Jeannie Watt - Crossing Nevada

The tops didn’t cling to her upper body, the jeans didn’t hug her legs. Everything was loose and comfortable—and made her feel invisible—or as invisible as a person could be with a ruined face.

When Tess came back into the kitchen, the oversize stovetop espresso maker began to gurgle and the dogs instantly ran to the back door to wait while Tess poured coffee into a tall travel mug and added a healthy dollop of cream. She’d fallen into a routine over the past week. Coffee—regardless of what time of day she woke up—a quick breakfast of cereal and milk followed by a protein shake, then several hours in the barn sanding the old oak furniture she’d found there. Not that she knew anything about refinishing furniture, but she had instructions she’d printed off the internet and time on her hands.

Too much time. But dwelling on it made her feel even more like the prisoner she essentially was, which in turn made her determined to fill the hours so she wouldn’t feel like a prisoner. Eddie had destroyed her looks and her livelihood, all because she wouldn’t give him something she didn’t have, something that probably no longer even existed. She wasn’t going to let him destroy what was left of her life. She would hang on to what she had and make what she could of it. Then maybe, once the bastard was caught, she could slip back into the mainstream. Rejoin the land of the living.

But first he had to be caught.

* * *

ZACH RETURNED TO the house about half an hour after the girls got home from school. He’d pulled the pump and managed to fix it with the extra parts he had in his shop and then hauled the clumsy cylinder back to the well and lowered it down the hole. It had obligingly sucked up water and spit it back out through the wheel lines in the field.

Sweet victory.

When he walked into the house, the television was on and the heat was off. The three girls were in the living room wrapped in the afghans Karen had made for each of them during her illness. Emma and Lizzie were watching TV, Darcy was doing her homework at the big oak desk he’d inherited from his grandpa, the dark blue crocheted blanket draped over her shoulders. It’d been an unseasonably cold spring day and the house felt like a tomb.

“Darcy, you need to remember to turn on the heat.” Zach pulled off his gloves and dropped them in the square willow basket next to the door that Lizzie called the mitten box. “I can almost see my breath.”

Darcy looked at him from over the top of her glasses. “The furnace is dead and you won’t let me build a fire.”

Damn. He crossed the room to check the thermostat. Dead as a doornail. “You can build all the fires you want while I’m here,” Zach said as he headed for the basement door.

“That doesn’t do us much good when you’re not here,” Darcy said.

“I guess that’s what afghans are for.” Zach snapped on the hanging light before going down the wooden steps to battle the furnace. One of his wife’s cardinal rules had been no fires, no sharp things without an adult in the house. Darcy had been nine when Karen died—old enough to use sharp things, but she hadn’t. As far as he knew she still abided by the rule three years later.

He spent as much time working on the furnace as he did on the tractors and fully expected another major fight, but for once it turned out to be an easy fix. He replaced the fuse then hit the reset button and the beast roared to life. That was two relatively easy fixes in one day. But they didn’t balance out losing his grazing.

“Way to go, Daddy,” Lizzie said as he came up the stairs. She was still wearing Darcy’s coat, which went past her knees. Zach smiled at his youngest daughter, the one with Karen’s fair coloring and strawberry-blond hair. “Thanks, kiddo.” He knelt in front of her, placed a big hand on each of her small shoulders and gave her an exaggerated once-over. “Where’s your coat, Lizzie?”

The six-year-old shifted her mouth sideways. Not a good sign.

“I put it somewhere. I guess.” She couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Any idea where?”

She shook her head. Zach glanced at Darcy, who watched the action from his desk. She instantly went back to her homework. Zach sensed conspiracy.

“I want you to find it.”

“What if I can’t?” Lizzie asked as she twisted a button on Darcy’s coat.

Excellent question. “We’ll worry about that later. Right now I want you to find your coat.”

Lizzie exhaled in a long-suffering way and walked out of the room, feet dragging.

“Where’s Lizzie’s coat?” he asked Darcy.

She met his eyes in her direct way. “Honestly, Dad, I have no idea where it is.”

“She hid it,” Emma said from behind him. “I don’t know where.”

“Why?”

“She doesn’t like it. She wanted a pink coat. Tia—” aka Beth Ann “—got her the red one because it was a better price.” Emma gave a philosophical shrug and then dismissively flipped one of her light brown braids over her shoulder. “You know how she hates red.”

Actually he didn’t, which kind of bothered him. It was common knowledge that Lizzie hated red?

Zach rubbed the back of his neck. “Thanks.”

“What’re you going to do?” Emma asked.

Consult with Beth Ann, no doubt. A new coat simply wasn’t in the cards until he shipped another lot of cattle and he was trying to hold off on that until the prices jumped. He was damned tired of giving away his beef for break-even prices. Last time he sold prematurely, he’d lost money, but he’d needed the cash and had taken the financial beating.

And he’d probably have to do it again before he had all the doctors and labs and hospitals—both local and the one in Reno—paid off.

Lizzie was going to wear her coat once they found it.

As Zach walked down the hall to the kitchen where dinner simmered in a slow cooker he wondered if a red coat could be dyed a less hated color. Purple maybe?

He’d just taken the top off the Crock-Pot when the kitchen door opened and his sister-in-law came in carrying a laptop case. “Hey, Beth Ann.”

“Zach.” She set the computer on the counter then pushed the dark hair back from the side of her face. She looked a lot like her sister, except Karen had been fair while Beth Ann was a deep brunette.

“What’s that for?”

“Darcy wants to borrow it.”

“You don’t need it for studying?” Beth Ann was taking online courses, trying to complete an education degree—or most of it anyway. By the time she got to the point when she would have to take regular classes, Darcy would be traveling to the high school in town, forty miles away, where the community college was located. The two of them could drive together, which would solve another problem—buying a car for Darcy.

“I can use the computer at school tonight and Darcy can take this up to her room and work in peace.” Beth Ann came to stand beside him as he added salt to the stew. “Any luck with the pastures?”

“Struck out.” He put the salt down and pulled the pepper out of the spice drawer, hoping Emma didn’t walk in. She ate more pepper than she realized.

“Really?” Beth Ann asked. “What’s she going to use them for?”

“We never got that far in the conversation.”

Beth Ann cocked her head and Zach added, “The new neighbor wasn’t all that friendly. Hung up on me.”

“Really?” She looked shocked.

“Yep.” The conversation had been over for all intents and purposes, but around here, people said goodbye before they hung up the phone.

Beth Ann took the pepper shaker from Zach when he was finished and dropped it back in the drawer while he stirred the stew. “Susan said one side of her face was bandaged when she came in to rent the post office box.”