He was still dressed and stretched out on his bed with his pillows plumped behind him and a magazine open in his lap. As she entered, he looked up, obviously startled.
“Josie, is something wrong?” he asked with a touch of alarm.
“As a matter of fact, something is.” She leaned against the door and narrowed her eyes. “It’s wrong that you have been treating me like a pariah ever since the night we made love. It’s definitely wrong that you refuse to look me in the eyes, that you barely talk to me and that you run in here and hide from me the minute the girls go to sleep each night.”
He sat up, a dusty red creeping into his cheeks. “I haven’t been hiding out. I’ve just been unusually tired over the last few days.”
She narrowed her eyes at what she knew was a blatant lie. “Really? Tired?” She shook her head. “That’s bull and you know it, Tanner. I think you’re not only beating yourself up for making love with me, but you’re also punishing me.”
“I’m not punishing anyone,” he protested, but he didn’t quite meet her gaze.
“What are you afraid of, Tanner?”
His gaze connected with hers once again. “I’m not afraid of anything,” he protested with a raise of his chin.
“You want to know what I believe? I think you’re afraid of loving me.” Her words hung in the air for several long moments and when he didn’t immediately speak she finally continued.
“I’m in love with you, Tanner. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and Lily and Leigh. I want to lie in your arms at night and laugh with you during the days.”
He stared at her and got off the bed. No joy leaped into his darkened eyes. No sudden epiphany curved his lips into an exuberant smile. Instead he looked at her as if she’d lost her ever-loving mind.
“Josie, you don’t know what you’re saying. This, us... It’s just not right. Whatever you think you feel for me, it isn’t real. We’ve just been through some traumatic events.”
“Don’t tell me what’s real and what isn’t.” She took a step toward him and was vaguely surprised when he took a step back as if not wanting her anywhere near him. “My feelings for you have nothing to do with things that have happened here outside of you and me. Tanner, I know what’s in my heart. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“I have nothing to give you,” he replied and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I have no intention of ever marrying again. I’m not even in the market for a long-term relationship.”
She searched his stoic features. He looked so handsome in his jeans and the blue T-shirt that enhanced the color of his eyes. But it wasn’t just his physical appearance that pulled such a wealth of love for him into her heart, and there was no way she believed he was as blasé about her, about them, as he pretended in this moment.
She frowned as a new thought entered her mind. “Is it because you’re still in love with Helen?” she asked. “Because if that’s true, then it’s a real tragedy. Helen is gone and she’s never coming back. If you don’t let her go to allow new love into your life then that means Lily and Leigh will never have the love of a mother figure in their lives.”
His eyebrows rose and then fell into a frown. “I can be enough for my girls. Besides, I’m not still in love with my ex-wife.”
“But you told me you still loved her when she left you.” Josie wanted to understand—what was happening? What was really keeping him from her?
“That lasted until I realized Helen wasn’t coming back to see the girls, that she had no intention of them having anything to do with her new life. My love for her died a cold, hard death before she was ever killed in the car accident.”
A sliver of relief rushed through Josie. She knew she could never compete with a ghost and she believed his words. She took another step toward him, her heart nearly beating out of her chest. “Then why are you so afraid of loving me?”
“You’re too young for me, Josie, and that’s something you can’t fix and you can’t change. We should have never kissed. We definitely shouldn’t have made love because as I said before, I have nothing to give to you.”
His cold tone and flat, emotionless eyes sliced a knife through her heart. She stared at him for several long, charged moments.
“You’re a fool, Tanner Grange,” she finally said. She whirled around and left the room before he could see the tears that burned at her eyes.
She escaped into the nursery, where she sat in a chair at the little table where she’d colored with the twins, where they’d played with toys and they’d fed her pretend “’sgetti” and cookies and juice.
Tears seeped down her cheeks as she breathed in the sweet scent of baby lotion and heard the little puffy breaths that Lily always made when she slept and thought about the soft little blanket that Leigh always pressed against her heart when she slept.
This was where she belonged. She felt it in her heart, in her soul. She also believed Tanner loved her, but she didn’t know what to do to make him embrace his feelings for her.
Too young.
It would have been laughable if it wasn’t so absolutely heartbreaking. He was only looking at a number rather than looking at her.
She wasn’t too young. She’d lived a lifetime of heartaches and had more life experience than people three times her age. She knew with certainty what she wanted and she was more than ready to be his wife and a mother to his children.
But it didn’t matter what she wanted. Her love for him meant nothing if he wouldn’t accept it. A sob choked out of her and she quickly stood and ran into her bedroom before the sound of her cries could awaken the twins.
She threw herself facedown on the yellow bedspread and muffled her cries with a pillow. The pain of broken dreams, of beautiful fantasies that would never come true, stabbed through her.
He was right. She couldn’t change it and she couldn’t fix it. She couldn’t magically change her age or his mind. She’d told him how much she loved him. She’d told him that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, and he’d rejected her.
She’d truly believed if she told him how she felt about him he would respond by telling her he loved her, that he wanted her in his life forever. But that hadn’t happened and it wasn’t going to happen.
It was time to leave.
She cried until there were no tears left inside her. She remained on her bed, hoping—praying—Tanner would come to her, take her into his arms and tell her that he had been a fool and that he loved her and wanted her as his wife, as his partner.
But minutes ticked by...then an hour and then another hour and that didn’t happen. The suite was quiet and in darkness except for the night-light that cast illumination in the nursery and the bright moonlight that danced through her bedroom window.
The thought of getting up in the morning and pretending her world was right was nauseating. The idea of spending more time with Tanner and the girls knowing she would never, ever be a permanent member of the family was torturous.
She would now be an outsider here, as she’d been for most of her life. With every minute that passed she would be reminded that she had no place here except as a temporary nanny.
Yes, it was definitely time to leave.
Peggy would probably be glad to step in and help Tanner with the girls until he could find a new nanny, and it was better to leave now before the twins got too attached to her.
Josie-love. Her heart squeezed tight and the back of her throat threatened to close up with new tears. Over the past week both Lily and Leigh had called her that. She only wished their father would call her that, too. She only wished...
It was just after midnight when she crept out of her bedroom and down the hallway. Her suitcase weighed heavily in her hand. It was filled not only with the items she’d brought with her to the ranch, but also the burden of unrequited love.
When she passed Tanner’s bedroom, the weight got heavier and new tears burned hot, tears she quickly swallowed against. She wouldn’t shed another tear over him.
It was over. It was done, and it was time for her to remember why she’d come here in the first place, the mission her family had tasked her with.
Trevor had told her that Matthew might not last the week. It was time to get the job done and return to Granite Gulch. Her father would have his precious watch and life would go on.
She paused in the kitchen and opened a drawer and removed a small paring knife. Carefully she stuck it into her pocket. Hopefully the only thing she’d need to use it on was the hard Texas soil when she dug for the watch.
Thankfully she managed to get out of the suite without Tanner awakening. The last thing she wanted was another confrontation with him.
She stood in the dark hallway just outside of the door for a long moment, her heart saying the goodbyes she wouldn’t be here to say in person.
She imagined the sweet skin of Leigh’s cheek as she kissed her and the way Lily liked to wind her fingers into Josie’s hair. The sound of their giggles when Josie tickled them filled her head with a grief that made her want to fall to her knees.
She allowed the piercing grief to suffuse her for only a moment, and then with a determined grip of the suitcase handle, she headed down the hallway to exit the building.
She slid outside the door, where the moonlight made it easy for her to load her suitcase and purse into her car. With her belongings stowed away, she paused by the side of the driver door and looked around.
Hopefully she’d managed to get out of the building without anyone seeing her. This was probably better than her and Tanner trying to sneak out in the middle of the night. Two people would be more easily spotted than one.
She started walking across the lawn toward the tree in the woods, where hopefully she could dig up the watch. The only things she carried with her were her cell phone and the knife she’d taken to help her dig in the hard dirt.
Hurrying across the land, she knew she had a fairly long walk to reach the tree. Her senses were all on high alert. She was aware the moonlight that aided her along the way might also make her a visible target.
She attempted to use the shadow of trees to hide her presence. The last thing she wanted was for the gunman to see her, but she also didn’t want to run into any of the security team and have to explain what she was doing outside in the middle of the night.
All she wanted was to get the darned watch for her father and escape this place of heartbreak. She thought of Trevor’s words that their father was fading fast and the doctors weren’t giving him much more time.
Even if she hadn’t left the house tonight, she would have asked Tanner to take her back to the tree in the next day or two. Now she wouldn’t have to ask the man she loved for anything. She’d take care of it herself and then be gone.
Her feelings where her father was concerned were certainly a jumbled mess. She hated him for what he was, for what he had done to wreak havoc on so many lives, but there was still a little girl inside of her who desperately wanted to love the man who was her father.
She could have just gotten into her car and driven away. Still, even with everything that had happened, she didn’t want to leave here without the watch. She didn’t care whether it was a clue to hidden treasures or merely a piece of junk her father wanted. She just wanted to do what she’d told her siblings she’d do. She wanted to get one thing right.
Finally she reached the wooded area where Tanner had parked his truck when they’d come here before. It was much darker here with the moonlight barely filtering through the thick tree leaves.
Once again she paused before continuing forward. Her heart thrummed a frantic rhythm and she prayed that nobody had followed her here. She didn’t sense anyone close by, but she wasn’t sure she could trust her own instincts anymore. She’d sensed Tanner had loved her and that had certainly proved false.
She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and turned on the function that was a tiny beam of light. A shiver waltzed up her spine as she took a step forward and then paused again to look left, then right and then behind her.
A rustling noise froze her in her tracks. Her heart crashed against her ribs with a frenzied pounding. Her breath caught in the back of her throat, making it difficult to draw a breath.
Was it him? Was he here? Had he been watching and waiting? Had he seen her leave the house and followed her and was now ready to pounce?
The rustling noise sounded closer...near her feet. She pointed her beam down and in the bottom of a thick bush she spied two bandit eyes staring at her.
A raccoon. Thank God it was nothing bigger and meaner. Thank God it wasn’t a man with a gun. The animal scurried away and her breath shuddered out of her on a sigh of relief. She could deal with night creatures of the animal kind. What she didn’t want to encounter was a creature of the human kind.
She hurried forward, careful to make as little noise as possible and keeping her light focused on the ground so she didn’t trip. She didn’t want a fall that could break an arm or a leg.
The sound of the stream on her left side assured her that she was headed in the right direction. Get the watch and go home. Get the watch and go home. The words played over and over again in her head.
Finally she reached the tree. She fell to her knees at the base, just beneath the mysterious carvings that had been slashed into the trunk years ago.
She pulled the knife out of her pocket and slashed it into the ground. The dry earth was hard, but the knife worked some magic and broke it apart. When she’d broken up the dirt enough, she began to scoop it with her hands, seeking the long-buried watch that her father had said would be here.
She didn’t know how long she dug, using the knife and then her hands over and over again without finding anything. Momentarily exhausted by her exertions, she sat back on her haunches and frowned.
Was this just another one of her father’s manipulations? Was there even a watch buried here? He’d certainly enjoyed giving his children vague clues over a long period of time when they’d been trying to find where he’d buried their mother’s body.
It had only been when he’d given them the final clue of “blue” that Josie had remembered that sky-colored splash of paint on the old fence by the barn on the family homestead and they’d realized it was where he’d placed their mother.
At first all of them had thought about having her body moved to a cemetery, but in the end they had made the decision to leave her where she was, undisturbed in her final resting place. They had all gone to that place on the old homestead and she’d been mourned by all her children who had grown up without her loving presence.
Would Matthew send her here on a wild-goose chase for a watch that didn’t even exist? She chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. But the gunman had said Matthew had bragged about the watch, that he’d told others about it.
Obviously the man who had been more than a thorn in their sides believed the watch not only existed, but also held a clue to a stash of money.
She bent forward and began to dig again in frustration, now not knowing if this was just one of her father’s sick games or if she would really find his old watch.
She widened the hole, wincing as she broke a nail in her frantic efforts. She dug faster, aware that every minute she was here was a minute when danger could come out of nowhere.
Tink.
Her fingernails glanced off something that felt like metal. Her heart began to race again as she scrabbled to move the dirt away enough that she could grab the item.
Success. She pulled the round item from the dirt and then grabbed her cell phone light to look at it. A roar of excitement shot through her. A pocket watch with a piece of chain still connected to the fob. The chain was rusty, as was the watch itself, but the dirty old pocket watch felt wonderful in her grasp.
She quickly moved the dirt back into the hole and then got to her feet and shoved the watch and the knife into her pocket. Now all she needed to do was get back to her car and head to Granite Gulch. She would see to it that her father had the watch before he died. Mission accomplished.
“Josie Colton, we meet again.”
She froze in horror. The deep voice came out of the darkness to her left and her heart crashed to the pit of her stomach as the same man stepped into view with his gun pointed at her chest.
* * *
Tanner awoke with a start. He sat up and listened, but heard nothing but silence in the suite. He lay back down and looked at the clock on his nightstand. Just after midnight. He’d been asleep for only about a half an hour.
The second most difficult thing he had done in his life had been to keep himself isolated and distant from Josie for the past several days. The first most difficult thing he’d done was listen to her pour her heart out to him and virtually turn his back on her.
She had looked so beautiful when she’d burst into his room. Her cheeks had been flushed with a hot pink that matched her blouse and her eyes had sparked like a warrior woman on a quest.
Having to completely turn off his emotions from her had broken more than a piece of his heart even as he’d known he was breaking her.
However, he knew rejecting her was for the best, not just for her but for him and his daughters as well. The last thing he wanted was another broken relationship. The last thing he wanted for his daughters was for them to get closer to Josie, to love her even more than they did and have her walk away when they were old enough to feel her absence.
And eventually she would have walked away from him...from them. He was absolutely certain of that fact. She hadn’t experienced enough of real life to know if she was truly ready to be a wife, to be a mother.
He suspected she’d been hiding out here not only from an armed man who wanted her father’s old watch, but also from getting on with the rest of her life.
She’d had only a month of freedom after years of being in the witness protection program. Decisions had been made for her all of her life, first in foster care and then in protective custody. It had to be daunting to finally be free to make choices for herself and to try to figure out exactly what she wanted her life to be.
Believing she was in love with him was too easy. She might be happy here for a couple of months, but eventually she would have realized she’d jumped too fast and she would want to explore being young and beautiful and completely unencumbered.
He’d watched helplessly as Helen had turned her back on him and the twins. He didn’t want to see another woman walk away from them. He wasn’t going to give another woman the opportunity, especially one he knew was just too young to know what she really wanted.
Still, the pain he’d caused had radiated from her beautiful eyes and cut him to his core. He cared about her deeply. He cared enough about her to push her away, to force her to find the life she deserved.
Unable to go back to sleep, he got up and pulled on his jeans and a T-shirt and then grabbed his gun and padded into the living room. He sank down on the sofa and wondered what the morning might bring.
Troy had said Josie could leave whenever she wanted. She was free to go home to Granite Gulch. She owed him and his girls nothing and he knew tonight he’d broken her heart completely.
Would she pack up and leave when she woke up? Would she stay to see to it that the girls had their breakfast and then leave?
An ache filled his chest as he thought about her not being in his life anymore. She’d take so much of the warmth in his heart with her. She’d steal away so much of the laughter when she left. She would definitely take a huge piece of his heart with her, but he couldn’t tell her that. The last thing he wanted was to give her any false hope that there could ever be something between them.
Restless energy filled him and he got up off the sofa and paced the length of the living room several times. He didn’t even remember his heart being this heavy when Helen had walked out of their marriage.
Knowing he needed to get some sleep before morning, he got off the sofa and walked down the hall. But instead of turning into his own room, he continued on down the hall. The need to take a peek at his sleeping daughters drove him into the nursery.
As usual, Leigh slept on her tummy, her head turned to the side and her favorite blanket clutched in one hand. Lily slept on her back, sprawled as if she owned the bed and all the space around her.
They loved Josie and he didn’t question that Josie loved them. She would have made a wonderful mother to them, if only she were even five years older...ten years older.
The ache in his heart only expanded. Josie was right. If he kept himself closed off from the possibility of ever finding love again then his daughters would never know the love of a mother in their lives.
But he couldn’t make his romantic decisions based on his daughters. And he couldn’t love Josie Colton. He refused to love her. He turned away from the cribs and stared at the partially opened doorway that led into Josie’s room.
The light was out and no sound came from within. He’d heard her weeping after she’d run from his room. Each one of her sobs, every one of her tears, had ripped at his heart.
He stared at the doorway, and just as he’d needed to get a glance of his daughters, he wanted to look at Josie while she slept. For all he knew, he might never get the opportunity again to gaze at her while she was vulnerable.
He crept to the doorway and peered inside. The bright moonlight gave him a perfect view of the bed...the very empty bed. His brain worked to make sense of the fact that she wasn’t in the room. She hadn’t been in the guest bathroom when he’d passed by it.
She was gone.
A wild panic hurtled through him. Had she sneaked out of the suite and to her car and driven away? Or had she gone after that damn watch all alone in the middle of the night?
He walked over to a drawer where he knew she’d kept her things and pulled it open. Empty. She had definitely packed up her things, but had she left the property?
He hurried back to his room, where he turned on the bedside light, grabbed his keys from the nightstand and then raced for the front door. Under most circumstances he would never, ever leave his girls alone for a single minute, but this wasn’t most circumstances.
Besides, it would take him only a couple of minutes at the most to see if Josie’s car was still parked outside. He hurried down the hallway toward the door that led outside, his heart beginning an unnatural racing rhythm.
He opened the door and his worst thoughts were realized. Her car was still there, but she was nowhere in sight. He turned and hurried back down the hallway.
Once inside the suite he didn’t hesitate to grab his phone and call Peggy. Despite the lateness of the hour, she answered on the second ring, sounding alert and wide-awake.
“Peggy, I need you.” His voice cracked with emotion he hadn’t yet processed. “I think Josie is in trouble.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Tanner hung up and grabbed his holster. He slung it on around his waist and shoved his gun into it. His heart now thundered with barely suppressed fear.
Why hadn’t she asked him to go with her to get the watch? Why would she take off all alone in the dark of night? The answers were easy. It was because she didn’t trust him anymore. It was because he’d broken her heart.
Damn her for putting herself at risk to make a dying serial killer happy. He could only hope the gunman wasn’t on the property and hadn’t seen her take off on her own.
He grabbed a flashlight from beneath the kitchen sink counter and then stood in the middle of the living room with every muscle tensed as he waited for Peggy to arrive. When had Josie left the suite? Had it been the sound of her going out the door that had awakened him?
How long ago had that been? Twenty minutes? Thirty?
He was half-frantic by the time Peggy arrived. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Feel free to sleep on the sofa until I get back. I just couldn’t leave the girls here all alone.”
“Of course you couldn’t. Go,” she exclaimed. “Go do whatever it is you need to do and don’t worry about things here. Just make sure Josie is safe.”
Tanner nodded and then hurried out the door. Yes, he definitely wanted to keep Josie safe. When he reached the outside, he headed for the stable where he kept Beau. Josie was on foot and hopefully he could catch up with her if he was on horseback. He wanted to get to her before she got to that cursed tree.
He’d like to take one of the trucks, but at this time of night he feared he’d awaken everyone in the big house and he wouldn’t put it past Fowler to fire him. Besides, the horse would be almost as fast.
He saddled Beau in record time and then mounted and took off across the pasture. In spite of Zane’s added security, he saw nobody as he rode hell-bent for leather toward the wooded area in the distance.
Even without an armed man hunting for her, Josie could encounter all kinds of troubles in the dark in the woods. She was unfamiliar with the area. She could fall and break a leg or slip and knock herself unconscious.
Or the creep who had been shadowing her could find her again...find her out here alone and vulnerable. His fear for her exploded through his veins. His one driving thought was to get to her as quickly as possible. His single driving need at the moment was to make sure she was okay.
Once again he wondered when she had left the suite. How long of a head start did she have on him? With every second he didn’t see her, his heart beat faster.
The heat of the night nearly suffocated him. Or was it his fear for her that closed up the back of his throat and made his chest heavy and breathing difficult?
It seemed to take forever to ride across the pasture even though he knew it had taken him only a few minutes. When he reached the edge of the woods, he got off Beau and tied the reins to a low tree branch. Then he set off on foot with the flashlight beam leading the way.
He’d hoped to catch up to her before now. Was she already at the tree? If she was, then hopefully she was there all alone and he’d run into her as she was heading back to the ranch.
He moved as quickly as possible through the trees and shrub. He didn’t bother to call her name. He didn’t trust she would answer him. If she’d wanted him with her she wouldn’t have left all alone; she would have asked him to accompany her.
At least the woods weren’t filled with her screams. His stomach clenched at the very thought of her ever having a reason to scream.
He was within twenty yards of the tree when the sound of voices broke the silence. All of his muscles tensed and he quickly turned off the flashlight.
“I didn’t find anything.” Josie’s strained voice rose in volume. “It was supposed to be here, but it wasn’t.”
“Don’t lie to me, girl.”
Tanner instantly recognized the deep snarl. He pulled his gun and crept closer, needing to get a visual on the situation. He slid behind a tree trunk and peeked around it.
His heart felt like it stopped. Josie stood on his left and the man stood to his right with his gun leveled at Josie’s chest. Danger crackled in the air like the precursor of a lightning strike.
“I’m not lying,” she said to him. “My father is the liar. He told us the watch was here, but it isn’t. I don’t know where it is. I don’t even believe there was a watch.”
“Then what are you doing out here in the middle of the night?” the man asked.
If only Tanner could maneuver to get behind the man, then he might have a good chance to take him down without putting Josie at risk.
“Empty your pockets,” the man demanded.
“Go to hell,” Josie replied. Tanner stifled a groan. She was tempting fate! Mentally he begged her to comply with the man. Why was she arguing with him with a gun pointed at her chest?
“You can either empty your pockets yourself or I’ll kill you and empty them for you.”
Knowing he couldn’t wait any longer, Tanner stepped out from behind the tree trunk. Everything happened in the snap of an eyelid. The man leaped forward, wrapped an arm around Josie’s neck and shoved the gun under her chin as he stared at Tanner.
Josie’s eyes were huge and seemed to plead with him to do something—anything—but as long as the barrel of the man’s gun kissed her slender throat they were at a standoff. There was no way Tanner could take a chance that the man wouldn’t pull the trigger.
“Let her go,” Tanner demanded.
The man laughed, an ugly, gravelly sound. “You sound like you think you’re in control here. How about you drop your gun or I’ll blow her head off.”
“And then I’ll shoot you and you’ll be dead,” Tanner countered, his nerves firing hot inside him.
The man cocked his head as if he were thinking about it. “That’s true, but she’ll still be dead, too. Are you willing to make that kind of a sacrifice?”
Not in a million years. Tanner weighed his options and realized he had none. The man could have shot her and killed her already. Tanner had to believe the last thing this man wanted was to commit cold-blooded murder.
“I’ll put down my gun and you let her go,” he finally said.
“How about you put your gun down and she gives me the watch,” he replied. “Once I have the watch then the two of you can walk away from this without getting hurt. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I will if I have to.”
“I told you...” Josie began but stopped as he shoved his gun barrel into her skin.
Tanner wanted to kill the man. He wanted to wrap his hands around his neck and squeeze until the life went out of him as he saw Josie wince with pain. But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t do anything.
“Josie, it’s not worth it,” Tanner said desperately. “If you found the watch then give it to him now.” He could only hope there was some sort of honor among thieves and once the man had the watch he’d let them both go.
Slowly, with great trepidation, he lowered his gun, bent down and placed it on the ground next to him. He straightened. “Your turn.”
The man pulled the gun barrel from the bottom of her chin but kept his arm wrapped tight around her neck. “Now, give me that damn watch before something bad happens to both you and your boyfriend.”
Tanner held his breath, hoping Josie had found the damn watch. He prayed she’d just give it to the man and this would all end here and now without anyone getting hurt.