Rocky Mountain Lawman. Rachel Lee

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      Buddy shifted on the seat of the ATV. “Naw,” he said finally. “If she’s just a painter...”

      “Well, I saw her canvas. So did you, I imagine. She’ll be here a few days then move on like everyone else. It’s not like she’s settling in across the valley.”

      “I guess not.

      Craig started to turn Dusty, then paused. “Say, have you noticed any deadfalls or new beaver dams? Water seems low in the valley creek.”

      Buddy hesitated. “No, can’t think of one. I’ll keep my eye out, though.”

      “Thanks. You know how much damage too little water in the valley would do. We’ll probably lose enough elk and moose as it is.”

      “Ticks are gonna be bad,” Buddy agreed. “Too many already.”

      “Yup. Anyway, if you see me poking around, that’s why. I’ve got to find out why the creek is drying up.” He touched the brim of his hat, nodding to both men, and completed Dusty’s turn.

      Sunlight glinted off something in the undergrowth, and his eye followed it swiftly. A trip wire? Just a foot outside Buddy’s fence?

      He reined Dusty, feeling the men’s eyes on his back as if they were hot laser beams. He didn’t turn. “Buddy?”

      “Yeah?”

      “Trip wires are only legal if all they do is set off an alarm.”

      “I know that!”

      “Then have a good day. And make sure they don’t run too far past your fence. Public land again.”

      Without looking back, he rode slowly away.

      Now he was absolutely convinced that problems were brewing, and he was going to have to get to the bottom of it. Soon.

      He hadn’t liked the look of that Cap guy, either. Hell’s bells. Trouble was coming to his forest. He knew it as sure as the sun was pushing toward midday.

      * * *

      Sky liked being in Conard City almost as much as she liked being out in the forest. The place had a worn charm, sort of like fading elegance, especially downtown. The downtown was old enough to bring to mind images of women in long skirts, maybe some of them sporting Edwardian stylishness, swishing along the streets. There were even hitching posts left around the courthouse square, and the courthouse looked as if it had been lifted right out of New England.

      She liked to sit on the benches in that square, amidst the gardens that the city carefully tended, and now, the second morning after her encounter with Buddy, she even received nods and greetings. Some old men played checkers at a stone table with benches beneath a huge cottonwood, and she wondered if that table had always been there or if it had been put there for them.

      Her artist’s eye was taking snapshots, and mentally framing them as if for a canvas. Maybe someday, if she was here long enough, she’d ask those old guys if they’d mind if she took a photo of them.

      She was dressed for painting again, and she liked the fact that nobody looked askance at her splattered jeans, shirt and jacket. It was a fact of her life that sooner or later most everything she owned showed signs of oil paint. Sometimes she joked that it just jumped out of the tubes at her.

      She had carried her painting supplies with her and set up her portable easel with a blank canvas on it. On the bench beside her, she spread out her tarp and then opened her box of brushes and tubes of oils. At home she preferred a sturdy acrylic palette, but when traveling she used one covered with tear-off papers, like a stiff pad. The farther she got from a studio, the more problematic cleanup became.

      Looking around, she thought about the colors she wanted for undercoating the canvas. Though the viewer would never see them, at some level they satisfied the brain, as if while they might appear invisible, they weren’t.

      But even as she sat there staring at the stark white canvas and trying to pick tones and hues from the world around her, she knew she was chickening out. She ought to go back to the woods and paint what she had wanted to paint, not hide out here in the center of town.

      She shouldn’t let that crank drive her off. When had she ever been one to give ground anyway? Four years in the army, some of it in a combat zone, had stripped her of ordinary fears. One man with an attitude wasn’t enough to run her off, not anymore.

      But then she realized what she really wanted to avoid: Craig Stone. Her attraction to him had been immediate and strong, and she didn’t want that. Not now, maybe not ever again. And certainly she didn’t want to grow any feelings, even purely sexual ones, for a man who clearly wasn’t going to be around except every now and then. Heck, given his job, she might never run across him again.

      So why hesitate? As men went, that made him pretty safe, didn’t it?

      She was used to being very clear about things, at least in her own mind, but the lousy breakup with Hector had left her uncertain in some way she hated. Worse than uncertain, she realized. Unsure. Very unsure. As if she didn’t trust her own mind and feelings anymore.

      After her time in Iraq, where she’d been caught up in some pretty ugly stuff, she’d had a certain amount of post-traumatic stress. Of course she had. Damn near everyone had it to one degree or another. For some it was more crippling than others, was all.

      She’d been fortunate. She’d come home with a bunker mentality, a tendency to jump at every unexpected noise and a total loss of any sense of safety. But she had come back without disabling flashbacks, and after about six months she’d been able to drive again without seeing every oncoming vehicle or object alongside the road as a potential bomb. She knew how lucky she was, especially after spending the past few years working with vets who were a whole lot less lucky.

      She didn’t often have nightmares anymore, she functioned, she felt safe most of the time and an inclination toward explosive outbursts had been gone a long time now. War was a life-altering experience, and not all its effects would vanish, even with years, but she believed she’d come back as far as she ever would.

      This square, for example. There’d been a time when she would have found it extremely uncomfortable here, surrounded by strangers who walked by, with cars moving along streets, windows that stared blankly back at her and doors that could conceal any kind of threat. But here she was, feeling pretty much fine, although maybe a smidge less comfortable than she had felt alone on that hillside with pretty good sight lines. So maybe this sense of uncertainty was all the breakup’s fault. Hector certainly hadn’t added to her self-confidence any.

      Which still left the question of why she was sitting here in the square when the place she really wanted to paint was that hillside from yesterday. That rocky valley and creek had called to her, suggesting both nature’s strength and mystery. This lovely but tame park didn’t do that.

      Still, the morning eased by, the people shifted, cars left and new ones appeared. Birdsong emanated from nearby trees. A wandering dog came up to sniff her, then decided she didn’t have anything worth pursuing, like food. It wandered on and was greeted by the guys playing checkers.

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