Dangerous Refuge by Elizabeth Lowell Page B

away, it was clear that Lorne was dead. If I can’t give aid, I’m supposed to leave everything untouched for the deputies. I called 911 and chased scavengers until a patrol car showed up.”
    And I cried, but I’m the only one who cares about that.
    “If it was important, wouldn’t the first deputy have seen it?” she added.
    “Not if he wasn’t looking for it,” Tanner said.
    She shook her head. “I should have looked. I’m sorry.”
    He heard the emotion in her voice and touched her chin. “Why would you? You’re not a cop. And maybe there was nothing to see.”
    “You don’t sound convinced.”
    He changed the subject. “Lorne’s lawyer said that there had been offers on the ranch. Was that something he talked about with you?”
    “He laughed about it. Said the idiots thought they could eat the view.”
    “If you could, you’d be fat,” he said wryly, waving a hand at the surroundings.
    Behind the ranch house, the Sierra Nevada thrust granite spires up into the sky, creating a vast barrier to anything that didn’t have wings. In the winter, winds routinely reached more than one hundred miles an hour on the upper ridgelines, lifting snow like white fire from black rocks. The mountains were a wilderness of tall trees and rushing white streams, hidden valleys and stands of aspens that burned molten gold in the fall.
    Below the ranch to the east, Refuge spread out, far enough away to be interesting rather than intrusive. Around the town, sunlight glittered off the groundwater and irrigation channels that were wet even in the driest season. A hundred shades of green fields and marshes shimmered in the sun, surrounding farmhouses and town alike.
    Glory Springs and Lorne’s narrow ranch valley lay between the mountains and the main valley floor where Refuge was, part of both but at the same time distinct, aloof. Like Lorne.
    “The ranch is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen,” Shaye said quietly. “I wish . . .”
    Tanner waited, but she didn’t finish. “What do you wish?”
    “That Lorne was alive and the land was safe with the Conservancy.” She turned and faced him. “What are you going to do with the ranch?”

Eleven
     
    A t first Shaye thought that Tanner would ignore her question as he had the one about the gold. Then he shook his head.
    “I don’t know,” he said simply.
    “You weren’t in touch with Lorne, you haven’t been here since you were a kid, yet you dropped everything and drove here when he died. Because of the ranch?”
    “No.”
    “Then why?”
    He shrugged. “I wondered myself. I think I was . . . looking for something.”
    “What?”
    “If I knew, I would have found it by now.” He hissed out a long breath and put his hands on his hips. His mouth settled into a flat line. “Whatever, I’m here now, and I keep tripping over questions. As for the ranch, when I’m sure I understand why you found Lorne lying on his back for a vulture buffet, then we can talk about the land and the Conservancy.”
    Because I’m sure I don’t want much to do with the land anymore. Right?
    He made an impatient sound. The ranch reminded him of too many things that never had had answers and never would—his father, his uncle, himself.
    If she picked up his uneasy thoughts, she hid it well. Or it didn’t bother her.
    And why should it? You’re nothing much to her, and while she’s a damned intriguing woman, she isn’t into casual sex—and that’s all I can offer her. She loves life in a place that drove me crazy.
    Or was it the teeth-grinding tension of growing up as a buffer between my uncle and my father that made me eager to get out?
    Tanner had never thought about that possibility and he didn’t have time or patience for it now. The past was over. The questions about Lorne’s death were here and now.
    The wind flexed across Tanner and Shaye, bringing with it the smell of evergreens and stone. Like the day, the wind was balanced between sunshine and