The Interpreter

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“I’m sure they weren’t thrilled to lose you down there, too.”

“Not my problem anymore.” He couldn’t let it be.

“I suppose that’s true enough. So what are you doing with yourself?”

Besides failing completely as a father figure, trying to relearn ranching after years away from it and stumbling on to strange women up in the mountains?

“A little of this and that,” he answered, loathe to explain to the agent about Miriam and Charlie. “You know I’m back in Utah, don’t you?”

“I’d heard rumors. Something about a ranch in the family and you playing cowboy for a while. You’re just over the mountains, right?”

Cale had been working out of the Salt Lake FBI field office for the last few years, precisely the reason Mason had tracked him down. “Yeah. Outside Moose Springs.”

“Close enough to catch a beer sometime. Hope we won’t run into any angry Filipino scooter gangs this time.”

Mason laughed, to his great surprise. “Definitely. Next time I’m in the city, I’ll call you.” If he didn’t have two little rugrats along, anyway.

“Listen,” he went on, “I called because I need a favor.”

“Anything. You know I’m in deep to you after you saved my ass in that bar in Tandag.”

“I have no doubt you would have charmed your way out of it. It wasn’t your fault you hit on the Vespa King’s girlfriend.”

He paused, trying to figure out the best way to explain about his Jane Doe. “Look, I know missing persons isn’t your specialty—at least not missing adults—but I figured you could maybe keep your ear to the ground for me.”

“About?”

He heard a small exclamation of laughter from the other room and somehow he knew it had to be Jane. The low, delighted sound seemed to slide down his spine, distracting him from his thoughts. He strained to catch more of it, or some clue into what might be so amusing, but couldn’t hear anything future.

“About?” Davis prompted again after a moment.

“Sorry.” He let out a breath and focused. “I need you to let me know if you hear any buzz about a missing persons case involving a woman—late twenties, maybe, with brown hair and blue eyes. British.”

Cale said nothing for several seconds and Mason could almost hear his eyebrows rise. “Okay.” The agent drew the word out. “You want to tell me what this is about?”

He sighed. “Long story, one I’m sure you’ll never believe. I’ll have to tell you over that beer.”

“And in the meantime I’m supposed to keep my eye open for a missing persons report. I don’t suppose you might have a name to narrow things down. Quite a few missing persons reports pass through the field office.”

“Negative on that. Only a description.” Small, delicate. Beautiful.

“Of course not. A name would make things too easy, wouldn’t it?”

The kitchen had fallen silent, he realized. A moment later he heard a flurry of footsteps going up the stairs. “I wouldn’t need your help if I had a name.”

“Right. Okay. I’ll make a note of it. I can’t make any promises. We’re not always brought into missing persons cases and this one could slip through the cracks.”

“That’s all right. I appreciate your help.”

They spoke a few moments longer about shared acquaintances. Cale told him he was off CAC for a while and working on other projects.

“You have to have a heart of iron to work Crimes Against Children all the time,” he said.

“Yeah. I don’t know how you’ve done it this long.”

Even as he spoke, Mason found himself distracted, wondering what Jane and Pam and the kids were all doing up there. A moment later his question was answered when he heard the thump and moan of the pipes in the old ranch house and realized someone was running a bath upstairs in the clawfoot tub of the guest bathroom.

He had a quick mental image of that slender form slipping into warm, scented bubbles, all creamy skin and tantalizing curves. He lingered for only an instant on the image before he shoved it aside, disgusted with himself.

He was still castigating himself—and doing his best to keep those images from reappearing—when he and the FBI agent ended their conversation a short time later.

“I’m sorry again about the Betrans, Keller,” Cale said quietly. “I lost a partner a few years back. I was in a bad place for a long time, blaming myself, angry at the world. But I can tell you things do get better.”

Did you have two constant reminders living with you? Mason wondered. Two children you didn’t know what to do with, who cried in their sleep and looked at you out of dark, lost eyes?

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mason murmured, then thanked the agent again for his help and hung up.

The water abruptly stopped and all was silent from upstairs. It took every ounce of willpower not to dwell on those images of bubbles and curves again.

He was half-aroused, he realized with disgust. He had been without a woman far too long if he could get turned on trying not to imagine his mystery guest taking a bath.

He would have to do something about that, but he had no idea what. This was rural Utah. Unattached women willing to have a no-strings affair with a man who was lousy at relationships weren’t exactly growing on trees in this region of the country.

In the meantime, he would have to just do his best to ignore his unwilling attraction to Jane Doe—and hope to hell he could figure out her game.

After a delicious meal and a long, hot soak in water softly scented of lavender and chamomile, Jane felt almost human again.

Though her skin was wrinkled and pruney, the pervading ache in her muscles eased and even the pounding in her head had dulled to a steady throb. Perhaps with a little sleep even that would fade.

She dried herself, dressed in the voluminous cotton nightgown loaned her by Pam Lewis, and found her way to the guest room Mason’s housekeeper had pointed out.

The room was a little threadbare with only a bed, an old-fashioned carved chest of drawers and a small bedside table, but it was clean and comfortable enough and had a lovely view of the ranch and the surrounding mountains out the window.

All she really cared about was the bed, anyway. She wanted to sink into it and not climb back out for days.

She pulled back a pale-blue quilt of worn, soft cotton and slid between sheets that smelled of sunshine and fresh air. Ah, heaven.

Sleep didn’t come immediately, despite her exhaustion. She couldn’t have expected it to, not when her mind raced with a hundred questions. What was the story here with Mason and the children? How did a ruggedly handsome Utah rancher come to be the caretaker for two foreign-born children?

Why had his ranch been empty for the last few years? Where was he during that time and what had he been doing?

Why was he so suspicious of her, so unwilling to believe she was telling the truth about her amnesia? And why did he seem to be surrounded by a subtle air of danger, of keen alertness, as if he would be ready to take on any threat?