An Impostor in Town (Colorado Series) (2 page)

“You’ve got it rough today, don’t you?” His voice was warm and sympathetic. The previous hesitancy she detected had evaporated.

What could she say to that? Nothing. Clamping her mouth shut, she looked out the passenger window. The last few months had been awful. So many times she had considered calling him to explain.

As they headed toward Mercy Medical Center she glanced at him. He was tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired, and deeply tanned even in winter. His eyes were warm, amber brown—the kind of eyes a woman could drift in. She shook herself. There was no sense examining him this way. No doubt Chris Smith found him attractive too.

“What are you doing out on a day like this?”

She shrugged her shoulders, hoping he wouldn’t detect where her thoughts had wandered. “I have to work.”

“With your seniority, you shouldn’t have to work on Christmas Eve.”

“I don’t have any family.” She wished he would quit pushing her to talk.

Silence descended. She squirmed in her seat and adjusted the collar of her coat. Beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. “So…what are
you
doing out on a day like this?” Her voice cracked at least three times.

He glanced her way, but his face was unreadable. “I was headed toward town when I heard the call.”

“I would think with your seniority—”

“I recognized your vehicle.”

“Oh.”

“Look…I know I’m not much company, but you’re welcome to spend Christmas with me.” Hope flickered in his eyes. She understood. The man just wanted some company. After all it was Christmas. No matter his motivation, she couldn’t give in to the temptation. “When’s your shift over?” He wasn’t giving up. She would have to tell him something—give him an excuse, even if it sounded lame.

“Eleven, but—”

“Suppose I call you tomorrow morning?”

Her raw throat went dry. “Where’s Chris spending Christmas?” The question escaped her before she could stop it. Would Brian sense her jealousy?

His brows drew together. “She’s spending Christmas with Angela and her family in Montrose.”

“Angela?”

“Angela lives a couple of doors down from her.” He glanced her way, a puzzled glint in his eyes.

She diverted her attention to the world outside the vehicle. The silence between them felt heavy—an insurmountable barrier.

They arrived at the emergency room entrance and she got out of his vehicle as quickly as possible. “Thanks for the lift.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

She cringed. The hope in his eyes burned her conscience. With a wave of her hand, she walked through the sliding doors.

****

Peyton raised her hands to the fire. “This is a nice place.”

Brian dropped the andiron by the hearth and rubbed his hands together. “I had to make myself start a fire for the first time this year.” The Missionary Ridge fire had been difficult to fight, raging for over a month. He had battled the fire with hundreds of firefighters and rescue workers. Peyton had nursed his broken leg and treated him for smoke inhalation. That’s why he called her his angel of mercy.

“You built this fire just for me, didn’t you?”

He smiled. “Dinner should be ready shortly. I hope it’s edible.”

Her red ponytail bounced a little. Was the woman trembling? She kept her eyes focused on her hands. Red and chapped, they always appeared that way. She massaged the backs as if trying to remove the color from them.

“You have an allergy?”

She jumped. “What?”

“Your hands…they’re red.”

Her eyes widened. Had he embarrassed her? Sure, he had. Dummy. He left the room. When he returned, he offered her some hand cream. “I get dry skin this time of year.”

She smoothed some of the lotion on her chapped hands. “I’m afraid I wash mine too much. Not very attractive, huh?”

He pushed the curtains aside and gazed out the window. “Looks like more snow.”

She sighed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I need a new car.”

“I think Charlie Mangham has a used car he’s trying to sell." He didn’t look her way. Would she tell him to mind his own business? An awkward silence ensued before he spoke again. “Hope you like chicken pot pie.”

She followed him into the kitchen. “Sounds great. Is there anything I can do?”

He motioned her toward a seat at the table. “No. You just relax. You’ve pulled a long shift and I’d like to do something nice for my angel of mercy…since you saved my life.”

She snorted. “I didn’t save your life. You weren’t anywhere near dying!”

“Smoke inhalation is the number one cause of death in a fire.” He added just a hint of persuasion to his argument.

“Okay, I give. You can pay me back with a home-cooked meal!”

He grinned and set the meal on the table. She ate as if she’d never eaten in her life. He appreciated a woman who wasn’t a picky eater. Her appetite didn’t match her form. She was skin and bones. Did the woman eat right? Maybe he should feed her more often.

She wiped her mouth with a cloth napkin he had purchased just for the occasion. “You cook pretty good…for a guy.”

“You know what they say."

“What?”

“The way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach. Wait, I’ve got that backwards. No, sideways. Well, something.”

She laughed and the tension in her shoulders visibly relaxed.

“How would you like to go for a drive?” He wiped down the kitchen counter and held his breath. When she didn’t answer, he glanced her way. She blinked at him. “I need to feed my stock.”

Her face brightened. “You have livestock?”

“I run a few head of cattle, but mostly I keep the place for Poncho and Chief.”

A grin played at the corners of her very pretty mouth. “Horses?”

He wondered what it would be like to kiss those perfectly shaped lips. He shook his head to remove the stray thought. “Yeah. Do you like horses?”

“My father was a foreman on a cattle ranch in Texas—”

Why had she bit off the end of her sentence? She was a hard woman to get to know. Come to think on it, she never told him anything about her past. This was a first. “Well, come with me and help me feed them. They love company.”

****

After Brian gathered a few supplies, they hopped into his truck and drove northeast on Florida Road toward Vallecito Lake and Missionary Ridge. Snow nestled among the trees along the side of the road until they reached the edge of the fire line. The barren ground was a blanket of white with stabs of charred wood pointing toward the heavens.

He turned off the main road. After a mile or so, a pothole rattled the truck and Peyton grabbed the dash to keep from falling into him. “You’re not headed up here for old time’s sake, are you?”

“Huh?”

She grinned. Would he accept her teasing? “You know…the site of the fire.”

He turned his head for a moment and then retrained his focus on the twisting road. “My place is up here about seven miles out of town. It’s not far from the original fire line.”

“So your willingness to help fight the fire was more than being a good citizen?”

His features set with confusion. “Good citizen?”

“Or doing your duty?”

He glanced her way again. His eyes flashed with a fire she’d never seen in them. “My land was being threatened along with my stock.”

“No wonder you were so insistent on being included.” Heated debate erupted when the High Sheriff of LaPlata County joined the rank and file on the fire line. Brian had been a magnet for controversy almost from the first day he took office.

“It didn’t feel right asking someone else to fight my fire for me. Especially when there was something I could do to help.” His eyes swept her face. “Does that burst your notions about me? Not so noble anymore, am I?” He disengaged and retrained his focus, yanking the steering wheel to miss a boulder in the road.

His beat up Chevy truck shifted gears with a sputter and a lurch as he turned onto a small, winding track that cut through a low place in the hills and emerged on the other side of a ridge in a box canyon. Surrounded on three sides by steep, rocky cliffs, one wouldn’t have found his place without knowing it was there. The pasture was probably green and fertile in the late spring and early summer, but in winter a hard pack of ice and snow crusted the ground.

He shifted into park. Two horses galloped toward the fence and whinnied as he got out of the truck. The Paint hung his head over the rail fencing, the first to nuzzle Brian as he opened the gate. The sorrel sauntered up with what appeared to be feigned indifference. It reminded Peyton so much of her younger years she bit her lower lip to keep from tearing up.

She slid into the driver’s seat, drove the truck through the gate, and parked it where he indicated, then rolled down the window and inhaled crisp, clean air while he pushed the cross bars through the braces. The wind was heavy with the strong scent of snow and horseflesh and earth and hay and manure. It was a sickly-sweet smell, but so familiar. She got out and followed a mushy, muddy path from the gate to the corral. Each step she took made a gushy, squishy sound. She smiled with unbridled pleasure.

The horses followed them to a dilapidated barn with peeling red paint and a rusty tin roof. Brian rubbed the Paint’s flank. “This is Poncho.” Then he patted the sorrel on his hindquarters. “And this is Chief. Boys, this is Peyton.” The sorrel whinnied on cue. Chief nudged Brian’s shoulder hard. He stroked the horse’s nose with affection. Peyton appreciated the easy way he had with the animal. She had never liked treating a horse like it was just property.

Down the pasture she could see what looked like construction. “You building a new barn?”

“A shed. I hadn’t gotten very far with it when the fire broke out. It’s stayed just like that since June.”

He tipped a bag of sweet feed over the fencing and poured a generous portion of feed into a trough. The cows vocalized their appreciation as they made the slow journey to the corral. Someone, probably Brian, had cracked a hole in a nearby pond to allow the stock to water.

After a while he stomped through a foot of ice and snow to the unfinished shed and grabbed a hay hook, deftly lifting a bale and hauling it to a manger. She followed him step for step and dropped onto another bale next to unfinished wood studs. The shed was nothing more than two by fours and a roof decking. “Do you plan to build a house out here?”

His activity stilled. “Someday.”

“When you retire?”

“When I get married.” He clipped his answer as if marriage was a touchy subject and cut the baling twine with a pair of pliers to burst the bale.

Who did he plan to marry? Was this something he was considering? She struggled to gain control of her wayward thoughts and pretended to laugh at his response. “You got anybody in mind?”

He took a nearby hayfork and began spreading the hay in the manger. “I haven’t found the right woman yet.”

She had to know how serious he was about Chris Smith, so she pushed the limits of his comfort zone. “I thought maybe you had.”

“I know about the rumors. We’re just friends. Chris is married to someone, somewhere. Just because she can’t remember him, doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. I’d be foolish to get involved with her like that.” He thrust the hayfork into the snow-covered ground in front of the incomplete shed and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about what happened at the cook-off.”

How had he gone from a sensitive subject for him to a mortifying subject for her—in one breath? “There’s no need to apologize—”

“I’m not apologizing. It’s just…I know that was embarrassing for you. I don’t intend to make things worse by bringing it up again. But you’re wrong. I do understand. Much better than you think I do.”

“How could you possibly understand?” The fire rose up her throat, heating her neck with shame.

He removed his coat and laid it across the corral fence. Rolling up his left sleeve, he removed his wide band watch and exposed his wrist to her. She stared at the scar and then stared at him.

“You see. I do understand.” A glimmer of understanding radiated from the amber depths of his eyes. “If you ever want to talk—”

She raised her hand to stop him. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve worked very hard to leave my past in my past. That was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I won’t make it again.” She paused to catch a breath. “This is my business and no one else’s.”

“I will respect that.” He turned and finished feeding the stock.

His easy capitulation caught her without a ready comeback. She changed the subject before he could change his mind. “Do you ever ride them?”

“They don’t get as much saddle time as they should. I’m afraid Poncho is getting lazy.” He swatted the horse on the rear. “I don’t suppose you’d consider riding with me sometime. It’s much easier controlling these two if they can stay together.”

“I’d like that.”

They finished the remaining chores and headed back to Durango. There was little conversation. Rather Brian hummed a tune she couldn’t identify. The lake and the trees and the clouds blurred past the truck. She leaned back and closed her eyes.

After she had time to consider their entire conversation, she thought maybe it wasn’t wise to spend any more time with him. He was the kind of man a woman lost her head over. She was already traveling down that slippery road. It was time to take an off ramp.

As he dropped her at her house, she waved to him. She couldn’t totally avoid him, but she would make sure she was never alone with him again.

****

Winter released its hold on Durango and succumbed to the warmth of spring. The ground thawed, but Peyton’s heart remained encased in a frozen tomb. Nothing nudged her out of her listlessness. She refused to do more than work hard and sleep harder. Depression pulled her toward the depths of despair as summer approached.

Avoiding Brian was difficult. It seemed the man was everywhere she needed to be. At the grocery. At the post office. At the bank. At the stop light next to her. Even in her restless dreams.

She held her mail under her chin as she unlocked the door and nudged it open with her hip. The load of groceries sagged and almost dropped to the floor before she deposited them on the kitchen table. She let the mail fall to the floor. Only one letter mattered. She snatched if from the vinyl and slid into a kitchen chair.