The Maverick

“Branded,” she whispered, blotting herself with a towel. Her fingers went involuntarily to the Mustangs tattoo on her rear end. Get a grip, she scolded herself. It’s just a tattoo. Not a brand. She wrapped the towel around herself, hoping that out of sight would equal out of mind, and went to get dressed.

Sure enough, by the time Sophie had concocted a kitchen-cupboard casserole and was slicing sweet potatoes to look like french fries—as if that would fool Joey—Archie Ryan had arrived in a temper. A short, stubby, muscular man in canvas work pants and an un-tucked plaid flannel shirt, he stomped past the kitchen window, ignoring his daughter’s wave. He went straight to the trailer she’d persuaded him to park in the backyard because that was the only way she could keep an eye on him.

After putting the sweet potatoes in the oven to roast, she called for Joe to set the table, knowing very well he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—hear her over his loud music. She sighed in exasperation before climbing the attic steps to bang on his door until it rattled.

Archie was next. However, as soon as Sophie stepped outside the back door, the mud-speckled red motorbike leaning against the garden shed caught her eye. And held it.

Getaway.

She plopped down onto the back step and rested her chin on the heel of her palm, letting herself imagine climbing aboard Joe’s peppy little bike and taking off for the hills, leaving behind her cantankerous father, her complicated son and all her other responsibilities. She’d go straight to the Rockies and climb toward the sky, the Continental Divide being the closest thing to heaven on earth that she knew of. Already she could feel the wind in her hair, the thrum of the engine, the adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream….

Sophie shook her head. She hadn’t dreamed about such things in years. Luke was to blame, Luke and his seductive pledge that he’d wanted to take her with him.

Fourteen years too late.

“Goddamn you, Maverick,” she said, rising to stalk across the straggly grass to pound on her father’s dented door. “Supper,” she barked. “Now or never, Dad.” Without waiting, she returned to the cottage where Joe was miraculously setting the table. She wrapped her arms around his skinny shoulders and gave him a tight hug that was mostly a comfort to herself. He slipped away, smiling sheepishly.

The screen door wheezed. “What’s to eat?” Buzzsaw demanded in his distinctive gravelly voice, already scowling at her from beneath the creased brim of his grimy straw cowboy hat. He had a grizzled week-old beard and stormy brown eyes that turned mean when he’d crossed from pleasantly buzzed to downright drunk.

Sophie was no longer intimidated. Time and circumstance had tipped the scales of power in her favor. She swept off her father’s hat and set a green salad on the table. “It’s been a long, hard day. We are going to sit together and have a nice dinner without complaint or ill comment. We will be polite and courteous and talk only of pleasant subjects. Isn’t that right, Dad?”

Archie grunted as he went to his place.

Sophie took that as agreement. “Joey, will you say grace?”

“Oh, Mom.”

She smiled—pointedly. “Pardon me. I meant, Joe, my dear, handsome, obedient son, will you please say grace?”

Joe took one look at her steely smile and ducked his chin to comply. He knew his mother’s limits.

Even Archie seemed to understand; occasionally a glimmer of a clue pierced his thick skull. They ate dinner in a near silence that Sophie found very restful. The only discussions were those she initiated, consisting of topics such as the cushions she was needlepointing for the window seat in her bedroom and the gorgeous acorn squash Bess Ripley was selling from her produce stand at the railroad junction.

When they finished, Joe helped wash the dishes one-handed—a towering ice cream cone occupying the other—and then begged to be excused to play computer games. Because he asked so nicely Sophie agreed, even though she couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to be outside on such a beautiful evening. She thought of Luke then, locked up in one of Treetop’s little-used, cement-block jail cells. Luke, who belonged to the outdoors more than anyone she’d ever known.

It wasn’t like this was the first fine September evening he’d spent in the lockup. The Mustangs’ penchant for petty crime had kept them all checking in and out of the jail on a rotating basis. Luke had always been the first to make bail or pay his fine, thanks to Mary Lucas and her attorneys-on-retainer.

There was no reason for Sophie to feel sorry for him.

She put the last plate away and slammed the yellow cupboard door. She raked her hair back from her face, hoping the taut pull of skin over her forehead would yank her out of the momentary funk.

Instead her thoughts returned to the shock of seeing Luke again. How he’d alternated between lazy taunts and the bitter accusations that had shaken her already-wobbly resolution to distance herself.

What had become of Luke? Her Luke—handsome, vital, burning with the joy of life?

Sure, he’d always been wild. But he’d never been…bad. Not at the core. Not like Demon Bradshaw, who the sheriff’s department currently suspected of selling illegal firearms, among other nefarious dealings. So far they hadn’t been able to put together enough evidence for an arrest.

“That’s not Luke.” Sophie let out a deep breath and released her hair. She pulled the drain and wiped down the counter, her eyebrows drawn together in a scowl that was an unconscious copy of her father’s.

“Hey, girl,” Archie called from the front porch. “Come on out here.”

Figuring she’d put it off long enough, Sophie went to the door, wiping her wet hands on the back pockets of her denim pedal pushers. “Ice cream, Dad?”

“Uh, no.” Guiltily Archie slipped a can of beer to his left side, holding it there with the stump of the arm he’d lost in a logging accident on Lucas land approximately thirty years ago. Sophie made no comment. Aside from the occasional sniping argument when her temper wore thin, she’d given up expecting her father to change his ways. Only middle age and bouts of ill health had mellowed his bad habits.

She sat beside him on the purple porch swing and gazed out over Granite Street, waiting for the well-named Buzzsaw to start in on the grief the Lucases had caused him. Birds twittered and hopped in the old plum tree that made a canopy over the small front lawn, pecking at the last of the rotting fruit. The saw-toothed leaves shimmered against the deepening sky.

For once Archie was subdued. “I hear that good-for-nothing Lucas boy’s back in town.”

“He’s a Salinger, Dad. His mother was a Lucas.”

Archie snorted. “Same thing. They’re all rotten, don’t matter what name they go by. It’s in the blood.”

Sophie tensed. The front windows were open. Joe might overhear their conversation from the living room. The bleeps, small explosions and mechanical screams of his computer video game reassured her that his attention was focused elsewhere—on virtual mayhem instead of the real kind. “I wouldn’t condemn them all,” she said. “But, yes, I did arrest Luke Salinger.”

Archie drank deeply and emitted a satisfied ahhh. “For speeding?”

“I gave him a citation for that. I arrested him on old charges—breaking and entering and arson. Remember the fire that damaged the law office? Fourteen years ago, next month.”

“Humph. That boy always was trouble, with his fancy motorcycle and his law-breakin’ ways. I hope you got the sense not to have any more to do with him.” Sophie’s past relationship with Luke—an alliance Archie had done his best to prevent—hung between them with all the levity of a lead balloon.

She fingered the frayed edge of her pedal pushers. “Well, Dad, I expect I’ll be seeing him in court.”

“Court.” Archie guffawed. “You think them muckety-mucks are gonna let that case get to court? Old lady Lucas will be in the judge’s chambers calling in favors—”

“Hush, Dad. I don’t want Joey to hear.”

That shut Archie up. He and Sophie had never talked about the identity of Joe’s father, partly because Archie had thrown her out of the trailer in a drunken rage when he’d found out she was pregnant. He’d been deep into a bad streak then, drinking non-stop. Only seventeen and not yet graduated, Sophie had been almost relieved to go through the pregnancy on her own, in a rented room at Lettice Bellew’s boardinghouse. Archie hadn’t seen his grandson until Joe was three years old. And it wasn’t until he and Sophie had made their uneasy peace many years later that he’d become a regular fixture in their lives.

Archie’s brows met in a deep frown. “Girl, what are you gonna tell the boy about, uh…”

Sophie held her breath, but her father didn’t finish the question. In which case she wasn’t about to volunteer an answer.

“Them Lucases,” he growled, lapsing into familiar territory. He thrust out his stump, the sleeve of his shirt knotted where the elbow should have been. “You know what they done to me, girl. By rights I should be settin’ pretty with a big pension, but nosiree, old lady Lucas is as mean as a junkyard dog, holding tight to every penny unless she’s gonna see some return…”

Sophie tuned out her father’s voice until it was no more than an annoying whine at the back of her brain. The truth of the matter was that Archie had snuck a few beers the day he’d had the accident with a chain saw that had resulted in the loss of his arm. Mary Lucas, a new widow at the time, had taken over running the Lucas cattle ranch and logging operations. She’d paid the hospital bills and given Archie a generous settlement—considering the circumstances—a goodly portion of which he’d promptly drunk up on a months-long spree. Even so, he persisted in blaming his troubles and sketchy work history on Mary Lucas and her extended family.

Sophie had heard it a thousand times before. Gently she pressed a hand on her father’s good arm. “Shut up, Dad, and take a look at the sunset. Isn’t that pretty?”

Archie barely glanced at the apricot glow that lit up the mountainous horizon before continuing churlishly, “Listen to me, girl. Call ’em Lucases or call ’em Salingers, that family will stomp you under their boot heels for so much as smiling at them the wrong way. You steer clear—”

“I’ve got a badge, Dad. Even Mary Lucas has to respect the law.”

“Sure, sure, go ask Sheriff Warren about that. He’s been doing their bidding ever since they helped him get elected top dog, just like every sheriff before him. How’dja think my accident report got cleaned up so no one named Lucas was to blame?”

Sophie simply shrugged. Argument was useless when her father got this worked up.

“That’s right,” Archie said, nodding so vigorously the swing started to sway. “I tell you—”