Wildfire by Roxanne Rustand Page B

smile. “Thanks. It smells wonderful.”
    “Is that all?” She stood as still and unyielding as marble, her hands held stiffly at her sides, but she radiated the attitude of someone who wanted to give him a lecture he wouldn’t forget.
    Maybe, he mused, she had anger management issues and needed therapy. “I’m concerned about Tessa,” he said.
    Silence.
    “I understand there’s been trouble out here.” At her impassive expression, he added, “The sheriff told me that someone shot at Tess three weeks ago, yet there’ve been no arrests.”
    “So why does that concern you?” Sofia’s voice was like the crack of a whip, sharp and challenging.
    “She was a friend long ago, and she saved my life this week. It sounds like she could be in danger, and I care about her.”
    The older woman made a low, derisive sound under her breath.
    “Okay, then I feel like I owe her. Is that fair enough?”
    “You’d best eat and rest, so you can heal and be on your way. That’s what you can do for her.”
    He watched the housekeeper turn on her heel and stalk out the door. “Is it just me, or do you and Gus guard her from everyone who comes this way?”
    He’d spoken softly, more to himself than to her, but Sofia stopped at the edge of the porch and sent a look over her shoulder that could’ve skinned a bear at thirty yards, then silently continued down the steps.
    So it is me. He hobbled over to the small kitchen table, settled into one of the two wooden chairs, and lifted the napkin from the tray.
    Steam wafted the rich aromas from a heated plated stacked with enchiladas and two burritos, and a smaller plate bearing a trio of sugar-crusted buñuelos.
    He whistled under his breath as he looked out the window at Sofia marching toward the house. He’d never met her, yet the woman clearly despised him.
    But why?

     
    “This was a big mistake, Tess.” Gus tossed a bale of hay off the stack in the main horse barn, then climbed down and hoisted it onto two others arranged crosswise on a wheelbarrow. “Mark my words, you’ll be sorry you ever let Josh Bryant set foot on this place.”
    “We won’t see him much. Sofia said she’d take his meals to him, and I’m sure he’ll mostly be resting in bed.” She trundled the wheelbarrow down the aisle to the first stall, sliced the baling twine, and sectioned off a quarter of a bale for Claire’s favorite old mare, Socks. “Anyway, I didn’t have much choice. Where would he go?”
    “Back to wherever he came from?” Gus took an equal portion and carried it into the next stall. “Coulda hopped on a plane in Jackson.”
    “Michael said the surgeon was really concerned about him traveling so soon. And anyway, his motorcycle is being rebuilt, and he doesn’t want to leave without it. It has a lot of sentimental value to him.”
    Gus grumbled under his breath as they continued down the aisle, delivering hay to each stall. “You gonna have your mother over tomorrow, like usual?”
    “I…don’t know.”
    “You have any idea what Claire will do if she finds Josh Bryant here?”
    Tessa did have a pretty good idea, and it wasn’t something she wanted to deal with. On her best days, Claire was demanding, but her slowly advancing dementia had increased that ten-fold.
    For years she’d demanded that her three daughters call her Claire. Last week, Tessa had inadvertently called her Mom, and she’d exploded with rage.
    “Maybe she won’t remember Josh’s name.”
    Gus snorted. “It’s recent history that she forgets, darlin’. Not what happened ten, fifteen years ago.”
    “Just wishful thinking, I guess,” Tessa said on a long sigh. “She never actually met him…but I can’t lie to her, if she asks who he is.”
    “And you can’t go asking that boy to lay low, or you’d have to tell him why. Or is that something you maybe oughta do?”
    “‘That boy’ is thirty-five years old, Gus. And old history is just that. Why stir it up?” She grabbed another armload of