The Maverick. Carrie Alexander

of her betrayal had been the only way he’d made the break, and still his unreasoning desire for her had remained—a torturous emotion to live with, driving him to dangerously escalating extremes in his work as a stuntman, all part of the effort to get her out of his mind until he’d finally smartened up and realized that seeing her again was the only way to know for sure.

      “I left you,” he said. “You’re still holding a grudge about that?”

      She gave a short, hard, dismissive laugh. No answer.

      They were passing Punch’s place, nearing the town. In a short while Sophie would turn back into Deputy Ryan and Luke would have missed his chance. He had to speak now—or forever hold his peace.

      “I wanted to take you with me, you know.”

      She went as quiet and watchful as an owl, her rounded eyes reflected in the mirror.

      “My brown-eyed girl,” he whispered, lost in a sudden swirl of bittersweet memory. Slow dancing with Sophie in the gravel parking lot of the Thunderhead since she was too young to go inside, her head flung back, her dark eyes on his. Speeding on his motorcycle, taking the switchback at a reckless speed, her arms wrapped tight around his waist. Hours spent lying together in the long grass of the Boyer’s Rock pasture, the sun-warmed earth their refuge, their cradle. Trading kisses, whispering confessions, studying the stars.

      Sophie blinked. Several times. “Sure you wanted to take me. So much so that you left town without even saying goodbye.” Her voice was clotted with wary resentment.

      Yet hopeful? he wondered, then deliberately reminded himself of why he’d left her behind in the first place. According to Heath—and other walking, talking evidence in the form of her son—she’d not only spilled her guts to the sheriff, she’d quickly found “consolation” with a string of other men.

      Luke refused to let her see how badly that tore at his insides. Ice water in my veins. “Well, jeez, Sophie, I guess I figured that if you were willing to turn me in to the sheriff, keeping me as your boyfriend was not a top priority.”

      She stopped the car in the middle of Granite Street, two blocks from the police station. Luckily there was very little traffic, as was usually the case in Treetop.

      “Luke…” she said, turning to stare at him over the top of the car seat. Slowly she shook her head. “I didn’t.”

      Anguish clawed at his gut. “You didn’t?”

      She was adamant, proud, passionate—his Sophie, his brown-eyed girl. “No, Luke. I most certainly did not turn you in to the sheriff!”

      SOPHIE TURNED THE KEY and sat dully in her thirteen-year-old hatchback—same age as her son—waiting for the engine to stop rattling. A wisp of smoke rose from the tailpipe.

      She sighed. There was no way she could afford a new car this year, not if she intended to heat the house during the long, cold winter, keep Joey in jeans, sneakers and pizza, plus pay tuition for the last two courses she needed to complete her degree in social work. If going to college part-time had given her any smarts at all, she’d have chosen a field that paid better. Having a career that meant something to her and the world at large was more important to her happiness in the long run, but in the short run, her old car was ready to plunk its last ker-plunkety plunk.

      Sophie’s head throbbed. Maybe her dad could work on the engine again, keep it going a little longer with another bubblegum-and-rubber-band miracle.

      She pushed the door open with a creak and stepped out, tired to her bones. Aside from the wicked headache, it wasn’t a physical exhaustion as much as a mental one. The psychological trauma of Maverick’s return had done her in.

      Facing her father and son was what she dreaded next. If Archie “Buzzsaw” Ryan had made his rounds to the Thunderhead and the liquor store instead of moldering in his trailer out back, he’d have heard the news. Word wouldn’t have reached Joey as fast. Even if it had, he wouldn’t really care about an adult he’d never met. Unless some busybody had started up with the old rumor about Luke Salinger being Joe Ryan’s father…

      Rolling her head to ease the tight muscles in her neck and shoulders, Sophie clumped up the porch steps of her two-bedroom wood frame cottage. Coming home usually gave her a boost. The small house wasn’t much, but it was hers—at least the mortgage was—and she’d worked hard to make it into the kind of safe, cozy home she’d never known, growing up. Today it just looked like a money pit—a conglomeration of loose shingles, dripping faucets, crumbling plaster and buckling linoleum. If she hadn’t splashed bright jewel-toned coats of paint on every surface to distract the eye, there’d be no disguising that the place was coming down around their ears.

      “Hey, Joe?” she called from the pumpkin-colored front hall, even though the silence told her that her son wasn’t home. She checked the clock. Time for a bath before she had to start dinner. If ever there was a day when she needed to be cleansed of her cares and woes, it was today.

      Luke already knows about Joey.

      The thought had pulsed at the back of her mind all day, a red-for-danger strobe that had given her the vicious headache. As the tub filled, she popped a couple of aspirin, staring at her face in the mirror over the sink.

      “He doesn’t know everything,” she told her bleak reflection.

      But he soon will—someone’s bound to repeat the rumor, argued the voice that had taken control of her pounding skull. What will you do when he shows up, asking if it’s true?

      How badly did she want Joey to have a father?

      “I can’t think about it now.” Sophie stripped off her uniform and dropped it in the hamper. She’d have to remember to bring the ruined shirt to the dry cleaner’s tomorrow morning—another expense she could do without.

      As if it mattered in the larger scheme of things. After this morning, she had worse problems than coffee stains to think about. Confronting them made her headache intensify. She could have sworn it was gnawing away her brain.

      Luke suspects.

      She winced in pain.

      Heath Salinger knows.

      The townspeople think they know.

      Gad, her head was going to explode.

      But everyone’s wrong—including me.

      CHAPTER THREE

      TYPICALLY, JOE RYAN came home with a clatter and crash—backpack flung to the floor, high-top sneakers kicked off against the wall, a brief stop to power up the TV at top volume, a noisy forage through the kitchen, gabbing loudly all the while whether or not there was a response from Sophie. Only his garrulousness had abated recently as he took more and more to locking himself in his attic bedroom, rap music pounding the slanted walls, immune to his mother’s entreaties for either a little bit of peace and quiet or a return of their old rapport. While Sophie figured Joe’s moods were the usual teenage funk, she missed the boy he used to be: sweet, funny, affectionate—a chatterbox.

      “Hey, Mom, what’s for supper?” Joe hollered from the kitchen, sounding as though his head was buried in the refrigerator.

      Sophie had left the bathroom door open a wide crack. “Casserole,” she yelled, which was what she always said when she hadn’t planned a menu or shopped for ingredients. There was usually something on hand that could be made into a casserole.

      Joe groaned. “Not again.”

      “Unless you want to fire up the barbecue?”

      He groaned louder to be sure that she’d heard.

      She muttered. “Then don’t complain about the casserole.”

      A creaking sound followed by the shushing slide of stocking-clad feet in the short hallway told her that Joey was trying to creep upstairs without her hearing. “Joe,” she called. “Stop and say hello before you go up to your room.”