She nodded. “I know the place. I thought it was empty.”
“I thought the same about this house,” he said with a quick glance around her cozy living room. “Satterfield place, wasn’t it?”
“My grandparents’ house. Yes.” She waited to see if he made the connection. He didn’t. Nervous, uncertain, she patted her hands together and said with only the slightest venom, “Well, now that we know each of us is out here, we can be careful not to cross paths again.”
Very, very careful.
Quinn frowned and didn’t seem the least inclined to leave. “I don’t like poachers. If the boy is going to hunt, he needs a license and you need to teach him to obey trespassing laws.”
Gena’s face tightened. “He’s not your concern, Mr. Buchanon.”
“He was today.” He squinted at her. “Do I know you?”
Her pulse thumped. “No.”
“But you apparently know me.”
“Everyone knows the Buchanons.” She kept her voice casual. Unlike an invisible bookworm named Gena, the Buchanons were known to everyone in Gabriel’s Crossing. Notwithstanding the four gorgeous sons and three pretty daughters, they owned a construction company and had built half the houses in the town. Maybe more.
“Then I’m at a disadvantage. What’s your name?”
Gena hesitated. If they were neighbors, which they clearly were, she couldn’t act weird. “Gena Satterfield. This is Derrick.”
Derrick glared at both adults with the “I hope you die a painful death” stare.
The tumblers rolled around behind Quinn’s eyes. “Satterfield,” he mused. “Yeah.”
She held her breath.
Finally, he said, “Ken and Anna Satterfield lived here, right? Good folks.”
Relief seeped through her. He remembered her grandparents. That was all. Nothing suspicious in that. “Yes. They passed away, and the house was empty for a while until Derrick and I decided to move to the country.”
“You decided,” Derrick said, making his feelings on the subject crystal clear.
Quinn glanced at the sullen boy, holding his gaze steady until Derrick looked down. Gena’s blood chilled in her veins. Go away. Stop looking at him.
As if he’d heard her thoughts and decided to comply, Quinn turned toward the door. Before stepping outside, he said to Derrick, “Fences are there for a reason. Pay attention or pay the consequences.”
He slammed the door behind him.
The living room trembled with the sound for several seconds before Gena pointed a finger at Derrick. “You are not ever to go anywhere near that man or his property again. Got it?”
He made a noise in the back of his throat and rolled his eyes. And Gena could only pray he listened.
Quinn didn’t expect to see the kid again, but even as he stoked the fireplace the next day and contemplated breakfast, he couldn’t help thinking about the surly boy with the soft blue eyes and his pretty, if hostile, mother.
He hadn’t slept much last night, more because of the incident and the unexpected meeting than the pain in his arm. He wasn’t complaining.
The boy, Derrick, who was probably eleven or twelve going on seventeen, had a chip on his shoulder as big as Alaska, and Quinn vaguely remembered Gena Satterfield from the old days. She’d been an underclassman, kind of nerdy, and hadn’t run in his circles. He remembered her sister better. A lot better. He’d made a point not to share that information with Gena.
But Gena wasn’t nerdy anymore. She had grown up to be quite the looker—pale skin, round cheeks, cute nose and wavy blond hair to her shoulders. He’d nearly swallowed his tongue when she’d come charging out the door in fuzzy slippers and a baggy University of Texas sweatshirt like some warrior woman to protect her offspring. It had been a long time since he’d had that kind of visceral response to a woman, especially an angry one.
He smiled a little, the curve of lips feeling unnatural. Mom said he didn’t smile enough anymore. Maybe so. He couldn’t think of much to smile about, but Gena Satterfield had both irritated and amused him.
She was a doctor or nurse or something medical. Unlike the rest of his family, he didn’t pay much attention to Gabriel’s Crossing society, but when she’d first moved back to Gabriel’s Crossing, the newspaper had carried an article about her, the former resident come back as a primary care practitioner. Nurse practitioner—that was it. He remembered now. She worked with Dr. Ramos.
What he hadn’t known was that she’d moved into the old Satterfield place. He didn’t notice much of anything anymore. But last night he’d noticed her.
He jabbed the poker at the recalcitrant embers, stirring to get a fire going. Recalcitrant, like the boy.
He’d put the fear in the kid during the ride home. Or he’d tried to. Derrick was a tough nut to crack, a city boy, who looked down his nose at small towns and country people. But he’d been fascinated by the gun. How he’d known about weaponry worried Quinn. City boys had no use for a hunting rifle, but Derrick had some basic knowledge. Enough to fire a lethal weapon. Not good. If the kid was going to handle a gun, he needed to learn to do it properly, to respect the seriousness and responsibility that came with the knowledge. Even then, accidents happened.
He rubbed at his arm, then tossed a log onto the embers and left the fireplace to do its thing while he rummaged up some breakfast.
Derrick Satterfield was not his problem. Not unless the surly kid stepped foot on his three hundred acres again.
When he reached inside the refrigerator, his hand trembled. He folded his fingers into his palms and tried to think of anything except the one thing that eased the gnawing in his gut and the hand shakes.
Maybe a run along the river. He grabbed the milk and poured a glass, then remembered the cat locked in his shed.
With a sigh, he poured a bowl of milk, warmed it in the nuker, donned his coat and hustled across the cedar-stabbed yard. As his arm had predicted, a very thin sheet of ice coated the world, glistening in the intense morning sun. Like back-lit crystals, the ice was beautiful, though damaging to the trees.
“Okay, lady, rise and shine. Today’s the day you hit the road. Drink your milk and g—” He stopped in the doorway. He should have expected this. “I told you no kittens.”
The tuxedo face glared up at him as her body heaved. Two damp babies, half-naked, lay on the towels. More, apparently, were to come.
He set the milk down on the floor. “Guess you’re not interested in this right now.”
A third kitten slipped onto the towels. The first two had begun to squirm and make small mewing noises, their
