Page 17 of Point of Mercy

She started shaping the edges of the crust as if her very life depended on it. “Well, it’s true, and if you won’t admit it, Zeke, I will!” She finished with one pie, and started working on another, twirling the pan as she cut off the excess crust. “Margaret might have been your sister, but she was my cousin, damn it, and my best friend and that…that drunk of a husband of hers killed her!” Mazie’s chin wobbled, and she turned toward the window, dropping the pie pan and spilling the crust onto the floor. “Oh, God, now look—”

“I’ll get it,” Heather said quickly, grabbing a broom and dust pail and scraping away the ruined crust.

Zeke shoved his hat off his head and ran a hand through his thick white hair. “You girls go on,” he said, as Heather did her best to clean up the fine film of flour on the floor.“You’re finished for the night. Mazie and I—we’ll take care of this.” The look he sent them brooked no argument. Heather didn’t waste any time. She was up the stairs like a shot. She yanked the band from her ponytail and stripped out of her apron. Jill followed her into the room, but Sheryl was missing.

“Wow! Can you believe what we just heard?” Jill said. She walked to the mirror and plucked a contact lens from her eye. “Melodrama at the Lazy K! Just like a soap opera!”

“You hear so much around here, you really can’t believe it all.”

But Jill wasn’t listening. “No wonder Turner’s so…distant. Such a rebel.”

“You’re making more of it than there is,” Heather said, trying to think of a way to change the subject.

“I don’t think so.” Jill removed her second contact and found her glasses. “What do you think? Turner’s dad killed his mother? But how? Did he take a gun and shoot her or beat her or—”

“Enough! I… I don’t think we should talk about this. It’s just gossip!”

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire!” Jill said. “And Mazie said—”

“Mazie talks too much,” Heather replied, inadvertently paraphrasing Turner as she hurried down the stairs. She avoided the kitchen and slipped through the dining room where some of the guests were watching television, or playing checkers or cards.

The French doors were open, and a breeze filtered into the ranch house, stirring the crisp muslin curtains as she dashed outside. Muttso growled from the bushes somewhere,but Heather didn’t pause. She ran down a well-worn path leading to the stables and corrals. Outside she could breathe again. The claustrophobia of the ranch house with its gossip and conjecture slowly ebbed away. Heather slowed her footsteps and closed her eyes for a second. She needed to be calm, because beneath her determination to see Turner again, she felt a sense of dread. What if he rejected her again? Not that she was going to throw herself at him, of course. But he needed a friend. And she was willing to be that friend.

And how much more?her mind niggled, but Heather shoved that nasty little thought aside. She pressed her palms to her cheeks and waited for the heat to disappear from her skin. Her breathing was normal again, though her heart was pounding about a thousand beats a minute.

She found him in the stables, pitching hay into the mangers of the brood mares. He’d taken off his jacket, and the sleeves of his work shirt were rolled over his forearms, showing off strong muscles and tanned skin. He didn’t look up when she entered, but his muscles flexed, his jaw grew tight and he hurled his pitchfork into a bale of straw. The seconds ticked slowly by. Heather hardly dared breathe.

“Didn’t you get the message?” he finally asked as he turned and faced her. His eyes were the color of flint and just as explosive.

“I didn’t think we were through with our lessons.”

He let out a long, low breath and forced his eyes to the rafters where barn swallows swooped in and out of the open windows.

Again the silence stretched between them—as if they were awkward strangers. Heather fidgeted.

Turner hooked a thumb in his belt loop. “You know enough about horses to get by.”

“Do I?”

He trained his eyes on her, and his expression was a mixture of anger and desire. “Look, Heather, I just don’t think it’s such a good idea—you and me.”

“All I was asking about was riding lessons…” Her voice drifted off when she noticed the tic at the corner of his eye. The lie seemed to grow between them.

“Don’t play dumb,” he said, his jaw shifting to one side. “’Cause I won’t buy it. You and I both know what’s going on here and I’m just tryin’ to stop something that you’ll regret for a long, long time.”

Unconsciously, she bit her lip. “I didn’t come here to try and seduce you, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

A thin smile touched his lips. “Good.”

“I just thought you could use a friend. Someone to talk to.”

“And that’s what you want to do. Talk…oh, and ride, of course.”

She shrugged. “Why not?”

“I can think of a million reasons.” But he didn’t voice any of them, and despite all million, he muttered a curse under his breath, threw her a dark, brooding look and saddled their two mounts. “I should be hung for this,” he said, as he led the horses from the barn and swung into the saddle.

“Not hung. Shot, maybe, but not hung,” she said, offering a smile, and Turner laughed out loud. Some of the strain left his features as they headed through a series of paddocks to the open pastureland.

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