt a softness in his chest that hadn’t been there for a long, long time.

“There’s something about her, Elizabeth. Something that reminds me of you.” The way she moves…I remember the way you used to look, holding our baby boy in your arms.

A whisper stirred through the quiet, so soft it might have been the breeze blowing in the open window.

Are you goin’ out to greet them? She’s your granddaughter, after all.

Sam Malone shifted his shoulders impatiently. “In good time…in my own good time.”

He heard a familiar cackle of laughter. You always were a coward, Sam Malone. At least when it comes to emotions.

Mildly stung, he turned to reply, and was surprised to find the room behind him empty.

But not too surprised-it wasn’t the first time.

J.J. kept his hand on the small of Rachel’s back as they walked together up the wide curving flagstone pathway to a heavy arched wooden door with black iron hinges. He didn’t stop to think why; it just felt right to him.

He could feel her body vibrating-trembling, he supposed, was the word he ought to use, but somehow it didn’t fit with the strength he knew she had. Didn’t matter. Whether she was scared, or just wired up with suspense about this unknown she was facing, he felt a powerful need to be there right beside her, to give her support. Protect her, if she needed it.

“Stay, Moonshine,” he said, and the dog lowered her haunches to the ground beside the truck but kept her eyes glued to Rachel and the baby. As if she didn’t trust the situation any more than he did.

The front door opened, and a woman stood there, smiling a welcome. At the same time, from down the long drive they’d just traveled a man came walking, with a black-and-white border collie ambling at his heels.

Moonshine got up and shambled out to meet them, on alert, but not as if there was any real danger there. And although J.J.’s cop-senses were on full alert, he didn’t get any real sense of danger from the man or his dog, either. Like the dog’s, the man’s pace was unhurried, and although he didn’t appear to be smiling, his face and body seemed relaxed.

Meanwhile, the border collie had trotted out to meet Moonshine, and the two of them were sniffing up one another the way dogs do when they’re meeting for the first time and are probably going to decide to be friends. Which meant the other dog was probably a male, J.J. thought, since Moon tended to be a little bit territorial around other females.

Satisfied the newcomers posed no threat, to Rachel and the baby or the old hound dog, he turned his attention back to the woman in the doorway. She was holding out her arms to Rachel in an open, generous way, and her smile was warm and wide.

“Welcome, Rachel, welcome,” she said, and lifted her eyes to include J.J. in the smile. She offered him her hand. “We’ve been expecting you. I’m Josie.”

Her voice was musical and pleasant. She had a smooth, round face with the broad cheekbones and olive skin tones that strongly suggested Native American ancestry. She appeared to be in her mid-sixties, although it was hard to tell since she had so few wrinkles, and her straight salt-and-pepper hair was cut in a style that was both up-to-date and becoming to her face. She wore slacks and a rose-pink blouse with a collar, and what he was almost certain was a hand-beaded Native American-style necklace. Although she was short, she still had an inch or two on Rachel, and her figure was what he thought of as solid…comfortably mature-not slim, but definitely not fat, either.

She nodded and smiled briefly at J.J. as he shook her hand, before turning her attention back to Rachel and the baby. She reminded J.J. then of the hens his mother used to raise, the way she sort of gathered them in under her wings, clucking to them in a welcoming, mothering way.

“Come in, come in, dear…oh, what a sweet baby…a hungry baby, too. Come, I have a nice quiet place where you can nurse him. And you need something to drink, too, I’m sure. Do you like milk? It’s fresh-we have our own cows-or would you rather have some tea?”

Rachel threw him a look over her shoulder, a look not of pleading or of panic, but of such intensity he knew it would stay in his mind for a long time while he tried to figure out what it meant. Then the door closed, leaving him to deal as he would with the man and the dog.

The border collie was now cavorting in happy circles around Moonshine, who sat placidly, evidently considering herself above such unseemly behavior. The man came on alone up the flagstone steps, holding out his hand.

“Hello,” he said, “I’m Sage.” J.J. took the proffered hand and shook it. “J.J.”

“You’d be the sheriff.”

“That I would,” J.J. drawled. He and the other man locked eyes, sizing each other up. Like their respective dogs, he thought, figuring out whether or not to be friends.

J.J. couldn’t speak for the other guy, but as far as he was concerned, the jury was still out on that one.

The man who called himself “Sage” looked respectable enough, being clean-shaven and neatly dressed in jeans and a western-style long-sleeved blue shirt. J.J. wasn’t sure how he felt about the black hair worn in a braid thick as his wrist that hung down past the man’s hand-tooled leather belt. But he had to admit it suited him, somehow.

Sage also had a direct and steady gaze and a firm handshake, but since J.J. had known both con men and murderers with those qualities, that didn’t mean much to him. Still…the guy did have a definite-and indefinable-presence, the kind of pride and self-confidence that didn’t need proving to anybody. And there seemed to be both humor and intelligence in those jet-black eyes.

“Alex told us you’d be coming.”

“Alex-that would be…”

“Alex Branson-Mr. Malone’s attorney.”

“Ah,” said J.J.

Sage nodded toward the closed door. “You met Josie- Josephine-she’s my mom. She…uh, she runs the house.”

“Uh-huh,” J.J. said, and waited. It had been his experience that if he left the silences for the other person to fill, most of his questions got answered without his having to ask them.

This time was no exception. “I run the ranch,” Sage said, and J.J. saw a flash of humor in the other man’s eyes that suggested he probably knew exactly what J.J. was up to and didn’t particularly mind. “I have a place down at the other end of the meadow. If you’d hung a right at the T instead of a left, it would’ve taken you to the original old June Canyon Ranch adobe. That’s where I live.”

“Anybody else live there? Employees? Hired hands?”

“Not at the moment. Later on we’ll have a crew to help take the cattle up to the high meadows. Right now there’s still too much snow, so it’s just me.” The tone of Sage’s voice hadn’t changed, but the sharp black eyes narrowed slightly. “You got a particular reason for asking?”

“Just curious,” J.J. said, then found himself on the receiving end of a waiting silence. Score one for you, he thought as he let out a capitulating breath. “Look, I’m sure the lawyer explained about me-”

Sage nodded, his gaze keen and unwavering. “He did. What he didn’t tell us is why Mr. Malone’s granddaughter is in need of a police bodyguard.”

“He’s a beautiful baby.”

Rachel gave a small laugh that was both agreement and frustration; she was still trying to master the art of putting a disposable diaper on a squirming, kicking, unhappy infant. She shook her head and said, “I just can’t believe he’s really mine.” She glanced up at Josie. “You know? Like…oh, my gosh, I have a baby.”

Josie laughed, a musical ripple that made Rachel think of mountain streams. “Oh, I do know. I remember how it was when Sage was first born.”

“Sage is your son?” She hadn’t gotten more than a glimpse of the man as he’d come up the drive, but Josie had seemed too young to have a grown son.

The other woman nodded serenely. Then for a few moments they were both silent as Rachel struggled to get the diaper fastened and the blanket snugly wrapped. When the job was done-more or less, Josie looked at Rachel with raised eyebrows and said, “May I?”

“Oh,” Rachel said. “Sure.” She stood aside and hovered self-consciously as the other woman carefully, tenderly picked up the tidy package she’d made of her baby son. They both laughed as he instantly turned his face toward Josie, mouth open, like a hungry baby bird.

“Oh, my, I think he needs his mama,” Josie said, laughing as she handed back the squirming bundle, and Rachel felt a kind of tremulous relief as she took that tender weight in her arms once more.

How terrifying this is, she thought, to have this bond, now, that I can’t bear to have broken, even for a moment.

“Would you like to come out and sit on the veranda to nurse him? It’s nice there this time of day. There’s a comfortable chair-a rocker-I like to sit there sometimes.”

Realizing suddenly how unsteady she was and grateful for the chance to sit down, Rachel murmured her thanks and followed her hostess through wide, double French doors. She caught an involuntary breath.

“Oh-it’s beautiful.”

The house had been built Spanish-style around a central courtyard. In the center of the courtyard a three-tiered fountain flowed with happy music into a pool covered with tile artistically done in a colorful mosaic of flowers and birds. Wide pathways paved with flagstone curved from each wing of the house to the central fountain, and between the pathways, small patches of lush green lawn separated flower beds filled with newly leafed shrubs and spring-flowering bulbs-hyacinths and daffodils and freesias, and tulips of every shade. Peeking out between the nodding heads of flowers Rachel could see the spikes and leaves of perennials that would come later-daisies and iris and cannas and peonies. Adjacent to the covered veranda that ran around all four sides of the courtyard, flowerbeds held climbing roses that clung thickly to the supporting pillars and arched over the tiled veranda roof, tangled with honeysuckle and trumpet vines. Here and there among the foliage Rachel caught glimpses of garden art: an old wagon wheel, a ceramic tiled birdbath, a terra-cotta statue of Saint Francis of Assisi, another of a child, a little boy, fishing. Birdhouses, hummingbird feeders and wind chimes hung at intervals from the eves of the veranda, the latter tinkling softly now in the breeze.

Josie glanced at her, a pink blush of pleasure showing in her smooth cheeks. “Thank you. This is…oh, I guess it’s my special place. I love flowers. Here in the courtyard, the dogs aren’t allowed and the deer and rabbits can’t reach, so I can have all the flowers I want. Maybe I overdo, a little.”

“Oh, no-it’s beautiful. My grandmother loved flowers, too. She would have loved this…” She had to stop, suddenly awash in emotions she thought she’d gotten past. Hormones, she supposed.

Josie nodded, her eyes kind. “Your grandmother-she was Elizabeth. Sam’s first wife.”

“Yes,” Rachel said, and turned away, looking for the promised rocking chair, thankful for the distraction of her squirming son, whose snuffling, fussing noises were becoming increasingly insistent. She had no wish to talk about her grandmother. And especially not her grandfather-not yet. Soon, she would have to. But not now.

“Oh-here,” Josie said, and guided her to the glider-type patio rocking chair, holding her arm to help support the baby as Rachel sank gingerly into the thick cushions. “There-you just go ahead and nurse your little one while I get you something to drink. You need to drink lots of fluids, you know, to make milk.”

She bustled off, stepping back through the open French doors, and Rachel was left alone with the wind chimes and the chuckling fountain and the scent of hyacinths steeped in sunshine.

How strange…how unreal it all is.

And yet, she realized, that wasn’t quite true. What was maybe the strangest thing was how normal it seemed. Because it was happening to her, and that made it somehow normal. Or something. She wasn’t able to explain it very well, even to herself, but she knew it to be true. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, she thought. Watching that movie as a child with her grandmother, she’d never understood how Dorothy could accept so easily meeting witches and munchkins and talking lions and characters made out of tin and straw. Now she knew that the unreal, once you are in it, becomes your reality.

Which makes all this just one more way station on my yellow brick road. And I’m off to see the wizard, the one who is supposed to solve all my problems…

And the wizard is…my grandfather?

She shook off the notion and the irony of it with a small, sobbing laugh.

She was getting better at this nursing business, she thought as she lifted her shirt and unhooked the special bra, one of several Katie had bought for her. She was able to get her swollen nipple into the baby’s frantically searching mouth on only the second or third try. As the baby began to nurse hungrily, she closed her eyes and eased herself back into the cushions. Tears stung the backs of her eyelids and breath hissed between her lips as showers of tingles spread from her breasts through her whole body.

It’s almost like sex, she thought, then wondered where the thought had come from. It had been a long time since she’d had any thoughts about sex whatsoever. She thought she’d forgotten what it felt like…

She heard rustlings and quiet footsteps, and opened her eyes to see Josie placing a small tray on the table beside her chair.

“Sorry,” Josie whispered, “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“You didn’t,” Rachel said, and reinforced it with a smile.

“I brought you both milk and tea-decaf. And I didn’t know if you take sweetener, so I brought both sugar and low-cal stuff-the yellow ones. Hope that’s okay.”

“That’s fine,” Rachel murmured, filled now with a sweet sense of contentment, listening to her son make satisfied, squeaky sounds as he nursed. “Thank you.”

Josie hesitated, seeming uncertain whether she should stay or leave her alone. She gestured toward the doors she’d just come through. “Is this room okay? It’s closest to the main wing-to the kitchen, you know-so I thought-”

“It’s lovely-thank you.”

“Your friend, the sheriff-J.J.-can have the room right next door. Unless you’d like to have him-” She broke off, clearly embarrassed, and gestured again toward the door to Rachel’s room.

Rachel just gazed at her for a moment, comprehension coming slowly to her in her mellow mood. Then her heart gave a funny kick and she half straightened. “Oh-no, no. No.” Laughing, she made erasing gestures with her hand. “We’re not-no. He’s just my-I guess he’s sort of my-”

“I know you are under his protection,” Josie said, coming finally to settle onto the edge of another chair half facing her. She shrugged. “I just thought, maybe there was…you know-something more.”

Now it was Rachel’s stomach that did an odd little flip. “Why would you think that? I mean-I just met him two days ago. He delivered my baby-saved both our lives, probably. But…no, there’s nothing…”

“I’m sorry,” Josie said, that pink blush coming again to her smooth round cheeks. “I just thought…you know, the way he is with you. The way he looks at you. Maybe he feels…I don’t know…responsible for you?”

“That’s probably it.” But Rachel’s heart was beating faster. The way he is with me?

It came back to her then, the way J.J. had put his hand on her back when they were walking. Was that what Josie meant?

Then she was trying to remember if Nicky had ever done that. She thought of all the times they’d gone places together, appeared at benefits and nightclubs and balls and posh parties where celebrities gathered to play. Nicky had loved to be out among the rich and famous, and he’d loved having her on his arm. But no, she couldn’t recall that he’d ever put his hand on her back in that certain protective way. Rather, it was almost as if he’d worn her, she thought, like an expensive accessory.