Crossing Nevada. Jeannie Watt

      Lizzie’s forehead wrinkled. “But...her face.”

      “Those scars did not come from trespassing, Lizzie.” He didn’t know how on earth they could and he was pissed that Tess would have told his girls that.

      “Then why did she say it?” Lizzie’s eyes were huge.

      Good question. Why scare a six-year-old? “My best guess is that she was trying to make a point. Her face didn’t get hurt because she trespassed,” he repeated firmly. “Your face will not get hurt if you trespass.” He could only imagine what scenarios Lizzie had been conjuring up in her young mind. “Even though you shouldn’t trespass,” he added for the sake of consistency.

      Lizzie sniffed. “How do you know?”

      “Because that’s not what happened to the lady. Her scars look like they came from a car accident, honey.”

      Lizzie twisted the edge of her blanket between her small hands. “She was lying?”

      “In a big way.” Zach reached down to smooth a few pale reddish-gold strands of hair off her forehead. In Lizzie’s limited experience, adults didn’t lie. She had so much to learn. “Now go to sleep, kiddo. There is absolutely nothing to worry about.”

      “Can Benny sleep with me?”

      “Benny stinks to high heaven right now. Trust me, you don’t want him in your bed or you’ll smell like a ranch dog. You don’t want that, do you?” A wavering smile touched his daughter’s lips and she shook her head. “Benny’s keeping guard on the porch,” Zach said, pulling Lizzie’s blankets up a little closer to her chin. “He’ll bark if there’s anything to worry about.” Damn, he hoped the dog didn’t bark. He needed some sleep.

      Lizzie’s smile faded away. She wrapped her arms around Zach’s neck, pulling herself against him. He put a hand on her back and held her for a moment, smelling the strawberry bubble bath Emma had given her for her birthday. Then he got back to his feet and Lizzie snuggled deeper into the covers, looking so small.

      “Liz, you know I’ll make sure nothing happens to you. Right?”

      She nodded silently and Zach smiled. “Good. Now get some sleep. Tia will drive you to school tomorrow.”

      Darcy’s door was open and the light was on when he walked past her room a few seconds later. He paused in the doorway and she looked up from where she was reading in bed.

      “If Liz yells again, I’ll go,” she offered.

      “I think she’ll be okay,” Zach said. “I should just let Benny sleep with her.”

      “Ewww. Have you smelled him?”

      “You guys going to wash him this weekend?”

      Darcy let out a heavy sigh. “I guess.”

      “Just how scary was this lady?” Zach asked. The girls had poured the story out shortly after he got home but it had been jumbled, told from three different points of view. At the time Zach had brushed aside the details and got to the meat of the matter—his girls shouldn’t have been on Tess O’Neil’s land and they weren’t to go back again. He didn’t want his daughters to have anything to do with her.

      “I wasn’t scared.” Darcy’s lips twisted a little. “But I was kind of shocked. It took me a minute to realize she was being serious.”

      “She’s serious,” Zach said. And a whole lot less than friendly. Why did people like that move to small communities? “I take it you guys aren’t going to use the creek path to get to school anymore? You’re going to stay off her property?”

      “We won’t take Lizzie on the creek path. That’s for sure.”

      “None of you will take the creek path.”

      “Dad, it’s so much shorter...”

      “And it’s so her property.”

      “It’s stupid.”

      “Stay away from that woman and off her land. Got it?”

      Darcy let out a loud sigh—the kind he’d recently discovered only adolescents seemed to be able to make. “Fine. Got it.”

      “Thank you.”

      Zach walked down the hall to Emma’s room. The door was shut, but he cracked it open and looked inside. His middle daughter was sound asleep, despite the thunder and the Lizzie drama. He smiled, wishing he had that ability. Sleepless nights were more of the norm for him and because of the uncooperative hospital accounting department, he predicted more of the same.

      He opened his bedroom door and flicked on the light. For a long while after her death, he’d kept Karen’s belongings out where he could see them, although Beth Ann had boxed her clothing and sent it to charity. But as time went on, he’d divided up Karen’s personal treasures between his daughters. The small collection of jewelry he’d stored for later. All that remained was a photo on the nightstand and a lot of good memories.

      And a lot of bad ones. Not of Karen, but of the grim months following the diagnosis. The trauma of the treatments. Meeting the needs of three little girls who were about to lose their mother. Grieving for his wife long before he’d lost her.

      Zach sat on the bed and eased his boots off. The first one fell with a heavy clunk. What would Karen have done tonight after discovering what was bothering her baby? He smiled wearily. Probably marched straight over to Tess O’Neil’s place and ripped into her. Karen had been sweet and peaceful, until something endangered those she loved. Beth Ann was the same way.

      So was he. It was important to get along with the neighbors, but when a neighbor threatened your kids, things changed. Granted, they’d had no right to cross her land, but they were little girls, not hoodlums, following a path they’d taken for years. What the hell was she thinking trying to scare them?

      Leave it. Just leave it.

      Easier said than done when he was brought out of bed two hours later by a crying child. He shrugged into his flannel robe, his last gift from Karen, and he jogged upstairs to find Darcy hugging her little sister.

      “It’s not the lady. Honest,” Lizzie said.

      Like hell.

      “It’s okay, Dad,” Darcy said. “Liz is coming to bed with me.”

      “You sure?”

      “Yeah. But only for one night.” Darcy emphasized the last words.

      “One night,” Lizzie agreed, making a beeline into Darcy’s room.

      Zach waited until the girls were in Darcy’s bed, then turned off the light. Across the field, Tess O’Neil’s place glowed like a beacon, every light on, even though it was almost three o’clock in the morning.

      Darcy leaned out of bed and craned her neck to see what Zach was staring at out of her window. Then she shrugged.

      “It’s like that every night, Dad. She never shuts off her lights.”

      * * *

      THE NIGHT BECAME still after the storm had passed, almost too still, and Tess couldn’t bring herself to go upstairs to sleep. She remained in the chair, dozing fitfully and waking the next morning stiff from having finally fallen asleep in an uncomfortable position. When she pushed the blanket off her lap and got up out of the chair, Blossom shot to her feet, but Mac was slower to rise. When he finally did get to his feet, he held his injured foot a good three or four inches off the floor.

      “Let’s see that leg,” Tess said, crouching in front of the dog. She reached out to gently touch it and Mac yelped, drawing it back, but not before Tess felt how hot it was. This was a problem.

      Ten minutes later, after a short internet search, Tess called a vet in Wesley, the larger town an hour’s drive to the south. As she’d feared, since Dr. Hyatt was the only vet within