and she wasn’t about to dump a load of frustrations on this willing listener, but suddenly the lounge seemed stifling and confining. “Let’s take our drinks out on the terrace. I need a breath of fresh air.”
Steve rose and picked up both drinks. As they passed the bar, a craggy-faced man with a black beard wiped his hands on his bartender apron and held out his hand, forcing Steve and Deanna to stop. “You must be the shrink Deanna’s been expecting.”
“That’s me.” Steve nodded. “And you must be Dillon, the most famous storyteller in the Rockies.” The bartender looked to be about fifty years old, with raw-boned features that included a crooked nose and bushy black eyebrows.
“I don’t know about the famous part, but I do like to spin a yarn or two,” he admitted, stroking his shaggy beard. “Been around Eagle Ridge mostly all my life.”
“I’d like to hear some of your stories. I bet there’s a lot of interesting history in this area.”
“Yep, and plenty of goings-on right today. Nothing much goes on around here that escapes these two eyes of mine. Right, Deanna?”
Her smile was thin. “Everyone loves to come to the Rattlesnake and gossip with Dillon.”
“Hey, I’m no gossip. I always check my facts. You better be careful, gal.” He shook a stubby finger at her. “Telling tales out of school will only get ya in a peck of trouble.”
“And what kind of tales could I tell about you that weren’t true?” Deanna countered with quick sharpness.
Dillon gave a grunt that might have passed for a laugh, but then he warned Steve, “Watch out for this gal, Doctor. She’s as pretty as a diamondback rattler, and just as dangerous.”
Deanna ignored the remark, and Steve saw her face was flushed with anger as they walked away from the bar. A set of double French doors at the back of the lounge led outside to a large terrace bordered by a waist-high rock wall.
Now Steve knew why the tavern was nearly empty. The terrace was filled with hotel guests enjoying their drinks under the stars as they sat at small tables, laughing and chatting. He saw that a four-piece band was setting up at one end of the patio near a small hardwood dance floor.
Deanna eased onto a chair at one of the tables near the low rock wall, and Steve was aware of the deep breath she took as if to settle some disquieting emotion. Obviously the little encounter with the bartender had set her on edge. Even if he hadn’t been a professional delving into people’s minds and emotions, he would have been intrigued by the double-edged banter that had taken place between them.
“That’s Shadow Lake,” she said, resuming her conversational tone as she pointed to a wide expanse of water at the base of the hill. “In daytime, the lake is a bright blue, but once the sun goes behind those peaks, the water turns so dark that the shadows of the trees around it are reflected on the surface like black webs.”
“Then I’d say its name is appropriate.”
“Yes, in more ways than one,” she murmured, and then quickly took a sip of her drink.
As Steve looked across the table at her, he was conscious of the way the moonlight played upon her golden hair and traced the lovely lines and planes of her face. If the situation had been different, he could have easily allowed himself to become romantically interested in her, but he was an expert at keeping his love life separate from his profession. He knew how to stay within the bounds of friendship, and even though Deanna Drake intrigued him on more levels than he was willing to admit, he knew how to handle himself. Penny Drake was his patient, and anything that affected her was of vital interest to the success of her treatment.
There was a great deal he needed to learn about Deanna Drake, and the incident that had traumatized her child. He had studied reports sent to him with Penny’s referral, and even gone to the library to read news accounts of her husband’s murder, but the facts were vague. There had been no clues as to who had shot Benjamin Drake in a small clearing behind the hotel, or why. If Penny knew the answers, they were trapped in her mind, while fear kept close guard, preventing her from speaking them. And if he was successful in releasing the truth? Would the revelations be damaging to Deanna Drake? He was well aware that his first obligation was to his patient, even if the fallout of what he learned from Penny might be critical of her mother.
“Have you always lived in Eagle Ridge?” he asked as they sipped their drinks and drew in the fresh night air.
“No, my parents moved to Colorado when I was twelve. They bought a small ranch in this valley, and I attended a consolidated school about thirty miles from here. After I graduated from high school, I enrolled in a Denver college and took a degree in hotel management. My parents had sold out and moved back East by then, but I decided to stay. Both of them have since passed away. As fate would have it, Ben had posted an assistant manager’s job on the college bulletin board. I answered the ad and got the job.” Then she added, “And a husband as a fringe benefit.”
“Sounds like you two had a lot in common.”
She nodded. “Ben was older, had been married when he was in his twenties, and had lost his wife to cancer. He was lonely, and so was I.”
“I know how that goes.” Steve sighed. “I still miss my wife, Carol. When she died and left me alone with a two-year-old child, I didn’t know if I could put my life back together again. Luckily for me, Travis is pure joy.” Steve shook his head ruefully and chuckled. “He’s a handful sometimes, but he makes life very worthwhile.”
“I feel the same way about Penny. Up until now, she’s always been such a happy, outgoing little girl—”
“And she will be again,” he assured her. He didn’t want to talk about Penny, not yet. There would be time later to center the conversation around her child. Because Penny was a minor, he was free to share any insights with her mother as they occurred, and not violate any privileged-information edict that would have governed an adult in his care.
At the moment, he needed to find out as much about Deanna Drake as he could because the child would be affected by whatever was going on in her mother’s life. He waited until the right moment seemed to present itself, and then he asked, “Would you satisfy my curiosity about something?”
She smiled at him over the rim of her glass. “Sure. What do you want to know?”
“What’s wrong between you and Dillon?”
Her fingers visibly tightened around her drink. She bit her lower lip, and at first he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then she said regretfully, “I wish I knew. When my husband was alive, I had very little to do with the tavern or Dillon. Ben made it clear that he’d handle that part of the hotel, almost as if it were a separate business. Since I’ve had to take over the management of the hotel, Dillon has shown nothing but antagonism and anger toward me. It’s almost…almost as if…as if he believes that I’m the one responsible for Ben’s death.”
“I see.” He waited for her to go on.
She looked at her drink for a long moment, and then, just as she lifted her eyes to his, they were interrupted by a muscular young man wearing tight jeans and a muscle shirt that showed off his biceps. Steve had noticed the energetic young man with long bleached hair earlier because he’d been helping the musicians set up.
“I know the band’s an hour late, Deanna,” he said hurriedly.
