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Deanna smiled at his retreating back. “Roger’s the proverbial jack-of-all-trades and master of none. He showed up last winter looking for a job. He’d be a good mechanic if he’d put his mind to it, or Bob could train him for office work, but he’ll never stick with any job very long. I think he was more a ski bum than an instructor in Vail, but his banged-up knee put an end to that life-style.”
Steve was sorry that the conversation had turned away from Dillon and whatever it was that made the bartender think Deanna was responsible for her husband’s death. He hoped the subject would come up again, but the band started playing and put an end to any easy conversation.
A few couples got up on the dance floor. For a while they just sat, watched and listened, until the barmaid came around to take an order for more drinks.
Deanna shook her head. “I think we’d best be getting upstairs. It’s about time to put Penny down for the night, and I imagine Susan has a date. She and Jeffery have been a couple for a few weeks now. Young love, you know,” she said in a wistful tone.
“I’d say this is the perfect setting for it.” With that said, Steve let his gaze circle the panorama of mountain peaks etched darkly against the night sky.
She didn’t answer, and when he turned and looked at her, something in her face touched him in a way he wouldn’t have thought possible. Her eyes were filled with such hurt and loneliness that he wanted to pull her close.
He took himself in hand, and as evenly as the sudden quickening of his breath would allow, agreed. “Yes, it’s time to turn in. Tomorrow is an important day.”
Chapter Three
On the way to her apartment, Deanna asked Steve if he’d like to see the therapy room.
“Tomorrow will be soon enough. I think I’d better collect Travis, and see if I can get him to bed. He’s been like a jumping bean all day. I’m afraid he’ll wear everyone out with that geyser energy of his.”
“He’s a darling little boy,” Deanna said sincerely. “Penny seems fascinated by him. Believe me, it’s been a long time since she’s shown interest in any other child. We have a lot of guests who bring their children, and there’s a nice playground on the hotel grounds, but Penny won’t have anything to do with them.” Deanna hesitated and then said, “I guess I ought to warn you that Penny may resist doing anything without the dog nearby.”
“No problem. Hobo can come along with her when she comes to the playroom. Actually, using pets in therapy is not uncommon. A lot of kids feel a lot more comfortable with an animal than with a grown-up. Hobo is welcome to try out some of my play therapy.” He grinned at her. “We therapists are sneaky guys. We’ll use every trick in the book to find success with a child.”
She smiled back. “Then I’ll relax, knowing that both my daughter and dog have found a tricky new playmate.”
As they walked upstairs together, they decided on a daily session from eleven to twelve each morning. Susan would look after Travis for that hour. “I’ll bring Penny up to the therapy room.”
“Good,” Steve said, and then added that he would meet them at the door because he didn’t want her coming into the playroom with Penny. As they entered Deanna’s apartment, he explained that it was important to control all the variables during the sessions, and that meant leaving everything else in Penny’s life outside the door—except the dog.
The children were sprawled out on the living-room floor, watching the end of the Lion King movie, and Susan was curled up on the couch reading a magazine. Both children were sleepy-eyed, and there was no protest when they were told it was time for bed.
“See you tomorrow, Penny. And you, too, Hobo,” Steve said as he collected Travis and started to leave. The dog wagged his scruffy tail at the sound of his name, but Penny only fixed her flat stare on Steve, and didn’t even respond to Travis when he said, “’Night, Penny.”
The room that they’d been assigned was at the opposite wing of the hotel from Deanna’s apartment but on the same second floor and almost directly below the therapy room, which was on the third floor.
Travis fell asleep almost the moment he hit the pillow, but Steve lay wide awake, looking out the window, his mind filled with a swirl of thoughts as threatening as the high dark clouds moving across the face of the moon. Maybe this arrangement had been a mistake. Keeping focused on Penny’s therapy and not letting himself be drawn into a potentially volatile situation with Deanna would be a challenge. The manager’s proprietary manner had clearly been a “hands off” warning. What was Deanna’s real relationship with Bob Henderson? She’d clearly been annoyed with him. Had he stepped into a lovers’ rift? Steve wondered. And if so, what bearing would their relationship have on his stay at the hotel, and more importantly, on his work with Penny?
And what was that undercurrent between her and the bartender, Dillon, all about? Apparently the craggy-faced man had been great friends with Benjamin Drake, and according to Deanna, he held her responsible for Ben’s death. Maybe it’s a good thing I’m going to stick around awhile, Steve thought. He just might be able to help Deanna handle some of the burden that had landed on her shoulders.
He kneaded his pillow, flounced over in bed and lectured himself about the protective urges that he was feeling for this woman he’d just met.
THE NEXT MORNING, Steve stood waiting in the open doorway of the therapy room when Deanna and Penny came up the stairs with Hobo bounding ahead of them. Whether or not the little girl would come willingly into the room without her mother was the first hurdle. Sometimes a child resisted being left alone with the therapist and the first few sessions were unproductive. Nevertheless, Steve was always firm about making the child adjust to being without any parent during therapy.
He was relieved when Penny showed no hesitancy about coming into the playroom with her dog for a look-see. He suspected that Penny must have overheard some of Deanna’s preparations for furnishing the therapy room and was curious about it.
Steve gave Deanna the “okay” sign, and then shut the door. The little girl didn’t seem to notice or be concerned that her mother had gone. Shiny golden curls framed her solemn face, and a shower of freckles dotted her slightly pug nose. She would have been a beautiful child if there’d been a bit of life in her vacant expression.
Steve released a thankful breath that she hadn’t shown any resistance to staying in the playroom. He made himself comfortable on a floor cushion beside a low round table like the one he had in his office. Sitting quietly, he watched the child and dog explore the room.
Hobo sniffed at everything, poked his nose into buckets of toys, and accidentally set a ball rolling with his nose. Penny slowly made a circuit of the room, looking at the dollhouse, sandbox, an easel set up with paper, crayon and paints and an array of puppets and stuffed animals sitting on a shelf, but she didn’t touch anything.
Apparently having satisfied her curiosity, she started toward the door and motioned for Hobo to follow. She was ready to leave.
“Penny.”
She stopped and looked at Steve, her eyes fixed and staring.
He held up a small kitchen timer that was ticking away. “Have you seen a timer, Penny? Like this one? Your mother wants you to stay until this hand goes all the way around. That’s an hour. You can do anything you want until the bell dings. Anything at all. You can play or not play. It’s up to you, but you have to stay here until it’s time to go.”
She looked at him, at the timer, and then at the closed door. Her expression remained the same, closed and guarded. No sign of tears, nor hysterics, nor hint of any kind of emotion.
Hobo came over to the low table where Steve was sitting and sniffed at a plastic bag of cookies that he had requested from Maude, the cook.
“I know what Hobo wants.” Steve laughed and held up the sack. “He wants to eat a cookie. Do you want to give him one?”
There was no visible response on her face, but as Hobo did some dancing turns, begging for the cookie, Penny slowly moved closer to the table.
As Steve held out the sack to her, the dog poked at it with his nose, drooling with anticipation. “Do you want to give Hobo a cookie?”
Without even a responding flicker of her eyelashes, she took the sack, pulled out a cookie and gave it to Hobo. Then she handed the sack back to Steve.
“Does Penny want a cookie?”
As if she hadn’t heard him, the little girl’s eyes flickered to the closed door and back again.
The first hurdle had come.
Steve kept his smile relaxed as she just stood there. Would Penny accept the time allotment? Or would she challenge his authority to keep her in the playroom? Would she waste precious time in tantrums as some children did?
He waited. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the timer and Hobo’s chomping down his cookie. After a moment, Penny lowered her head, fixed her eyes on the floor and just stood there. She looked so small, alone and vulnerable that it was all he could do not to reach a hand out to her, but he knew that building the child’s inner strength could not be imposed from the outside. Deanna’s love would have healed the little girl if tender caring was all that was needed.
“For the time we have together, Penny, you can do just as you please. If there’s something you want to play with, you can. But if you don’t want to play, you don’t have to,” he assured her again.
Slowly Penny lifted her eyes from the floor, looked at the door and then back to him. Then she let her gaze go around the room.
Steve breathed a silent Good girl. He couldn’t direct the little girl or make any suggestions. For the hour she spent with him each day, Penny had to feel perfectly free to do whatever interested her, or to do nothing at all. All he could do was provide a safe environment so she would feel free to express the dark forces that kept her withdrawn. The traumatic blockage that made her fearful of being herself had to be removed, and only when he knew what that was could he help her back to normalcy. He pretended interest in making notes in a small notebook, wondering how long she would stand there.
Very slowly Penny began walking around the room. Once again she passed over all the toys and equipment without touching anything. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw her stop in front of a large window overlooking the grounds below. With purposeful deliberation, she pulled the cord that closed the drapes, shutting out the bright sunlight. Then she walked over to a small exercise mat in one corner of the room and lay on it. When Hobo came over to sniff at her, she pulled him down beside her.
Steve made the proper notes for his record, then he stretched his long legs out in front of him and waited to see what she would do next.
Nothing.
Penny lay there, staring at the ceiling for a long time. The hour passed and when the timer rang both Penny and her dog were asleep.
The dog lifted his head as Steve came over to the mat and sat beside the sleeping child. “Time to wake up, Penny.”
Long eyelashes fringing her pale cheeks lifted slowly. For a moment, Penny’s eyes were clear, but instantly darkened with shadows as she sat up.
“You had a nice nap,” Steve said reassuringly. “And so did Hobo.
Flushed with sleep, Penny rubbed her eyes, and at that moment she looked soft and cuddly. The child had inherited the same fine cameo features as her mother, and the same hint of natural curl in her corn-silk hair. No doubt Penny had inherited her mother’s strong will as well. Deanna had said that her daughter was a vivacious and outgoing child before the night her father was murdered.
The personality change was an effect of the trauma, and Steve knew that Penny’s withdrawal was a protective instinct, a barricade against frightening circumstances. How soon she would be willing to lower it would depend in great part upon how quickly she would trust him.
“It’s time for lunch. Are you hungry?”
No response.
“We’ll shut up the playroom until tomorrow. This is yours and Hobo’s place—no one else’s.”
Penny got up and walked slowly to the door. Then she stood there waiting for Steve to open it. When he turned the knob, showing that it wasn’t locked, he knew from the almost imperceptible flicker of her eyelids that she was surprised. Would the little girl have stayed if she’d known she could turn the knob and walk out?
Deanna was waiting for them in the hall, and for the last ten minutes she’d been looking at her watch, wondering what was going on inside that room. As they came out, she couldn’t tell from Steve’s face whether things had gone well or not, but he laughed as Penny and Hobo bounded down the stairs, so she took that to be a good sign.
Her smile held an unspoken, “Well?”
“Everything went fine.” That’s all Steve was going to say at the moment. As he’d explained to Deanna before, he never discussed with parents the specifics of what went on during therapy unless he felt he needed some more information that parents could supply, or it was time to share something with them that had a bearing on the child’s continued progress. A casual remark made by a parent could easily destroy the trust the child was building in the therapist.
Steve doubted that Deanna would be able to appreciate the importance of Penny’s nonresistance to staying in the room. Until a child was willing to stay an hour in the room, there was little chance of success using play therapy. She had no idea how long and fierce that battle could be.
Deanna translated his noncommittal answer—he really wasn’t going to talk about the sessions, at least not now. It wouldn’t be easy to curb her desire to know everything that was happening to her child, but she would have to trust him to tell her the things she should know. Deanna was determined not to be one of those anxious parents who put a doctor through the third degree every chance they got.
“What are your plans for the rest of the day?” she asked in her hotel-activities director’s voice.
“Any suggestions?” he asked in the same light tone.
“Well, there’s the hotel swimming pool, boating and fishing on the lake, and a lot of hiking trails. I guess I should warn you, Travis found out there’s a riding stable near here and he’s gearing up for a horseback ride this afternoon.”
“Ouch,” Steve said in mock pain. “I remember the last horseback ride I took. Believe me, the horse and I didn’t part the best of friends.”
“The riding stable has lots of easy-riding horses and guides. You could start out with a short ride up to Chimney Rock,” she told him. “It’s a gentle climb and you can see most of the mountain valley from there. The view might give you a better idea of the fishing streams, as well as some possible camping places and available horseback-riding trails. You shouldn’t have any trouble filling up your vacation. Everything for the outdoor man is right here.”
“You mean, the outdoor boy, don’t you? It’s that son of mine who wants to play mountain man.”
She laughed in agreement. “Travis has been poring over some maps and brochures while you were with Penny. He’s especially excited about our guided horseback trips into the wilderness areas.”
Steve groaned.
“Are you telling me you’re out of condition?” she chided.
“No, I’m telling you I prefer a racquetball court to climbing mountains.”
“Too bad. We don’t have any racquetball courts, but we have plenty of mountains.”
“How about taking a walk around Shadow Lake this afternoon? You could show us some of the points of interest.”
“Sorry, I have a meeting scheduled with a group who want to reserve the hotel for a conference. I’ll be busy the rest of today and tomorrow.”
And the day after that? In a way Steve was relieved that she was making it clear that she wasn’t going to step over any line that would put their relationship on anything but a professional basis. The more he was around Deanna Drake, the challenge of resisting the growing attraction he felt for her was demanding more and more willpower.
“Well, I think Travis and I will take that hike he’s been wanting, and then spend some time in the swimming pool. We’ll save the boating for another day.”
HE WAS GRATEFUL that he’d made a deal with Susan to include Travis in her child-care duties. After he and Travis had come back from their hike and spent an hour in the pool, Susan took both children out to the playground.
Steve wandered around the hotel at his leisure, keeping his eye out for Deanna. When he found her, she was outside in the hotel parking lot, talking to Roger, the ex–ski bum. They were in the middle of a discussion about the ailing hotel van.
“All right, call Denver and have the part sent up by express,” Deanna was saying. “In the meantime, you can use the Subaru for errands. Are you sure you know what’s wrong with the van?”
“Am I sure?” Roger grabbed his chest in mock pain. “How can you doubt the best mechanic this side of the continental divide?”
“Because you’re full of the blarney and you know it.”
Roger winked at Steve. “She loves me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” Deanna gave the cocky young man a playful shove. “Go on, order the part. Maude’s going to have a fit if you don’t start getting her orders to the kitchen on time.”
“That battle-ax.”
“She’s the only cook I’ve got, and I’ll string you up by your thumbs if you make her quit.”
He gave Deanna a salute. “Yes, ma’am.” As he walked away, muscles rippled in his back and thighs, but Steve noticed he favored one leg. Probably the knee he’d hurt skiing.
“Seems like a nice kid.”
“He’s no kid. He’s twenty-eight or nine. Anyway, he’s been hanging around Eagle Ridge for quite a while. Ben depended upon him to be the hotel gofer.” She sighed. “This has been one of those days that validate the principle that if something can go wrong, it will.”
Steve decided that Deanna looked like a gal who needed a break. “How about a glass of lemonade or something stronger?”
“Lemonade sounds good.” For some foolish reason, Deanna’s spirits instantly lifted, and she wished she’d had time to freshen up a bit. He’d been in her thoughts off and on all afternoon, and several times she’d made some mistakes that were the result of her daydreaming.
The dining room was nearly empty when they took a seat by the window and ordered a pitcher of lemonade and some sugar cookies. Deanna was just beginning to relax, when Murphy’s Law lived up to its reputation, and her rising spirits took another nosedive.
When Sheriff Janson glanced in the dining room, she knew that he’d come looking for her. “Not today,” she breathed a protest as he came in.
Steve followed her look and asked, “Who is it?”
“Sheriff Janson.”
Steve thought the burly, potbellied man in tight western pants and shirt looked more like a ranch boss than a law officer. He wore a dark cowboy hat perched on the back of his head, and tufts of graying eyebrows hung over dark eyes that were as sharp as polished iron.
Deanna’s stomach tightened as she put down her half-eaten cookie. Sheriff Janson had made it clear from the beginning of his investigation into Ben’s death that she was high on his list of suspects.
“Sorry to intrude on you folks,” he said with little sign that he really meant the apology. Taking off his hat, he held out a gnarled hand to Steve. “Sheriff Janson. I reckon you’re the fellow fixing to help Penny get over her dark spell. Sherman, isn’t it?”
“Dr. Steve Sherman. Glad to meet you.” Usually Steve didn’t bother with the doctor moniker, but Deanna’s reaction to the man had put him on guard. Suddenly she was sitting with her spine pressed against the back of her chair like a cornered animal, every muscle ready for flight. He couldn’t quite tell what was going on between Deanna and the sheriff, but the air was filled with some unspoken hostility. Why was she reacting so negatively to a law officer who must be trying to find her husband’s killer?
“Well, now, Doc, I sure hope things work out with Penny. The little tyke just might have the answer to all of this. I’ll be checking in to find out what she has to say.”
