I Cross My Heart

“That’s my thought. Thanks, Nash.”

“You’re welcome. See you soon.” Nash tugged his hat a little lower over his eyes to block the glare of the bright June sunshine. He could see the smoke rising about five miles away.

Maybe this break would help rid his mind of depressing thoughts. He’d failed to create a happy marriage, and he wasn’t used to failure. But at least his family and friends hadn’t witnessed the debacle firsthand. He’d grown up in Jackson Hole, but he’d spent the past ten years in Sacramento, nine of them married to Lindsay.

He should have known when she’d asked him to sign a prenup nine years ago that no matter how hard he worked, he would never have been considered an equal partner in that riding stable. Her parents had constantly reminded him that they’d bankrolled the business and bought Nash and Lindsay a home, to boot.

Lindsay had never called them on that, either, and his relationship with her had started unraveling after the first year. Good thing his old friend Jack Chance had given him a job last fall. Nash had literally come out of the marriage with nothing but his truck, which needed a valve job.

He’d put that off because he seldom drove anywhere on personal business and he had use of the ranch vehicles when Emmett needed something done, like now. Food and lodging were part of the job. That allowed Nash to invest most of his salary, and thanks to a good financial adviser in Jackson, his savings were growing nicely. Eventually he’d have enough for a down payment on his own place.

The tan ranch truck was parked near the two-story main house. As he walked the short distance, he rolled his shoulders to ease the tension that had settled the moment he’d opened the envelope from Sacramento. He hated to think his life was spiraling downward, but sometimes it felt that way, especially when he compared his situation to Jack Chance’s.

Jack was technically his boss, although he would never pull rank. They’d been friends since high school, where they’d been in the same graduating class and had played on the same football team. But now their situations were totally different.

Jack’s dad had died several years ago in a rollover, leaving his three sons and his wife as joint owners of this valuable operation. The Last Chance bred paints and trained them as cutting horses. As the oldest son, Jack ran the daily operation in partnership with his mother, Sarah. Middle brother Nick was a vet with his own practice, but he made sure all the animals on the ranch stayed healthy. Gabe was the competitor who rode the Last Chance horses and showcased the ones offered for sale.

Sarah and her fiancé, Pete Beckett, lived in the main house, but each of the sons had staked out a parcel of ranch land and had built homes for themselves and their wives. No doubt about it—the Chance brothers had been blessed with good fortune. Nash didn’t begrudge them any of it, but he longed for that kind of financial and emotional stability.

He was working to build up a nest egg now, but finding the right person to love would have to come later. He wasn’t about to hook up with a woman until he had resources. He’d learned his lesson on that score. He’d already made one big mistake, and he wasn’t planning to make another.

Climbing into the dusty ranch truck, he started the engine and backed the vehicle around. The long and tortuous dirt road that connected the ranch to a paved two-lane highway was always a challenge, but at least today it was dry. Jack’s dad had deliberately left the road unpaved to discourage trespassers, and his sons had decided to honor that tradition.

A little bit of grading wouldn’t hurt, though, Nash thought as the truck bounced over the hardened ruts. The ranch had a tractor and a blade, but apparently using it on the road would be considered sacrilegious. Nash wondered how often Jack had to replace the shocks in his trucks because of these ruts.

After a bone-jolting drive, Nash reached the two upright poles and massive crossbeam that marked the entrance to the Last Chance. To the left, about ten miles away, was the little town of Shoshone. It supplied many of the basics, like food, gas and a great bar, the Spirits and Spurs, owned by Jack’s wife, Josie. But for anything fancy, people had to drive nearly an hour into the city of Jackson.

Nash took a right toward the Triple G, a much smaller spread than the Last Chance. As Nash recalled, the Graces had kept to themselves—not a common thing around here, but it happened. Not all country folk were social.

Grace. He’d likely always cringe when he heard that last name now. His marriage had probably been doomed from the first day, since Lindsay’s wealthy parents had never approved of him. But when Lindsay had started reading those motivational books by Bethany Grace, the game had changed dramatically. She’d used Bethany Grace’s mantra, Happiness Is a Choice, as a response to every fight they’d had.

When Lindsay had insisted he read the then-current bestseller, Living with Grace, he’d done his best. He’d made it through twenty pages. The woman obviously lived in a bubble and knew nothing about actual relationships. But Lindsay thought Bethany Grace was a genius and that Happiness Is a Choice solved every issue.

Meanwhile Lindsay had consistently ignored his input regarding the business and had reminded him in many subtle ways that because she had the money, he was little more than a stable boy. It had been death by a thousand cuts. And the more angry and miserable he’d become, the more often she’d chirped that mantra: Happiness Is a Choice.

He was so lost in thought that he nearly missed the turnoff to the Triple G. The weathered sign was small and low to the ground. At the last minute he noticed it and took the turn too fast. He sent up a rooster tail of dust and avoided taking out the pathetic little sign by inches. A good thing, too. His mission involved protecting property, not destroying it.

If he’d thought the Last Chance road was poorly maintained, it was a superhighway compared to this collection of potholes. He slowed down in an effort to save the truck’s alignment. Any teenage trespassers who’d braved this road might be sorry when the deep ruts did a number on their precious first car, or worse yet, screwed up the family SUV.

Because he had to concentrate on the miserable road in front of him, he couldn’t take stock of what was causing the smoke. The stench reached him long before he arrived on the scene. Finally he pulled into the weed-infested clearing surrounded by a collection of dilapidated buildings that made up the Triple G Ranch. Then he put on the brakes and stared.

In the bare dirt area that constituted the ranch’s front yard, a leather recliner was on fire. Even more curious, a dark-haired woman dressed in heels, a short beige skirt and a matching jacket stood watching it, butane lighter in hand. She seemed to be the only person around, and was most likely the citified daughter.

A red SUV was parked beside the house, a fairly safe distance from the blazing chair unless a spark caught the weeds on fire. If Nash were to guess, he’d say she’d arrived in that vehicle, but he couldn’t imagine her motivation for setting the chair on fire.

That had to be deliberate. And difficult. Those chairs were usually treated with flame retardants, which explained the god-awful smell. Gasoline had probably been involved. Sure enough, he spotted a can lying about twenty feet away from her.

She gave him a cursory glance before returning her attention to the chair. The flames had died down, leaving a blackened, smoldering mess. She seemed to have it in for the chair, but if she intended to destroy it completely, she’d have to douse it with more gasoline and relight the fire or run over it with that shiny red SUV. Both options made Nash wince.

He decided to intervene before she proceeded to do either of those things. Emmett had asked him to check things out, so he’d do that. In the process he hoped to satisfy his curiosity, because this recliner-torching was the damnedest thing he’d ever seen and he wanted to know the reason behind it.

Climbing out of the truck, he tried not to breathe too deeply. No telling what toxic crap was in that smoke. She should smother the fire for environmental reasons, if nothing else.

At the metallic sound of the truck door closing, she looked at him again. This time she held his gaze as he walked toward her. She’d seemed pulled-together and neat at first, but the closer he came, the more that impression shifted.

She’d torn the left shoulder seam of her tailored beige jacket, and the front of her white blouse and short beige skirt were smudged with dirt. Her nylons were a mass of runs and her beige heels were scuffed beyond repair.

Apparently, despite being dressed for a day at the office, she’d dragged that chair outside before going for the gasoline and the butane lighter. Judging from her streaked makeup and the way her short dark hair was plastered to her forehead and neck, the job had made her sweat. Her mascara was smeared and she looked as if she’d been crying—either from anger or because of the foul smoke. Maybe both. His eyes stung, and he’d only been here a few minutes.

He paused when he was an arm’s length away from her. Her gray eyes might be pretty if they weren’t so red. When faced with a situation like this, where someone was obviously upset, Nash usually tried to lighten the mood a little. “On a redecorating kick?”

She stared at him as if he’d said something terminally stupid, which of course he had, but that was the idea. She didn’t seem inclined to joke around, though. Too bad.

Swiping at her eyes with the back of her free hand, she looked him up and down. “Who are you and why are you here?”

“The name’s Nash Bledsoe. I work at the Last Chance, and the foreman saw smoke and asked me to investigate. He thought trespassers might be causing a problem.”

“Oh.” She gazed up at the smoke spiraling into the blue sky as if only now realizing that it might be noticed by others. “Sorry about that. Everything’s fine. I’m not a trespasser. I own the place. Lucky me.”

She probably was the daughter, then. He could have left it at that and headed back to the Last Chance, but he decided not to. The smoke was a pollutant, and he still didn’t know why she’d set fire to the chair. “Look, it’s obvious that you want to get rid of this piece of furniture, but your method is spewing bad stuff into the air.”

“I didn’t think of that.” She glanced at the smoke and the blackened, shriveled leather. “I’ll bet there’s not a working fire extinguisher around this place, either.”

“I happen to have one in my truck. I’ll get it.”

She hesitated, as if reluctant to accept his help.

He gave her an encouraging smile. “That’s really the way to go. Once I’ve sprayed it with foam, we can figure out how to get it out of here and into the landfill where it belongs.”

“Maybe I’ll just dig a hole and bury it.”

“Would take a big hole.”

“That’s okay. Digging it would feel good.”

He looked into her bloodshot eyes and recognized the same kind of rage, grief and frustration he’d been trying to work off by mucking out stalls. He didn’t have to ask her any more questions, after all. She was mad at somebody, probably the person who’d spent time in this chair. Odds were that would have been her late father.

The combination of anger and sorrow could make people do strange things, and he certainly understood that. She seemed to recognize that she’d found a kindred spirit, because some of the defiance left her expression. As her gaze mellowed, she looked really nice, even with her mascara running and her hair all sweaty.

“I’ll get the extinguisher,” he said. “We can go from there.”

“Okay.” Her voice had grown softer, too. “Thanks.”

He felt a smile coming on as he hurried back to the truck. He hadn’t been any woman’s hero in a very long time, and he’d missed that.

After he slimed the chair, he’d see if she had a tarp. He didn’t want to load that gross thing into the back of the ranch truck without one, but if he could put it on something, he could drive straight to the landfill. She didn’t need to dig a hole and bury the chair. Surely there were other menial chores around this wreck of a place where she could work out her emotions.

He returned with the extinguisher. “You might want to stand back while I do this.”