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“No.” The boy smirked. “I could’ve outrun you, if it weren’t for that stupid dog.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He hated to admit the kid was probably right. His knee felt as though someone had wedged a grapefruit beneath his skin.
“Maybe you oughta lay off the doughnuts.”
Cody’s already stretched temper snapped. “And maybe you ought to lay off with the smart mouth.”
The kid glared at him, and suddenly Cody remembered where he’d seen him before. He’d been in Nikki’s kindergarten class a few years ago. Dustin Holbrook. Child of an alcoholic mother and a father who’d left shortly after the boy was born, Dustin had been in the foster care system for the better part of his life. Cody hadn’t seen him in a year or two, but if memory served him right, Dustin was eleven. Naturally, he’d grown and changed as he neared puberty. But when Cody looked for it, he could still see the face of the little boy Nikki had taught and cared so much about.
Dustin’s slight build made Cody feel like a big bully, shoving him along down the street. But the kid refused to walk under his own steam. “You know,” Cody continued, shooting Dustin a smirk of his own, “you might want to be thinking about what your foster parents are going to say when I call them.”
“How do you know—” Dustin began, then clamped his mouth shut.
“That you’re in foster care?” Cody gave him a piercing stare. “I know a lot of things, including your name, Dustin.”
Dustin scuffed his toe against the ground as they walked. “Big deal. My foster parents will ground me for a couple of days, maybe take away my video games. Who cares?”
“You’ve got a lot more to worry about than having your video game privileges revoked.”
“What do you mean?” Dustin tried to hide behind his air of bravado, but he looked worried.
“You’re going to juvie.”
CHAPTER TWO
NIKKI TURNED INTO the driveway, with mixed emotions at being home. The three weeks she’d been gone had felt like an eternity. Her pulse picked up speed as she parked in front of the garage. Cody’s squad car was in the driveway. She hadn’t talked to him for a couple of days. The fact that he had kept in touch with her on the drive to and from Tennessee showed he still cared. Yet her stomach churned at the thought of walking through the front door to face him. She wondered if he’d made up his mind about moving in with Jordan.
“One way to find out,” Nikki mumbled. She climbed from behind the wheel of her Saturn and retrieved her luggage from the trunk. Suitcases in hand, she strode up the front walk, frowning. She’d thought Cody would at least come outside when he heard her pull in. It wasn’t like him not to help her with her luggage. The house was quiet and empty when she unlocked the door and pushed it open. Not even Max came to greet her. Which meant one thing. Cody was out on a ride. He often took off for hours on one of the horses when something was on his mind.
Nikki carried her suitcases upstairs to their room. Ignoring how empty it seemed without him, she began to unpack. She couldn’t stand to leave things in a mess when she traveled. Had to unpack right away, before she could allow herself to relax.
As she sorted through her clothes, hanging the clean, tossing the dirty into a pile to be toted to the bathroom hamper, Nikki glanced out the second-story window of the ranch house. It offered a view of the mountains, which encircled the one-hundred-year-old house like a lover’s embrace. For as far as the eye could see, the lush, gold-green pasture stretched out behind the ranch, rising to meet public BLM land beyond. There the grass gave way to sagebrush, and the ground grew rocky as flat became hills and hills became mountains. Aspen and blue spruce dotted the distance with color, and somewhere out there Nikki imagined her husband rode, lost in thoughts of his own.
On an impulse, she abandoned her unpacking. No matter what their differences, she’d missed Cody, and she didn’t want to wait one more minute to see him. She’d stalled, putting off the return home for far too long. Whatever their marriage had come to, she needed to stop running from it. She traded her shorts and blouse for jeans and a T-shirt, her sandals for socks and cowboy boots.
Minutes later, she made her way to the eight-stall barn, white with blue trim, that stood behind the house. Armed with a halter, lead rope and a handful of treats, she exited a stall through one of the connecting paddocks and walked out into the pasture. A shrill whistle snagged the attention of the four horses in the distance. Always game for a treat, they raised their heads and cast a hopeful look in her direction. “Come on!” Nikki called. “I’ve got cookies. Come on Cheyenne! Dancer!” She took a step toward them, noting that Cody’s gelding, Raven, was not in the group. Her movement was all the encouragement the horses needed. They trotted briskly toward her, then broke into a lope. She smiled, loving the way their muscles rippled beneath their well-groomed coats. There was nothing more beautiful than a quarter horse in motion.
She cooed to them as they gathered around, nudging and nuzzling her for their treats. She handed out the oversized alfalfa pellets, then slipped the nylon halter on her favorite mare, Cheyenne. The palomino lowered her head willingly into the noseband, and Nikki buckled the blue halter into place, then led her back toward the barn. The other horses tagged along, hopeful for more treats, and she laughingly commanded them back so she could open the paddock gate and slip through with Cheyenne.
A short time later, she had the mare saddled. After leading her from the barn, Nikki rechecked the cinch, then swung aboard. She sighed in pleasure at the familiar creak and scent of the leather beneath her, and relished the movement of the powerful golden horse as Cheyenne moved out at a smart walk. Nikki guided her to the trail that led away from the ranch through the hills, glancing at the ground. The pattern of shod hoof marks in the dirt told her Cody had been doing a lot of riding lately.
Clucking to the palomino, Nikki set off at a lope and was soon rewarded with the sight of a black horse in the distance, trailed by a large German shepherd. Her pulse quickened at the sight of Cody in his cowboy gear. She loved the way he looked when he dressed in his Wranglers, western shirt, boots and cowboy hat. The getup did even more for her than his police uniform, though he looked sexy in that, too.
A little tug of sadness pulled at her. It would take far more than physical attraction to save their marriage. No matter how strong. She let Cheyenne stretch into a gallop, closing the distance between her and Raven, not slowing to a lope again until Cody turned in the saddle and spotted them.
The look on his face as she drew close was enough to melt Nikki’s resolve to take things slow and easy. Clearly, he’d missed her every bit as much as she’d missed him.
Max gave a welcoming bark, and Raven whinnied a greeting to Cheyenne. Cody swung the gelding around to face Nikki, and her mouth went dry.
“You’re back.” His eyes feasted on her. “I didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”
“I left Nashville a little sooner than I’d expected.” On the way home from Amanda’s, Nikki had stopped off in the Music City to see the sights. Or so she’d told herself. Truthfully, she’d been afraid. Afraid to go home and find out things were really over between her and Cody. So she’d stalled, which had turned out to be a good thing, since Amanda had joined her in Nashville with good news. News she would share with Cody later, though she wasn’t sure how he’d take it. That’s why she had cut her sightseeing side trip short.
“I’m glad you did.” He urged Raven up beside her, and she could tell he was about to do what he’d so often done, what came so naturally when the two of them rode together. Lean from his saddle and kiss her.
She braced herself. It had been a while since they’d shared more than a casual parting kiss. As a matter of fact, the farewell kiss Cody had given her when she’d left for Tennessee had been a long time coming. But as she was anticipating his lips on hers, Cody stopped, pulling the black horse up short.
His expression sobered. “I’m also glad you rode out here.” The tone of his voice, the look in his eyes, put her on edge. “I have something to show you.”
With that, he swung Raven around, and Nikki urged Cheyenne into a trot, following along after him. She felt disappointed and irritated. He hadn’t even asked her how her trip had been or how Amanda was. Hadn’t welcomed her home. But then, what had she expected? That three weeks apart would automatically solve their problems? That he would welcome her with open arms and everything would be the same as it used to be before the accident?
Cody glanced over at her as the horses settled into a brisk walk side by side. “How was your trip?”
“It was good.” Nikki’s heart pounded. Should she tell him now?
He pursed his lips in a thin line, focusing on the trail ahead. “I meant to call so I could talk to Amanda. I owe her an apology.”
“I’m glad to hear that. But I guess I’d better tell you her good news first.”
“Yeah?” He watched her expectantly.
“Amanda’s seeing a really wonderful man. His name’s Ian Bonner. They’re engaged.”
“That’s great. I’m happy for her.”
“That’s not all, Cody.” She took a deep breath. “She’s pregnant.”
His head turned so fast, Nikki heard his neck pop. His expression shifted from shocked surprise to something she couldn’t quite read before he adopted the neutral mask he’d worn so often lately. A mask she hated worse than his anger and hurt.
“That is good news,” he said. “Good for her, anyway.”
Nikki scowled at him. “Well, I’m happy for her.”
For a moment, she didn’t think he was going to answer. He reached down and absently flicked a wayward strand of Raven’s mane onto the right side of the gelding’s neck where it belonged. “I can’t say that I’m not,” he said, his voice low and husky. “But you’re going to have to give me some time to let it sink in.”
The fact that Amanda could have what they couldn’t obviously bothered him.
“How can you possibly begrudge her a child of her own after what she sacrificed, what she went through for us?”
“I don’t. I just wish…forget it.”
“No, what were you going to say?”
The sorrow she saw in his eyes immediately washed away the resentment she’d felt moments before. “I just wish Anna hadn’t died.”
Familiar pain laced through her. “Me, too. But we’ve got to get past this somehow. We’ve got to get on with our lives.” She guided Cheyenne around a dip in the trail, her movements automatic. “Cody, we’ve got to start with us.”
“I know. I’ve done nothing but think about us while you’ve been gone. And I believe I’ve come up with a compromise.”
Her hands felt like ice. “Are you moving in with Jordan?”
“No.” He shook his head. At that moment they rounded a bend in the trail, and Nikki knew exactly what he had in mind.
A three-room, white frame house stood butted up against the rock face in front of them. In days past, when their place had been a larger working ranch, it had served as a bunkhouse and later as a home for the many live-in hired hands that came and went. But over time, they had left it abandoned and empty, except for some ancient pieces of furniture and the cobwebs the spiders had taken to spinning in the undisturbed corners.
Only from the look of things, there were no longer cobwebs in the house.
The cozy building bore a new coat of paint, and the broken-down steps of the porch had been recently repaired. Two chairs sat side by side near the front door, facing the panoramic view beyond. And through the curtainless front windows, Nikki could see the inside of the little house had been cleaned and painted as well.
She sat frozen in the saddle, her hands and legs numb. Her mind raced. “What have you done?” she asked, feeling betrayed. That he would fix up the bunkhouse—and so quickly—meant only one thing. “How on earth did you manage all this…?”
“I’ve had some help,” Cody said, “which I’ll tell you about later. What do you think?”
“It looks great.” Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he had something else in mind. “Why did you do it?”
“I’m going to move in here,” he said quietly.
She sat her horse in silence, not sure what to say. A temporary stay in the bunkhouse would’ve required cleaning the place up, even repairing the broken steps. But the new paint, the yard cleared of brush and rock…it all looked too permanent. Too much as though Cody meant to stay here, on the ranch that had been in his family for three generations. But away from the home they’d known together—away from their bed—for good.
“Do you want to go inside and see it?”
Nikki blinked and tried to focus on Cody’s question. Tried not to let her emotions show. She gave a casual lift of her shoulders. “Sure.”
Telling herself to stay calm, that she could handle this, she swung down off Cheyenne’s back. The old hitching rail in front of the house had also been replaced, and she looped her reins around it before preceding Cody up the steps.
His boot heels clipped against the porch’s wooden surface as he moved past her to hold open the door. The scent of fresh paint greeted her as she stepped inside and looked around. Arms crossed, Nikki turned to face him. “It looks great. You got a lot accomplished in a short time.”
If he noticed the apprehension in her voice, he gave no indication. “Like I said, I had some help.”
“Jordan?”
“Some. But mostly I had a kid helping me. One of the boys I’m supervising during his community service.”
She raised a brow. “The judge assigned him community service on our ranch?”
“No, but his foster parents did.”
“Who is he?”
“Dustin Holbrook. He was in your class—what—five years ago?”
Her jaw dropped. “Dusty?” She remembered a bright, shy, little boy with brown eyes and chestnut hair. A boy whose mother and stepfather had gone through a divorce the year he was in her kindergarten class. She’d heard whispered rumors around the school of the parents’ alcohol and drug addiction. “My God, I haven’t seen him in ages. What did he do?”
Cody’s mouth quirked. “Painted his initials on the hood of my squad car.”
“What? I didn’t see…” She gestured over her shoulder in the direction of the house, where his squad car was parked. “How did I miss that?”
“It just came back from the body shop.”
“I can’t believe he had the nerve to do that. What on earth possessed him?”
“Gang initiation.”
“In Deer Creek?” She wasn’t naive, and their little town was by no means immune to crime, but it usually came in the form of domestic disputes…and drunk driving.
Nikki cringed inwardly and refocused on her conversation with Cody.
“Apparently Dustin and two of his pals decided to form a ‘gang.’ They thought spray-painting their initials on a cop car would be a good way to get ‘jumped in.’” He shook his head. “They have no idea what the term even means.”
Nikki shuddered, thinking of the things cops in bigger cities had to deal with. Things like kids as young as Dustin being jumped in to gangs through initiation beatings and worse.
“So, his friends painted a squad car, too?”
“Nope.” He chuckled, and the sound sent a pleasant shiver up her spine. It had been a while since she and Cody had laughed together. “The trouble Dustin got into with me and his foster parents was enough to make his pals change their minds. He cooled his heels in juvie for a couple of days, then the judge assigned him forty hours of community service. I’ve had him pulling weeds and mowing the grass around the station, the senior housing units and the park. But his foster parents—Frank and Sylvia Thompson—have been harder on him than I’ve been.
“Dustin’s been getting into quite a bit of mischief lately, though he hasn’t broken any laws, until now. Or at least, none that we know of. They’re fed up with his nonsense. Asked me to keep him busy here on the ranch, too. So I have.” He gestured at the walls around them, bringing Nikki’s focus back to the reality of her and Cody’s circumstances.
She looked through the doorway that divided the living area and kitchen from the bedroom and bath. Cody’s clothes hung from pegs on the walls, and she saw several personal belongings on top of a small chest of drawers squeezed into one corner between the window and the foot of the bed. Her throat constricted, and she fought back the hurt. “So, are you already sleeping here?”
“Not yet,” he said. “I figured I’d wait until you got back.”
Nikki plastered a humorless smile on her face and lifted her hands. “Well, I’m home. So I guess that means you’ll be sleeping here tonight.” She spun on her heel and left the room.
“Nikki.” Cody followed her, but she was already halfway across the room, halfway to her horse before he could close the door and catch up to her. She gathered Cheyenne’s reins, swung into the saddle and faced him. “What did you expect?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She tried to sit up straighter in the saddle. To cowboy up. “I guess I knew this was coming…well, not this specifically, but that you might move out.”
“I thought it would be better this way.” Cody shrugged and leaned against a newel post, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Damn but he looked tempting standing there, hip cocked, black cowboy hat shadowing his face. He looked like a man who belonged here.
Nikki felt like the outcast, a stranger. Maybe she should be the one leaving.
It was going to be a long, hard summer.
“Sure.” She gave Cody a tight smile. “It’ll be better this way.” She lifted the reins and backed Cheyenne away from the hitching post. “I’ve got to finish unpacking. I’ll see you later.”
She spun the mare around and galloped down the trail toward the barn.
CHAPTER THREE
CODY WATCHED NIKKI ride away, his heart heavy. He wanted to go after her, sit her down and make things right between them. But he didn’t exactly know how to go about doing that.
He shook off the thought. Nikki needed a little time to let it sink in. Lord knew, it hadn’t yet sunk in for him—that they would actually be living apart. Sure, he was still on the ranch, but the acreage separating him from Nikki felt like the Grand Canyon. Still, he needed to focus on work and his search for Anna’s killer.
Not expecting Nikki to be home until tomorrow, he’d made arrangements for Dustin’s foster parents to bring him to the ranch this morning. Cody had a long row of fencing that needed to be repaired and replaced, and he figured it would keep Dustin out of trouble. It was also a good way to get to know him better. The more time he’d spent around the kid, the more curious he was about Dustin Holbrook.
In spite of his penchant for mischief, the only previous trouble Sylvia could recall was Dustin’s shoplifting a candy bar when he was eight. According to her and Frank, Dustin did things to get attention, even if that attention was negative. Like joining a gang and spray-painting a squad car. But his attitude made it difficult to find him a permanent home.
Cody rode back to the barn, but not until he’d given Nikki ample time to put her mare up and return to the house. He unsaddled Raven and rubbed him down before turning the gelding back out with the other horses. Forcing himself not to so much as glance at the ranch house, Cody made his way to his pickup truck, Max at his heels, and checked to make sure he had the tools and supplies he and Dustin would need for the fence.
