talk about Bobby.”
The housekeeper puffed out like a threatened hen. “What’s there to talk about?”
“I don’t know.” It was too early to leave, but she couldn’t face any more questions. “I’ll tell you when I get home.” She put her cup in the sink and started out the back door. Her work jacket hung there—dusty worn denim with a tear in the sleeve from yesterday’s argument with a fallen branch.
Beth followed her as she reversed directions and headed for the coat closet in the great room. “You might want to put on some jewelry for this date of yours. Earrings, at least.”
Shrugging into her black wool blazer, Thea thought about it. Then shook her head. “It’s a business meeting, Beth, that’s all. He wants to talk about Bobby. I don’t need to get all dressed up. See you later.” She left by the front door, preferring to walk all the way around the house in the cold rather than go through to the back with the housekeeper at her heels, teasing.
But she didn’t get away fast enough to avoid hearing Beth’s comment.
“Of course you shouldn’t get dressed up.” The older woman crossed her arms over her full breasts. “And I’m the queen of the monkey house.”
Thea looked back just before she rounded the corner. “I’ll add bananas to the grocery list,” she called, and heard Beth’s laugh carried off on the wind.
Instead of heading straight out to the state road, Thea turned the Land Rover toward the work buildings, the cattle barns and the pastures beyond. Backing onto the foothills of the Crazy Moutains, the Walking Stones Ranch claimed terrain from water meadows all the way to subalpine mountain peaks. Most of that land was as familiar to her as her own bedroom.
And she loved to examine it the way other women might admire their jewelry. Even on a cloudy day, Walking Stones showed its riches, in the dull gold of cut hayfields, the fading green of frosted grass, brilliant yellows and reds from the aspens and oaks, the velvet black of fat Angus cattle grazing for breakfast. Wood smoke, wet leaves and a hint of snow colored the wind, its moan the only sound in an otherwise blessed silence…
Until it was broken by a rifle shot.
Thea jumped, then sighed and shook her head. Deer season opened today. Herman and Bobby and her dad had left before dawn for the start of their annual male-bonding ritual. She’d never been invited to go along, but she’d never wanted to. Venison steak didn’t hold a candle to range-fed Angus beef, as far as she was concerned. Culling the deer population made sense, she supposed, although she had a strong belief in nature’s ability to handle its own problems. There were, after all, coyotes and wolves.
Mostly, though, she liked looking at the deer alive, liked the alert shine of a doe’s eyes, the sweetness of the fawns, the power and majesty of a heavily antlered buck. Why destroy something so beautiful?
Turning into the wooded hillsides, she headed up a dirt track toward the fence line dividing Walking Stones land from the national forest. The winding mountain road beyond the back gate was the long way into town, guaranteed to take up enough time that she wouldn’t look stupid arriving early for her meeting with Rafe Rafferty. Or, worse, eager. Just because she wanted the chance to see him again, maybe have a decent conversation, didn’t mean he had to know how she felt.
Thinking of his dark eyes and the humor she’d caught there a couple of times, Thea stopped at the gate, climbed down from the Land Rover to unlock the chain, drove across the cattleguard, stopped again and got out to refasten the lock. She pulled hard, to be sure the snap had caught, started to turn away, and realized her brain had recorded an image she hadn’t quite processed.
Easing between two of the fence wires, she walked carefully over the rough ground, uneven with clumps of grass and rocks and dirt. About a hundred feet along, she came upon what her eyes had seen without her mind knowing. A deer. A doe.
Or what was left of one, anyway.
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