She was fighting two very determined men. One evil...and one good. She just wished she knew which one would win.
BY THE TIME they’d made it back around the house, the rear porch light flickered on and Bettye cracked open the door enough to push a rifle barrel through it. “Who’s out there?”
Letting out a held breath, Sophia ran up the slippery steps. “It’s me, Bettye. I was worried about you.”
The door peeled back like a creaky old trunk lid. “I’m fine, honey. You sure scared Bandit, though.” She motioned them inside with the gun down and her left hand in the air.
Sophia smelled the faint scents of vanilla and lavender. A burning candle? Then she heard a man’s cough.
Adan shot her a confused glance before they entered the back door of the cluttered, cloying cabin. “What’s going on?”
Bettye gave them a sheepish grin. “Jacob saw y’all with me earlier and...came over to see what all the commotion was about.” She motioned to Adan. “Jacob, this is the Ranger-Man I was telling you about.”
Jacob? Sophia’s relief was followed by a bemused confusion. She’d always known Jacob Miller had a huge crush on Bettye, but Bettye had never indicated that she felt the same about the grizzled, cantankerous older man. He had to be at least eighty. He could barely walk!
Adan introduced himself and walked over to shake Jacob’s hand. “Hello, sir.”
Jacob pushed up off the chair and shook Adan’s hand. “Hear you’re tracking a nasty criminal.”
“Yes, sir.” Adan explained what he was doing here. “Have y’all seen or heard anything?”
“Not a peep until you two showed up,” Jacob said on a grin.
“Hey there,” Jacob said to Sophia after grasping Adan’s hand, his ever-present pipe hanging like a leafless tree branch out of his whiskered mouth. What little bit of hair he had stood out around his head in white tufts that reminded Sophia of snow caught against limbs. “We’re just sitting here enjoying the fire.”
“Without any lights on, apparently,” Adan replied on a dry note. He turned to Bettye. “Sophia was concerned and when we went around to the side, we found one of your window screens lying in the bushes.”
Bettye brushed at her braid. “Been meaning to replace that.”
“Remind me when spring comes and I’ll take care of it,” Jacob said, his gray beard dancing. “A mite too cold out there tonight.”
Bettye eyed Adan and Sophia. “It’s late, but you’re both welcome to come in and sit awhile.”
She didn’t offer up anywhere to sit, however.
“Uh, no, we won’t stay,” Sophia replied, unable to hide her smile. “As long as you’re okay, Bettye.”
“She’s just fine,” Jacob said with another big grin and a strong bobble of a nod. “We were reminiscing about when we were young and in love.”
“With other people,” Bettye replied in a rush of words. “We both were married long ago, before the mountain claimed us.” She glanced down at her house booties, a sly smile hanging off her cheery face. “Now we enjoy sitting by the fire.”
“Uh-huh,” Adan replied, his lips twitching. He glanced at his watch. “It is late. Sophia, I think we should leave these two young’uns alone.”
Bandit meandered out of the bedroom, his ears flopping and his nose in the air. After sniffing at Adan and then stopping in front of Sophia for a fur rub, he sauntered over to the hooked rug in front of the fireplace and plopped down.
“Some watchdog you are,” Sophia said, walking over to bend and pet him again. After giving Bandit a thorough belly rub, she stood and said, “Okay, now that I’ve embarrassed everyone, I’m going back to my own cabin.”
Bettye came over to give her a hug. “Jacob and I’ll sit a bit longer, then I’ll send him on his way.” She leaned in. “I did hear a noise earlier, honey. I used the old-fashioned message system. I flicked the porch light three times. Jacob saw it and came over straight away.”
“You should come home with me,” Sophia said, her gaze scurrying toward where Adan was making small talk with Jacob. She’d wondered if Jacob had been climbing in and out of that window, but that image just didn’t jive with his arthritic arms and legs. Maybe he was a back-door man.
Bettye shook her head then lifted a hand toward Jacob. “Are you kidding me? I been waiting for this man to catch me—this man sitting in the rocking chair, that is—for about three years now. Fate has a way of working in our favor sometimes.” She shot a covert glance at Adan. “Bad guy on the loose, nice-looking Ranger in the house, Jacob in my rocking chair. Fate.”
“I don’t need this kind of fate,” Sophia retorted, her gaze hitting on Adan. Then she looked Bettye in the eye. “Maybe we can talk in private tomorrow.”
“Sure thing,” Bettye said, stepping back. “Sorry about scaring you,” she said a bit louder for Adan’s benefit.
After a few more questions from Jacob about Adan’s being a Ranger, Sophia and Adan left to face the brutal cold once again. Adan had given them a description of Joe Pritchard before urging them to be alert. He did one more thorough check on the bushes around Sophia’s cabin, but turned up nothing.
Maybe the prowler was gone, or worse, frozen in the snow. Sophia could hope that, right?
When they were safely inside her cabin, she turned to give Adan a solemn stare. And found him standing there with a wide grin on his face.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, completely captivated by his beautiful smile. Too captivated. The man dazzled her with gleaming toughness, but she needed to remember this was not a social call. He was here to do lawman business and she had to keep that in mind at all times.
He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Did we just walk in on a...senior hookup?”
Sophia gasped then clamped a hand over her mouth. “No. I mean, no. I don’t know. I... I don’t think so. Not yet, at least. Bettye isn’t that kind of girl.”
“You’re blushing,” he said, his smile dying on his lips while his eyes heated to liquid gold. “And you’re smiling.”
Trying to deflect the sizzle of his eyes moving over her, Sophia shook her head. “So are you. I didn’t think Rangers knew how to smile.”
His eyebrows lifted while he stared her down. “And what exactly do you know about Rangers?”
“Not nearly enough,” she said on a sassy huff. “Or in your case, way more than I ever wanted to know.”
Such as, he would arrest her if he knew the truth. Or maybe that his smile could definitely change her attitude from standoffish to come closer.
