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The truck jolted to a halt. A man hopped out and slammed the door with a force that echoed through the woods.
Gena’s breath froze in her chest. Quinn Buchanon.
What was he doing in her front yard? The one person in Gabriel’s Crossing she preferred never to encounter one-on-one. Especially not in her own home.
Mouth suddenly dry as cottonseed hull, she stayed huddled behind the curtain. He could knock but she wouldn’t open. Not to him.
He marched around the front of his truck, clearly in a fit of temper, yanked open the passenger-side door and hauled someone out by the scruff of the neck—a lanky eleven-year-old boy with a bad attitude.
“Oh, no. No, no, no!” Gena jerked at the knob, flinging the door wide to race down the steps in her fuzzy slippers, heedless of the gray, damp cold.
“Derrick! What are you—” She skidded to a stop, attention frozen on the rifle in the boy’s hand. In a terrible voice, she asked, “Where did you get that gun?”
“I—”
Before he could respond, she whirled on the detestable man. This was exactly the kind of irresponsible thing someone like Quinn would do.
She jabbed a finger at him. “Did you give him that gun? Have you lost your mind?”
Quinn glared at her. “I was going to say the same to you.”
“Me? I don’t own a gun.” She turned on the boy. “Where did you get that?” she asked again.
Derrick, mouth insolent, posture slumped, only shrugged. She hated when he did that, which was all too often.
“Tell me where you got that gun or no computer for a month.”
He twitched. “Service out here sucks anyway.”
“The deal still holds. Talk.”
“I found it.”
“Found a rifle? Where?” Oh, Lord. Please don’t let this be stolen. She’d never dreamed raising a boy alone could be this hard.
“The storage room. I went hunting. It’s no big deal. That’s what country boys do, isn’t it?”
His cocky, derisive attitude set her teeth on edge. He hated it here, deep in the country, away from the city, away from his so-called friends, away from taking things that didn’t belong to him, but until today he’d been in less trouble in Gabriel’s Crossing than in Houston. Less. He wasn’t Boy Scout material yet. She kept praying for him to settle in and be the happy boy he’d once been.
Quinn, who she was trying hard to ignore, scowled at her. “Haven’t you ever heard of a gun safe?”
“I had no way of knowing Derrick would be poking around and find a weapon. I didn’t even know it was there myself!”
“Well, it is.” He yanked the rifle from Derrick and shoved the offensive weapon into her hands. “Deal with it. He was poaching on my property.”
“Poaching?” Would the fun never end? “He shot something?”
Quinn hiked a diabolical eyebrow. “Want me to file charges?”
She looked at him full on now, fighting down the panic of having him in her space. Either he didn’t remember her or he didn’t kiss and tell. One was a check in the positive column and the other wasn’t. She didn’t know which she preferred—hating that he didn’t remember at all or admiring him for his respectful silence in front of the boy.
How old was he now? Thirty-four? Thirty-six? He was still gorgeous—sandy brown hair tipped in gold, hazel eyes and strong, athletic body—though lines bisected his forehead as if his problems had taken a toll. She squelched the pinch of pity. He’d been a player on and off the football field. He didn’t deserve her sympathy.
“I assure you, this will not happen again.” She hoped she could keep that promise.
She grabbed Derrick by the upper arm and propelled him toward the porch.
Quinn didn’t take the hint. He followed. “I’m not done with him. Or with you.”
“If you’re pressing charges, do it, but leave us alone.” Just go away.
She opened the door, gave Derrick her meanest look, willing him inside before this situation got worse.
A powerful left hand clamped on the screen door. “He could have been hurt. Someone with no gun experience in the woods this time of year is asking for trouble.”
Derrick, who never knew when to shut up, cast a derisive glance at Quinn’s bent right arm. “Is that what happened to you?”
Both adults froze. Gena lifted her gaze to Quinn’s face, which was suddenly as dark and empty as midnight.
He swallowed. “As a matter of fact, yes. I was stupid.”
“Well, I’m not. So bug off.”
“Derrick!” Gena, aching a little for the man she’d vowed to despise, entered the house and gingerly settled the rifle in a corner. Quinn followed as if he’d been invited. Which he definitely had not been.
“I’m going to my room.”
“No, we’re going to talk about this. Sit.” She pointed to the couch.
Rolling his eyes, Derrick slumped onto the cushions and crossed his arms.
To Quinn, she said, “I apologize for any problem he caused. Thank you for bringing him home. I’ll handle it from here.”
Her heart was hammering like a woodpecker against her rib cage. She wanted Quinn to go. Even if he didn’t remember, she did.
His hair glistening from the mist, Quinn stood in her living room bunched inside his jacket looking as blustery as the weather.
“Has he had a hunter education course?”
Derrick’s education was neither Quinn’s business nor his problem. “Tell me where you live so I can be sure he doesn’t return.”
“A fishing cabin about a mile west.”
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.
Chapter Two (#ulink_4dcc9e43-9620-5ab2-a7b7-382fea6f127d)
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 eyes tight and faces squinched. The mother gave each a nudge and then went back to tending the newest in her brood.
“Cool. She’s having kittens.”
At the unexpected voice, Quinn startled and bumped his head on the low doorway as he backed out of the shed. As soon as he saw the speaker, he frowned his meanest scowl.
“What are you doing over here? I told you—”
“I don’t have to do what you say. Her, either.” Derrick shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of a blue unzipped parka. Beneath, he wore a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his forehead. He looked like an inner-city gangster, which was probably his intent.
“I could call the sheriff and have you charged with trespassing.”
The threat had no effect on the dark-haired boy. “I know who you are.”
Quinn tensed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Some hotshot quarterback who got himself shot and ruined his chances at the NFL.”
The cold morning air chilled Quinn’s breath and set the pain into motion. He squeezed his upper arm. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Dude.” Derrick slouched his shoulders and gave off his best you’re-so-stupid attitude. “Don’t you know about the internet?”
“You looked me up?”
