The Breath of Dawn Read online

  Wordlessly, he pulled one of the drawers toward himself. With big, blunt fingers, he took one brilliant bead-and-feather fly out and stood up tall. Livie’s eyes followed him, her chin tipping up and up. He bent over and lowered the fly. Morgan almost stopped him, then realized it had no hook. Why would Rudy make a fishing fly with no hook? But then he knew.

  Livie stretched out her hand, and Rudy laid the thing on her tiny palm. Rapt, she scrutinized its form and design, the iridescent colors. No scientist in a lab could have researched it more thoroughly.

  Morgan met Rudy’s eye, both their mouths twitching. He said, “Like that, Livie?”

  “Like it, Daddy.” She held it higher for him to see.

  He and Rudy hadn’t discussed her fascination, yet the burly mountain man had obviously prepared this for her next appearance. “It’s awesome, Rudy. You’re an artist.” How those big hands made something so intricate, delicate, and minuscule, he didn’t know.

  “Just a hookless fly.” But pleasure lit the yellow-green eyes beneath shaggy russet brows. Morgan took out his wallet, but Rudy waved him off. “Seeing her face is enough.”

  He slid the wallet back, not insulting Rudy with an argument. Cradling the fly in both hands against her chest, Livie trailed behind him like a pint-sized shadow as he picked up the items he’d come for and laid them on the counter. After paying, he crouched in front of Livie. “Would you like to tell Rudy something?”

  She studied him a minute, then looked up at Rudy. “Thank you this fly.”

  Rudy grinned. “You’re welcome, little miss.”

  Livie giggled. “No li’l miss. Livie.”

  “Oh.” Rudy looked astonished. “Well, now I know.”

  Smiling, Morgan gave him a wave and led her out by a finger. Moments like these seemed to crystalize and hang in the air like something wonderful, just out of reach. He buckled his daughter into her seat, kissed her forehead, and laid his hand over hers still holding the fly as though it might spring into the sky. “You’re pretty special, you know.”

  “You special, Daddy.”

  He placed another kiss in her hair, inhaling her scent, and then stepped back and closed the door. A truck pulled up to the pumps at the other end of the lot. Quinn slipped out and moved toward the pump controls. In another life, he’d have greeted her. Since she didn’t see him, he got into the Range Rover and drove away.

  Early the next morning, Quinn got back to it. Ordinarily she’d have the furniture picked up as is, but because of the locket, she scrutinized the underside linings, fingering every pillow, unzipping the sofa cushions, feeling down between the seats and sides and backs. Seven ten-dollar bills rewarded her search. But no locket.

  She drew the line at cutting into the stuffing. Vera’s hiding places had been amateurish and noninvasive. No sense ruining things that could be used by others. She was feeling good about her progress—until she entered the dining room. There Vera had reached true hoarder status, or suffered an avalanche of mail and subscriptions.

  The thought of going through everything felt like a preview of hell. She narrowed her eyes. Was that assistant really champing at RaeAnne’s job, or had she taken one look in the room and run? Quinn went in, and squealed when a mouse skittered from behind one stack to another. Not surprising her first rodent encounter at Vera’s happened in the room most wildlife friendly.

  It wouldn’t bother her except that cute, tawny-colored mouse with creamy cheeks was a deer mouse that could transmit hantavirus. Because of that, she kept a misting bottle of bleach water in her truck. Heading out for it, she paused when Noelle’s truck pulled up, though it was her husband, Rick, who climbed out wearing a dark brown vest over a heavy shirt. At this elevation, she’d have wanted sleeves on that jacket. Except in the heat of summer, her arms were always cold.

  “Hi.” He approached her, bearing a trace of stable scent. “I’m Rick from the next ranch over.”

  She nodded. “We met at the bakery—except for names, though Noelle told me yours. I’m Quinn.”

  “She told me yours too.” His eyes creased. “I’m just letting you know I’ll be taking down the fence back there.”

  “Joining yours and Morgan’s properties?”

  Rick frowned. “Morgan’s?”

  “You know . . . the house?”

  “What does the house have to do with Morgan?”

  And of course she realized her mistake. “You should talk to him, I guess.” She got the bleach sprayer and bandanna from the truck and started back in.

  “Are you saying Morgan’s buying this house?” He seemed not only puzzled but annoyed. Or maybe it was worry. Rick was not easy to read.

  “I’m a little caught between here.”

  Apologizing, he fit his lanky form back into his truck and drove around the house, through the pasture gate to the tumbledown fence. Quinn tied the bandanna over her mouth and nose, went inside, and applied a fine mist around the perimeter of the dining room to quell any dust-borne virus. Half an hour later, when she went to the kitchen sink to wash her hands, she saw Morgan in the pale golden pasture working beside Rick with, seemingly, no harm done.

  Morgan didn’t have Rick’s rustic edges, but seeing them together again, the similarities stood out. Morgan shook his head at something Rick said, and Rick shrugged. Just two guys, brothers. And yet there was something compelling in their interaction, a sibling substance of respect and affection. Not always a given, she well knew.

  Feeling like a spy, she took a step back and bumped her heel into the foot of the asylum cabinet. She thought again how the locket could be in there. This was her chance to change Morgan’s mind, but she’d have to tell him RaeAnne’s tale to get any traction, and she felt protective of something so sensitive. Admitting that wasn’t the only reason she wanted a look, she left the kitchen with her word intact.

  She’d given the bleach time to work and started sorting and clearing. Though it was a mild solution, the fumes made her eyes water. The dust made her sneeze. The bandanna helped with both, but she was relieved to step out of the dining room when her phone rang.

  Sadly, it was RaeAnne hoping for good news. After finding the earring and pin, they had both believed yesterday’s clothes would yield the locket, but now she told her, “Sorry, not yet. I’m attacking the dining room now, and then, of course, there’s the cellar.”

  “Do you think it could be down there?”

  “Anything’s possible.” She described the cabinet she and Morgan had found, hoping RaeAnne might say, “Quinn, you have to look inside.” But it didn’t happen, so she said, “There are any number of places it could be down there.”

  “I had no idea. Oh, Quinn, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  The job had certainly expanded. “It’s okay.”

  “Can you use that stuff in the cellar for your online store?”

  “I have no idea. I mainly sell collectibles.” She peered through the dining room doorway to the cabinet. She’d been after the bottles until Morgan claimed it. And speaking of that, “Did you get an offer on the house?”

  “I meant to tell you, it’s sold.”

  And his brother had no idea.

  “We close in November.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Full price too.”

  Naturally.

  “Isn’t that a godsend? Real estate is hardly moving these days. And in an out-of-the-way place like Juniper Falls, I thought it would take forever.”

  Out-of-the-way was exactly why she’d landed in Juniper Falls. “Do you want any of what’s in the cellar?”

  “What on earth would I do with it?”

  “Sell or donate to a museum? It could be valuable.”

  “You know, I’ll just leave that to you.” Her voice caught. “Quinn, what if you don’t find the locket?”

  She wished she could assure her. “You’ve gone this long without knowing, RaeAnne. Would it be so awful to keep it that way?”

  “Feels like it.” She
sniffled. She’d just lost her mother and had counted on seeing who her dad was.

  “I’m doing my very best.”

  “I know that. I could see you would.”

  Quinn stared at the still-heaping dining room. “If you think of anything else your mom might have said, or any peculiar ways she had that might shed some light . . .”

  “I’ve been racking my brain. She had plenty of peculiar ways, like moving to that mountain at seventy. Can you imagine?”

  Quinn leaned against the wall. “I guess old age is as good a time as any to do something. There’s so much less to lose.”

  RaeAnne said, “I never thought of it that way. You have such interesting insights.”

  A knock at the kitchen door startled her. “Oh. Someone’s here. I better go.”

  “Okay, but—”

  “I’ll let you know the minute there’s news.” Ending the call, she admitted Morgan, holding his bleeding hand. “Yikes.”

  “It looks worse than it is,” Morgan told her, “but can I use the sink?”

  “Your sink? In your kitchen?”

  Not quite, but close enough.

  She emptied and removed a basin, then turned on the water. “How come Rick didn’t know?”

  He hissed as the water streamed over the gash running from the web of his thumb across the pulpy part of his palm.

  Leaning in, she winced. “Barbed wire?”

  “Rick’s pulling it out so the horses won’t get cut.”

  “Guess you didn’t think about gloves.” She turned his hand under the stream for a better look, her hair brushing his cheek. “When was your last tetanus shot?”

  He drew a husky breath. “I’m up to date, Nurse Reilly.”

  She darted a look. “And cranky. Does blood make you dizzy? I knew a six-and-a-half-foot lavender farmer who fainted at the sight of it, especially his own.”

  He hissed again when her ministration ran the water over the jagged end in the web. “I don’t intend to faint.” Holding his teeth aligned, he reached for a paper towel.

  “Don’t.” She pulled it away. “Let me get a fresh roll.” She ripped the plastic off a new roll of towels. “I’ve been all over the house with that other.” She tore off two sheets and quickly folded them, then reached for his hand, briefly drying the back side before pressing the packing to his palm.

  His chest was not functioning correctly. “I could do this, you know.”

  “It’s hard one-handed while you’re streaming blood.”

  “I think I’ve got it now.”

  She looked up, almost right under his chin and close enough he could tell the starbursts in her coffee-dark eyes were amber. She slid her hand off as he took over the pressure, then turned off the water. “If your buying the house was a secret, I’m afraid I blew it. I assumed your brother—”

  “It’s no big deal.” Finally taking his eyes from her face, he noticed the bandanna around her neck. “You riding herd?”

  She gave the scarf a little tug. “On mice.”

  He didn’t want her to be cute and funny and helpful and caring.

  “The bandanna’s in case of hantavirus.”

  Good. He made a slow nod. Think of disease. Mice. Scat.

  Her chin had a soft point that rounded up to the base of her lip. His eyes felt hooded, because they wouldn’t rise any higher.

  “Are you okay?”

  He must have run a lot of blood down the drain to feel so light-headed and tongue-tied.

  “Lean against the counter.”

  “I don’t need to.” But he did it, keeping pressure on his throbbing palm and glad for the pain.

  “So I brought the skeleton keys I mentioned to try in the cabinet.” She motioned toward the box on the big mahogany hutch.

  He welcomed the distraction. “Did you find one that works?”

  “I didn’t try any. It’s your cab—”

  At the sound of Rick’s truck, he pushed off the counter and moved toward the door. “If it matters to you, go ahead.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  He pulled open the door and stepped out.

  “—meant.”

  It wasn’t quite a slam, just an awkwardly closed door.

  Rick eyed him when he got in the truck. “Stitches?”

  “Probably.”

  Doc Bennington was older than Moses and no plastic surgeon, but he could still stitch up a slashed palm. As long as the hand worked, what was one more scar?

  Rick dropped him off at the faded blue Victorian house Doc retired in and practiced from. With no office help, he didn’t take appointments or insurance, which put some people off—thankfully. There was only one patient ahead of him, a woman with a howling cough that sounded like a wolf-seal crossbreed. After that, Doc took a look at his palm, probed and stretched, and finally tacked it with several stitches, using a numbing agent that would have put down a horse.

  He wrote a scrip for antibiotics and painkillers they filled at the drugstore-minimart. Back at the ranch, he found Noelle reading to both kids on the brown leather couch in the slanting sunrays through the great room window. Livie’s intense expression revealed astonishing concentration, but Liam immediately jumped down and ran to him.

  “What’s wrong with your hand?”

  “Alligator bit it.”

  Liam’s eyes got big. “Where is it? Can I see?”

  “Nah. Took one taste of Uncle Morgan and flew away.”

  “Alligators don’t fly.”

  “They don’t? Must have been a pterodactyl.”

  “Can I see?” His brown eyes widened even more.

  “Too late—it’s gone.” Morgan roughed the kid’s head.

  Noelle’s fair brow furrowed with concern. “What happened?”

  “Just a cut.”

  “Five stitches,” Rick supplied, coming in behind.

  “I want to see the pterodactyl,” Liam bellowed.

  “Uncle Morgan’s imagining things,” Rick told him.

  “Nuh-uh. He said.”

  “Sometimes grown-ups exaggerate.” Rick patted Liam’s head. “So, Morgan. Something you want to tell us?”

  Question courtesy of Quinn Reilly. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I bought a house.” He settled in beside his tiny girl.

  Noelle turned with just the mix of surprise and worry he’d expected.

  “Livie and I are moving to Vera’s. I’ll get Consuela out here to keep house and cook.” He hadn’t expected to leave them speechless.

  “But . . .”

  “You guys need your space. This’ll help me wean Livie from this situation without too abrupt a change, while I figure out what’s next.”

  “That wasn’t necessary, Morgan.” Rick planted his hands on his hips.

  “Yeah, it is. She’s two years old.”

  Noelle said, “That’s still a baby.”

  “Thus the halfway house.”

  She caressed Livie protectively, wondering, no doubt, if something she’d said or done prompted his decision.

  “It’s not you. Or Rick. It’s just time.”

  She nodded. “You’ll still be close.”

  “For a while. As soon as Livie’s ready, we’ll go home. You have another focus now.” Noelle was the only mommy Livie knew. But it wasn’t working anymore. She was an only child, not the middle offspring of this combined effort.

  Unconsciously Noelle touched her belly. Imagining who she’d bring into the world this time? Jill had speculated endlessly—boy or girl, fair or dark, lively or calm, smart, of course, and beautiful.

  Her pregnancy had been a breeze, hardly a moment’s discomfort until she got big enough to need backrubs, a role he accepted wholeheartedly since he played such a small part in the rest of it. The memory formed a furrow between his brows.

  “Down to the right. Now up, up . . . okay over to the left.”

  “Your whole back, in other words.”

  “Just where the baby pushes.”

  “Here?” He squeezed her ne
ck.

  “Well, if you insist.”

  “Baby pushing here?” He squeezed her ankle.

  “Just a little.” Giggling, she’d taken the whole body massage.

  Livie climbed into his lap, pushing up and wrapping his neck. How did she always know? She caught his face and kissed his mouth, her precious lips rough with a tiny beaklike sucking callous from her likewise calloused thumb.

  He hugged her close, breathing her baby scent. Noelle was right. She was still so small. But he was right too. Standing up, he swayed, a little woozy. Doc Bennington was of the old-school mindset that pain meds should render you senseless. “Livie and I will be taking a nap. If anyone hears her wake up and I don’t, please barge in.”

  He felt their stares as he’d felt Quinn Reilly’s. As he’d felt . . . her. Intensified, no doubt, by blood loss and painkillers.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Long after Morgan left, he remained on her mind. Not her business, Quinn told herself, since his bleeding hand bore a wedding ring. Even if his marriage was in trouble, as the sadness and isolation might indicate, it didn’t involve her.

  Given her own situation, getting involved would be doubly unwise. She shook her head with a self-deprecating laugh. Not to mention who the man was. She didn’t even understand what he actually did. Author, sure, but turnaround specialist?

  With a sigh, she locked up and went home. Tempted to get online and read more about him, she avoided her computer in the barn and went into the house instead. The little she’d gleaned was enough to know about someone off-limits. He’d made that clear, leaving like that when she had only tried to be helpful. That handsome rose had thorns—not big flesh-ripping thorns, but the little ones that pricked an unsuspecting finger that throbbed for days. He could at least have thanked her for the use of the sink . . . his sink. Almost.