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“Enjoy it while you can. It isn’t my usual style.”
She sipped the hot brew while he checked the road and declared it safe. The water was no more than six inches deep now. She retrieved her travel kit, freshened up, then paid a visit to the other side of the trees.
“You seem to think of everything—sleeping bag, stove, coffee, tea,” she said as they finished the last of the coffee, both of them in the front seat again.
“A person would be foolish to live in the mountains and not be prepared to wait out a storm.”
“Do you get lots of snow in Idaho?”
He grinned in that special way he had—rather humorous, more than a little sexy and definitely intriguing. It was his smile that had first suggested she could trust him. He’d rewarded her faith by being a perfect gentleman last night.
“Not as much as some places, but enough. Put that parka on. It’s about thirty-six degrees this morning,” he told her. “I don’t want you catching a chill before I get you to the ranch. My gear doesn’t extend to nursing facilities.”
She sighed raggedly, grateful her trust hadn’t been misplaced. There were so few people she dared put her confidence in these days. This man was very…nurturing.
She considered the descriptive word and, while she sensed there was more, much more, to the handsome deputy, it was a reasonable assessment of him.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded and noticed his glance at her hair. Since she didn’t have to hide it under a cap, she’d left it down around her shoulders.
“You look very different from your casino appearance.”
Lifting her chin, she returned his cool appraisal. “That was for work.”
“Or to hide your identity from someone?”
Her heart lurched at his correct assessment. She started to reply, then thought better of it. When unsure of what to say, it was better to be silent. He studied her briefly, then started the truck and drove onto the pavement. Almost three hours later, they arrived at a small lake formed by a dam. A community nestled close by. She opened the map of the state and asked where they were.
“Lost Valley. The town serves the ranchers and the tourists taking the scenic route on their way to Yellowstone or the Tetons or, heading west, those going to Hells Canyon in the summer.”
In the winter, she imagined, the place must be like a deep freeze. She mused on what it would be like, being snowed in for days on end. Her gaze was drawn to Zack, and her heart gave another of those odd lurches.
“Dalton,” she said suddenly. “Wasn’t there a gang by that name in the Wild West days?”
“Yeah. There’s a connection, but we’re descended from the branch that had the good guys.”
His grin was infectious. Smiling, she studied the map again and then the peaks around them when they topped a hill west of the valley.
From this vantage point, she could see all the way down to Lost Valley and the tiny town of the same name tucked in close to the reservoir. The valley was 5000 feet high, according to the map. He-Devil Mountain to the north was 9393 feet high. They were someplace between the two and still climbing.
“We’re nearly home,” he told her.
She gazed all around the panoramic scene of peaceful valley and majestic peaks, the lake and evergreen trees. “It’s beautiful here,” she said. “The most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”
He gave her a skeptical glance.
“Well, I’ve only been in Southern California and then Nevada, actually only in Las Vegas, until yesterday,” she admitted. “But I’ve always been fascinated by mountains and how they formed, the vast upheavals of the earth and the forces of nature and all that.”
“Yeah, it’s fascinating,” he agreed.
She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or sincere. Keeping her thoughts to herself, she picked out more odd names on the map. There was a She-Devil Mountain, the mate to He-Devil, she decided, smiling.
“What’s funny?” he asked.
“The names. Seven Devils Mountains. He-Devil. She-Devil. Are there others?”
“There’s one called the Devil’s Tooth. Another is Mount Ogre. Mmm, the Tower of Babel, Mount Baal, the Goblin. Those are the official seven. On the ranch, we have an escarpment with a flat boulder on it that we named the Devil’s Dining Room.”
“Does your Uncle Nick live there alone?”
“No. My twin brothers live on the ranch. My cousins live in Boise but visit often.”
“How many cousins did you say you have?”
“Three.”
A frisson swept along Honey’s scalp. Zack, his two brothers, the three cousins and Uncle Nick. That made seven. She inhaled sharply as her imagination leaped from the seven Daltons to the Seven Devils Mountains.
As if reading her thoughts, he said, “No, the mountains weren’t named in honor of my family.”
Looking at his devilish grin, she wondered about that.
Honey realized she would never find her way back to town as they wound around hills and through canyons. At last they crossed a wooden bridge over a dry creek, and the land opened into a flat valley ringed by tree-covered ridges.
Nestled on a rise, protected in a curving sweep of pine trees, was a stone and split-log ranch house. “Rambling” described it perfectly. Wings spread out to each side of the central structure, which had a porch across its face.
“Home,” Zack said. “There’s Uncle Nick.”
An older man came out onto the porch. His hair was white and lay in an attractive wave sweeping back from his forehead just like his nephew’s. His face was tanned and lined. A tall man, as tall as Zack, his rangy frame retained the lanky appearance of youth. She estimated his age to be late sixties, early seventies.
“What happened to your parents?” she asked.
“They died when we were young.”
“How?”
“My father and mother, plus my dad’s twin brother and his girlfriend, came home one year to visit, bringing us kids with them. They went out on the town one night. There was an avalanche and they never made it back. Since Uncle Nick was the only kin, he and Aunt Milly were saddled with six additional kids to raise.”
“Aunt Milly was the one who died in the accident? It was her little girl who was kidnapped?”
“Yes.”
Honey considered the events that had occurred in his family. Like her, Zack was an orphan who had been taken in by a relative. She felt a bond with him, one of tragedy.
“I’m sorry about your parents and the others,” she said a bit stiffly, but sincerely.
“It was a long time ago.”
“How old were you?”
“Seven. I don’t remember much about it.”
The bleakness of his tone belied that. She started to ask him where he’d lived prior to coming to the ranch, but was forestalled when he parked and leaped out of the truck.
“Wait here,” he said, and slammed the door.
Her heart set up a cacophony as she watched him greet his uncle, then gesture toward the truck as he talked. The uncle stared at her. They talked some more. Finally Zack waved for her to join them.
Reluctantly she did so, then waited for the older man to denounce her as a liar and opportunist. He studied her, his eyes as blue as Zack’s, but shrewd with age. When he reached out and lifted her chin, she met his eyes.
He smiled. “So you think you might be Tink?”
She shook her head. “Your nephew thinks so. I’m Hannah Carrington. Everyone calls me Honey.”
“Zack told me about your circumstances,” the uncle said thoughtfully.
Her heart did a flip until she realized Zack couldn’t possibly know her real circumstances.
“Your parents are gone and you’ve lived with an aunt since you were three or thereabouts?” the old man added.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“There was a question about your birth certificate?”
“I’m sure that’s just one of those odd coincidences that occurs at times.” She tried to sound honest and yet unsure enough to maintain a question about her birth.
He patted her cheek, something she wouldn’t have normally appreciated, but that seemed comforting coming from this kindly old gentleman. Like the nephew, he was a caring person.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said in simple welcome. “Show her to the rose room, Zack. I’ll put lunch on the table.”
“Are you supposed to be up and cooking?” Zack asked.
“Don’t fuss,” the old man said amiably. “The doc said I have to walk an hour every day. I figure if I can walk, I can cook and clean up the house a little.”
Honey saw Zack’s chest rise and fall in an exasperated breath, but he said nothing as his uncle went inside.
“It’s hard to keep help out here,” Zack said to her, heading for the SUV. “It’s too far from town. We’ve had about a dozen housekeepers over the years. They stay six months, maybe a year, then the isolation gets to them.”
He handed her the duffel, tucked his nylon bag under one arm, then lifted out her two heavy suitcases.
Clenching a hand into a fist in a sudden spasm of panic, she followed him inside. Her feet seemed to be coated in lead as they entered the rustic dwelling.
They passed through a comfortably furnished living room and turned right into a hallway. He guided her past two open bedroom doors and went into a third one, the last in this wing of the house.
“This is lovely,” she said, feeling very much the deceptive interloper.
The room was twice as big as the other bedrooms they’d passed. It ran the depth of the wing and had a large sitting area that faced the front yard. A door opened onto a path from that side.
The windows flanking the bed looked out on a small backyard edged by towering trees that grew up a steep ridge, where a forest of firs and pines spread outward and upward over the land.
Zack paused. He looked at the bed, then back to her. His eyes seemed to darken. She felt some secret inner part of her expand painfully, pushing on her lungs so she couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. She couldn’t look away as tension arced between them.
Turning abruptly, he placed her bags on the floor in front of a double set of matching doors. He opened those to disclose a spacious closet. “The bathroom is next door. The dining room is on the other side of the kitchen. Can you be ready to eat in five minutes?”
She nodded.
After he left, her nerves calmed slightly. She slowly pivoted, taking in the wallpaper with the big pink roses and soft green leaves, the sparkling white beadboard that formed the wainscoting and the sturdy oak furniture. A lacy white bedspread interspersed with pink roses covered pale-green sheets on the queen-size bed.
The soft-rose decor wasn’t the sort a household of bachelors would choose. She wondered what woman had picked it out and felt a strange emotion stir in her breast. It took a moment, but she finally recognized it as envy.
Some girl had been lucky to have this room, she thought, fighting the harsh sting of longing as she went to the bathroom and freshened up before facing Zack and his uncle again. That girl had been cherished.
Inhaling carefully, she dried her face, combed her hair and returned to the middle of the house. Four men were busy putting food on the table.
She stopped, her mouth dry, feeling like a rabbit who’d stumbled into a den of wolves. Her feet stuck to the floor.
One of the men spotted her. “Hi. Come on in. We only look dangerous, but no one bites. Uncle Nick lost his teeth years ago, and we’re not allowed to devour pretty women.”
“I have all my own teeth,” Uncle Nick corrected his nephew balefully, then smiled at her, showing off what appeared to be a perfectly good set of natural teeth.
She managed a return smile of sorts.
Zack placed a bowl of mashed potatoes on the table. “Sit,” he said unceremoniously and held a chair for her. “This is Honey Carrington,” he said as if it was perfectly normal to show up with a strange woman in tow.
She sat and let out another careful breath. Zack took the chair beside her while the older man sat at the end of the table to her immediate right. The twins were opposite.
“I’m Trevor, the handsome twin,” the first man who’d spoken informed her, his manner friendly and easy. “That’s Travis. He’s the quiet, ugly one.”
“You look identical,” she said, smiling at his joke.
Travis chuckled while his twin clutched his chest as if wounded. “I’d hoped you could tell the difference,” Trevor said in complaint, then spoiled it with a grin.
“We’ll have a blessing,” Uncle Nick said.
Honey bowed her head when the men did. Uncle Nick thanked the Lord for bringing Honey to them and recounted other blessings. She felt such an impostor. A brief silence ensued, then the uncle said, “Amen.”
“Potatoes?” Zack asked, handing her the bowl.
She took a small serving of each dish as it was passed. There were several to go along with the meat loaf, so her plate ended up filled to the edges. She gazed at it in dismay, not sure she could swallow. She choked down a bite of everything.
“You don’t have to eat it all,” Uncle Nick said kindly.
“Thank you. It’s more than I realized. But everything is delicious,” she quickly added in case she hurt the uncle’s feelings with her lack of appetite.
“So, Zack says you may be our long-lost cousin,” Trevor began after a brief silence. “Where did he find you?”
“In Vegas,” Zack answered before she could. He smiled. “She brought me luck. She found a quarter I dropped. When I put it in the slot machine, I hit the jackpot for six hundred quarters.” He turned to her. “I meant to give you a big tip.”
