Justified Deception (Prequel: Dancing Moon Ranch Series) Read online

  Ruth looked at him, perplexed. "Why would you want to do that?"

  "Because you're easy to look at." Matt took her arm, and when Ruth started to pull it away, he said, "I'm holding onto you so you won't step off the trail and fall down a ravine."

  Ruth looked into the darkness to where the ground seemed to drop off. "How far down is it?" she asked.

  "About two-thousand feet."

  Ruth moved against Matt. "Isn't it dangerous to have Annie here?"

  "Actually, no," Matt replied. "It's a two-thousand foot slope."

  "Then why did you lead me to believe we were walking along the edge of a cliff?" Ruth asked, yet making no attempt to pull her arm from Matt's grip.

  "Because I've been wanting to do this all evening." Matt turned her around, then bent down and kissed her. For the moment, Ruth was too shocked to protest, but when his arms closed around her she kissed him back. Kissed him under a canopy of trillions of stars, in the light of a silver moon, with the breath of the wind caressing her...

  A low, throaty moan came from somewhere deep inside her, the reverberation drawing her out of her state of bliss. She broke the kiss and looked up at Matt, and said, "This is a very bad idea. We need to get back or Bret will know how easy the new nanny is."

  "Easy?"

  "I didn't exactly fight you off."

  "Honey, there's nothing easy about you. You're a very complicated woman, but I'm enjoying trying to figure you out."

  Matt's words set Ruth on edge. She'd never considered herself complicated, at least not until Beth was taken from her. Then her whole life became complicated. But what she didn't want was Matt trying to figure her out. "And, I'm here to take care of Annie, nothing more." She turned and headed back to the campsite.

  Later, as Ruth lay in her sleeping bag while attempting to shut out the effect of Matt's kiss, she was vaguely aware of Bret discussing with Matt his plan if Jody pressed her case for joint custody. From what she could hear, Jody didn't stand a chance of getting Annie. Bret, it appeared, was not only cutthroat, but he was shrewd and extremely proficient. She had just plumped her pillow and was ready to go to sleep, when Bret's words on another subject caught her attention...

  "I'm working on an adoption case where a biological mother is challenging the adoption," Bret said. "It's a hell of a situation. The woman claims she was drugged right after the child was born, either by her parents or the midwife, then pressured by her parents into giving her child up by telling her the child had brain trauma and multiple medical problems. The child was taken away, and the mother signed the papers. It wasn't until the adoptive parents contacted the child's mother, because the child had a medical problem, that the biological mother learned that the child had had no disabilities at birth. The woman's parents admitted they thought they were doing the right thing because their daughter was unmarried and only sixteen at the time."

  "How long have the adoptive parents had the child?" Matt asked.

  "About three years," Bret replied.

  "So, what are you going to do?"

  "Win the case for the adoptive parents."

  "What if the biological mother had hired you?" Matt asked. "What would you do then?"

  "If I took the case, I'd win it for her," Bret replied. After a stretch of silence, Bret said, "Don't give me that holier-than-thou look. I'd only take the case if I felt the biological mother should get her child back. In spite of what you think of lawyers, I do have some scruples. In this case, the child belongs with the only parents he's ever known, and the mother will probably accept a sizable sum of money to back off."

  The talking ceased for a few moments, and Ruth was about to settle in when Bret started talking again. "And speaking of adoptions, you've never talked about how you got Annie. It seemed pretty fast. You and Jody dropped in for Mom and Dad's wedding anniversary, mentioned nothing about adopting, then a couple of weeks later you had Annie. Anything you want to pass on to me? I have clients who've waited years to get a child. Even going to China or Haiti takes time. So, how did you do it?"

  "If you're questioning the legality, don't," Matt said, his voice defensive. "It was all on the up-and-up. Jody and I never mentioned it because I didn't want everyone telling me what to do."

  "Which agency?"

  "Hell, I don't remember!" Matt snapped. "Look, if I need your services I'll ask."

  "Hey, don't get your dander up."

  There was a long stretch of silence, except for the heavy thudding of Ruth's heart and the two short sentences in her head: Which agency, and Hell, I don't remember...

  Bret captured her attention again, when he said, "Well, I'll just give you a head's up, buddy. You might want to recall the name of the agency in case a biological mother comes forward someday and wants to take Annie back. It happens all the time."

  "It'll be a cold day in hell when anyone takes Annie from me." Matt stood.

  Ruth looked across the dying embers and saw him walk off into the darkness.

  Mid-morning they broke camp and were back at the ranch before noon. Ruth claimed she had a headache and stayed in her room until she heard Bret's plane take off and knew he was on his way to Salem. She prayed he'd soon be too caught up in his practice to give further thought to where he'd seen her, but she knew he was a man who wouldn't be satisfied until he'd solved the puzzle. But now he had another puzzle to solve. How and where Matt got Annie. Her biggest question was: if Annie turned out to be Beth, which side would Bret take? Hers? Or Matt's? Because whichever side that was, she had a gut feeling, that would be the winning side.

  ***

  The following week, Matt took Annie to a cutting horse show, and Ruth tagged along with Edith on her weekly trip to Pine Grove. Because their stop there the day she arrived at the ranch had been so short, she hadn't seen much of the town, so Edith dropped her off at the town square and went on to the grocery. But this gave Ruth a chance to see Pine Grove. It was a quaint town that looked like time had forgotten it. The courthouse sitting in the town square was made of brick, with a bank of concrete steps leading up the center. On the four streets surrounding the modest building was the post office, also of brick and looking like it was built about the time of the courthouse, and a two-story hotel that sat on a corner and had probably been the hotel to stay in a hundred years ago. Other businesses facing the courthouse square were a two-chair barber shop, The Pine Grove Gazette newspaper building, and a few businesses that included a large building with a date of 1878 near the top and the words GENERAL STORE written across the tall front in block letters. Inside, along with a soda fountain with a line-up of stools with cushioned seats covered in red plastic, were shelves that seemed to have just a little of about everything someone living in the outback would want, including a book of etiquette for children, and a set of colored pencils and an artist's tablet, which Ruth bought. When she was home she spent a lot of time making pastel drawings of landscapes and flowers, and she looked forward to doing the same with colored pencils. After that she rented a post office box and mailed the letter ordering the DNA kits, then called Bill, who urged her to find Annie's birth certificate and send a photocopy of it to him as soon as possible. Her next call was to her parents, who were relieved to hear from her, but very troubled and wanted her to come home...

  "Mom, I can't deal with this right now," Ruth said. "I really need your support."

  "You have our support, honey. We're behind you like we've always been," Irene Sinclair said. "But I think you're taking too big a chance staying with the man who might have kidnapped Beth. He could be very dangerous."

  "He just doesn't seem that way," Ruth said, quashing the image of a large, muscular man with broad shoulders and a determined jaw. "If the little girl is Beth, I can't imagine Matt as her abductor. It could have been a black market adoption like Bill suggested, in which case, Matt would be just as much a victim as I am."

  "But you don't know that's the case," her mother said. "And being so isolated... I feel very uneasy about this. I reall
y do. Hold on, Dad wants to talk to you."

  In the background, Ruth heard her mother say, "You've got to talk her into coming home, Frank." The words became muffled, and Ruth knew her mother had covered the receiver. After a few moments her father came on the line, and said, "Your mother and I are very concerned. We want you to come home."

  Ruth reiterated what she'd told her mother, ending with, "Dad, I have to do this even if I'm not sure the little girl is Beth. But if there's even the slightest chance she could be, I have to know. And I don't care about the danger." Her throat thickened, and she barely got out the words, "I just have to know... if it's Beth...." Then she couldn't say anything else, because tears had filled her eyes and clogged her throat.

  After a long pause, her father said, "Honey?"

  Ruth sniffled and dashed a finger beneath each eye. "Yes, Dad, I'm here. But until I know for sure, one way or another, I'm going to stay."

  "Okay," her father said, his voice resigned. "Just keep in touch. And promise you'll use good judgment, and not do anything impulsive if you find out the child really is Beth."

  "I promise. And Daddy?"

  "What honey?"

  "Don't let Beth's candle go out while I'm gone."

  "We won't."

  After Edith finished her regular stops in town, they went to her son and daughter-in-law's house, where they had supper. By the time they returned to the ranch it was after eight. Expecting to find Annie asleep, Ruth was surprised to hear Matt's voice alternating between a lofty falsetto and a throaty baritone, accompanied by childish giggles. Ruth traced the hubbub to Annie's room, and watched in amusement from the hallway.

  Annie sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed, face flushed with laughter, while Matt, crouched on his knees, a book in his hand that he glanced at periodically, and in a great display of theatrics, said in a falsetto voice, "Oh gentle knight, full of woe am I of thy departing, for I saw ne'er a man to whom I owed so good will...."

  Leaping to his feet, Matt looked down at the spot where Isolde had crouched, and said in a deep voice, "Fair maid, ye shall understand that my name is Sir Tristan, and I promise thee faithfully that I shall be, all the days of my life, your knight...."

  "...And then," intoned Narrator Matt, "Sir Tristan gave Isolde a ring, kissed her hand and left, leaving her moaning and swooning in lamentation...." Spotting Ruth at the door, he winked, and said to Annie, "To be continued tomorrow."

  "No, Daddy, I want to hear more tonight."

  "Sorry, kiddo. Scoot under the covers. It's lights out time." He pulled the covers out from under Annie and fluffed her pillow. Annie settled back. "I don't want to go to bed," she whined. "I'm not sleepy. I'll lie here all night and stare at the ceiling."

  "You do that." Matt tucked the covers around her and kissed her on the forehead.

  "Can't I stay up a teeny weeny bit longer? Please, Daddy. With sugar on top?"

  "Sorry, squirt."

  "With sugar and whipped cream and a cherry?"

  "I'm afraid not."

  "I'm thirsty."

  "Then I'll have Ruth bring you some water."

  "I'm not thirsty."

  "That's what I thought." He clicked off the light, left the door ajar and stepped into the hallway. Smiling at Ruth, he whispered, "What did you think of my performance?"

  Ruth chuckled. "I hope I'm not expected to measure up to it."

  "Unless you know the tales of King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, and Tristan backwards and forwards I doubt you could," Matt said. "And no, you're not expected to. Besides, I get as big a kick out of our bedtime shenanigans as Annie does." He gave the back of Ruth's neck a little squeeze, and his hand remained draped there as he walked with her down the hallway.

  Ruth wanted to duck from under his hand, but knew it would be awkward. He was not touching her in an inappropriate way. But she didn't want him to touch her at all, or wink at her, or even smile at her. She wanted to hate him. She wanted Beth back. And she wanted the person who had denied her four years of Beth's life prosecuted. But she was finding it progressively more difficult to believe Matt Kincaid, who lamented in falsetto on bent knees, and tenderly tucked Annie into bed, and kept a record of Annie's height on a Giraffe Growth Chart, could be involved in any way.

  Unless there was another side of him she hadn't seen, a side she could truly hate...

  Turning her around to face him, Matt rested his hand on her shoulder, brushed her cheek with the pad of his thumb, and said, "Nanny Girl, you take life far too seriously. Show me those pretty little dimples."

  This time Ruth couldn't smile. Bret's words and Matt's response were still too fresh...

  …which agency... hell, I don't remember...

  When she offered nothing, Matt said, "I'll need Annie up and dressed by six tomorrow morning. She'll be with us for the next few days to round up strays." He squeezed her arm and winked and said, "Sweet dreams," then turned and walked down the hallway toward his room, leaving Ruth staring after him and feeling flushed and fluttery and flighty as a school girl. A feeling that disturbed her deeply. She desperately wanted to despise the man, but the reality of it was, she was finding it increasingly more difficult to keep from falling in love with him.

  ***

  In her room, five days later, Ruth stared at the worn, time-yellowed newspaper clipping with the photo of Beth. She shouldn't have it in her possession, but she couldn't bear to leave it behind. As she looked at the image and began to read the article about the abduction, the hideous episode came rushing back, the horrific mood swings, the need for everyone to know, to help look for Beth, to do something. Yet there was nothing that could be done. She'd contacted the local radio and TV stations, who'd contacted the national networks. Reminders of Beth had been everywhere, yellow ribbons on trees, Beth's face on grocery bags and flyers and among the missing children on the long poster board at Walmart. And there was the unending internal dialog. Why me? Why Beth? Why? Why? Why? She'd cry herself into exhaustion at night and be drained of energy during the day. At times she'd felt so overwhelmed, suicide seemed the only way out. Yet that wasn't an option because she had to be there for Beth.

  But there had also been periods when everything seemed in slow motion, like moving in a surrealistic dream. Time ceased to exist. Days became meaningless. The whole terrible episode hadn't happened. It was a bad dream from which she would awaken. And then the cycle would start all over again—the shock, the disbelief, the anger, the crying. A vicious, never ending circle. Her mood swings were more subtle now, but so many things triggered them, she stayed constantly on guard.

  Taking a long, labored breath, she packed away the clipping. Instead of wallowing in the past, she could better use the time to find Annie's birth certificate. With Annie and Matt and the ranch hands away, and Edith busy packing supplies into the pickup to be delivered to the campsite, this could be her only chance to slip into Matt's office across the hallway from the kitchen where, through the open doorway, she spotted a filing cabinet. But until now, she didn't dare venture behind the usually closed door to the room.

  Stepping to the kitchen window, she peered out and saw Edith busily packing boxes of supplies into the truck, which also had a horse trailer behind it. Turning from the window, she dashed across the hallway and into the office and opened the filing cabinet. To her amazement, under 'B' she located a file folder, labeled Birth Certificates, with Annie's birth certificate in it. Matt, it seemed, was a very organized man. She also found several certified copies of the document, so she took a copy to send to Bill. She had just opened a file folder labeled Adoption when she heard the outside door to the kitchen open. Hastily she shoved the folder into the file cabinet and slammed the drawer, then quickly folded the copy of the birth certificate and shoved it down the front of her jeans. But when she turned to leave the room, she saw Edith standing in the doorway.

  "Were you wanting something in Matt's office?" Edith asked.

  "Well, yes. I mean no, not exactly. The fact is, I was looking fo
r—" Ruth grappled for a reason to explain her presence in Matt's office "—that is, I wanted to find the books on King Arthur that Matt reads to Annie." She shrugged. "I thought they might be in here."

  Edith eyed her, dubiously. "All the books are in the living room." Her gaze sharpened on something beyond Ruth, and when Ruth turned to see what it was, she was mortified to find the adoption folder caught in the file drawer.

  Edith walked over and pulled open the drawer. "That's funny," she said, "it's not like Matt to leave things untidy." She glanced at the label, then returned the folder to the file and closed the drawer, saying, "We need to leave for the campsite. The men are always anxious for a good meal when they’re done rounding up strays."

  Ruth followed Edith through the kitchen and out to the truck. She hoped Edith would dismiss the incident and say nothing to Matt, but she feared that would not be the case.

  For the next half hour, Ruth braced herself as Edith wheeled the pickup and horse trailer slowly over the dirt ranch road that followed the course of the stream toward a campsite on a small river. Matt's instructions before leaving had been to bring the supply truck and horse trailer, then unload the supplies and take Annie and her horse back to the ranch. He and the men would be heading into the back country to track down a cougar that had been killing livestock, and he didn’t want Annie along for that.

  It was late afternoon when they arrived at the campsite—a grassy open space on the banks of the river. The horses stood huddled together in a corral made of peeled poles. Saddles were grouped with bridles tossed over saddle horns, bedrolls lay in disarray around a central campfire, a blue enameled coffee pot hung from a stick-teepee over smoldering embers, and clothes and boots were strewn everywhere.

  Edith eased the rig alongside the corral and cut the engine. What caught Ruth's attention, when she climbed out of the truck, was hoots and hollers accompanied by splashing. On scaling the low embankment that blocked the river from the campsite, she was startled to find the crew in the river. Although water came up to the men's waists, she could tell from the undulating, flesh-colored bodies below the surface that they wore nothing. She quickly turned away, then froze on hearing Annie's voice. She looked back. "Good God!"