blew out a breath. “Why not? Seems like everyone in the world is after us.”
“We’ll sort it out, Shan.”
She shouldered her bag, desperate to get upstairs and away from Jack’s quiet gaze. Turmoil bubbled in her stomach. Jack stopped her near the spiral staircase. He moved close, standing a full head taller than her, shoulders broad and strong. He was lithe as a cat in spite of his bulk, a trait she’d always admired.
“Here,” he said without preamble, holding something out to her.
The slender circle of gold fell into her palm, sending ripples of pain through every nerve as she recognized it. Her wedding ring.
“Jack, this isn’t...”
“I know what it is and isn’t,” he said sharply. “You’re playing a part, and so am I.” His eyes shone stark blue, like the interior part of the flame that burns the hottest. “Take it.”
Unable to answer, she shoved the ring on her finger, turned on her heel and marched up the steps without looking back.
* * *
Shannon jolted awake. Moonlight streamed through the crack in the curtains. The clock read 3:15 a.m. She sat up. The baby was asleep, breathing regularly in the bassinet next to her. She was swaddled in the pink pajamas Evie had found in the attic. Nothing in the room explained what had disturbed Shannon’s fitful rest.
She padded to the window and looked out over the lush hillside that bordered the main road. As she raised her hand to move the curtain farther aside, the moonlight captured the gold on her left ring finger.
You’re playing a part, and so am I. The bitterness in his voice cut deep. She pulled on a robe and tiptoed downstairs for a glass of water. Built when Gold Bar was a bustling mining town, the inn was never silent. There was a constant melody of creaking floorboards, gurgling pipes and the hooting of the screech owl that lived in the tallest pine. How different from the rush of city noise. Lost in thought, she stepped into the kitchen. As she opened the cupboard for a glass, a calloused palm wrapped around her mouth from behind, smothering her scream. Whiskers tickled her ear, sour breath hot on her cheek.
“Well, hello, Doc,” Cruiser murmured. “Enjoying your vacation?”
She gasped, and he eased his hand away a fraction. “How did you know I was here?”
“A little birdie told me. Drove right up from SoCal, soon as I knew where you were.”
A little birdie. The anonymous person who’d called the inn. Shannon wriggled and thrashed, but he held on, his arms like bands of steel. “Stay quiet,” he said. “You don’t want to wake up your mother, right? Or the baby? Heard it was a girl. Ain’t that a coincidence? Dina had herself a girl also, ’bout the same size as yours, I figure. What do you know about that?”
Slowly he turned her around, arm pressed across her windpipe, pinning her against the cupboard. Her hands clawed his forearm. His eyes narrowed. “Got a wedding ring now, too?”
“I told you,” she gasped. “The baby is mine—mine and Jack’s.”
“I think you’re lying, and there’s a penalty for lying. Want to know what it is?”
Now she was fighting for breath, and she knew she did not have long before she blacked out. If that happened, Annabell would be easy prey, and if Oscar, Hazel or Jack got in Cruiser’s way...
“I’m not lying,” she said.
He pressed harder, and her vision began to blur. “Nighty night, Doc.”
The music floated through Jack’s earbuds, drowning out the sound of Oscar’s snores and making Jack long for his guitar. He’d often thought he should have picked up another instrument to avoid the guitar-strumming cowboy stereotype, but he’d never cared much what anyone else thought of him anyway. His fingers itched for the strings the way they had since he was four years old. Jack could never be coerced, bribed or cajoled into playing for family gatherings. Music was a private pleasure, one he’d finally shared with Shannon when they’d dated for six months, after she’d arrived the summer of his junior year of high school.
“Please, Jack. Just one song. Something that will make me cry.” She’d beg him to play for her as they sat on their favorite hilltop overlooking the valley. And he would play anything she wanted, anything that would move her and feed her soul. He’d played her favorite piece, “Mallorca,” the day her father left abruptly, the beginning and the end of everything, it seemed to Jack. She’d refused to tell him anything, and that was the day she’d started holding back, shutting down her feelings in a sealed vault he could not breach. He should have realized that something had changed in her, and so had the future they’d imagined together. The lovely piece thrummed through him now, memories of their youth entwined with the melody. He found himself playing it sometimes late at night, despising himself for his weakness.
Some tough cowboy, strumming sad songs at night and pining for lost love. Ridiculous.
Something intruded on his reverie. Still clothed in his jeans and a T-shirt, since he hadn’t packed a bag, he felt the slight vibration that made the photo above his bed rattle. Pulling out the earbuds, he sat up and listened. He heard nothing, but his gut was still tight. His twin brother, Owen, often said instinct was the quietest voice that shouted the loudest. For some reason, his instincts were hollering now.
He tiptoed out of bed and shuffled down the hallway, barefoot. All the doors were closed, and there was no sound of movement. Should he knock at Shannon’s door? Risk scaring her and waking the baby? Or should he send a text, which might startle her as badly as a knock? She was a light sleeper. She had to be a light sleeper in order to thrive in a profession where things could turn upside down in a minute.
Knuckles to the door, he hesitated. There was no light except the silver glow of the moon flowing up the stairwell. He felt again the ripples of unease, which cascaded along his spine like dissonant notes.
Downstairs.
He descended the creaking staircase, keeping to the edges, where the old wood was least likely to squeal, until he heard a thud and a gasp. After tearing down the stairs, he erupted into the kitchen. Moonlight traced the bulky form of a stocky man bending over something on the floor. Shannon! His breath caught, and he dived forward, slamming the guy against the cupboards.
The man Jack knew as Cruiser rolled quickly, his leather jacket squeaking under Jack’s fists. He grunted, wrestling Jack underneath him, until Jack forced him back and off. Cruiser was strong, but Jack was built for long, hard days working two-thousand-pound horses and managing the sprawling family acres. Cowboy tough beat biker muscle any day.
They both shot to their feet. He tried to get a sense of Shannon’s condition. She was somewhere in the shadows, but he dared not take his eyes off Cruiser.
“Shan?” he said. “Are you okay? Answer me.”
“Ain’t this cute? Hubby to the rescue,” Cruiser said, pulling a knife from his pocket. Jack knew knives, and he knew fighting, thanks to his brother Owen’s sometimes painful lessons. No matter how good your skills were, in a knife fight, you
