feared he might hurt a small woman. Now he wasn’t sure Madison wouldn’t hurt him.
“Madison!” Kirkland yelled from his office. “You fully gassed and ready?”
She didn’t take her eyes off Fifth. “I can be in the air in five.”
“Good.” The sheriff appeared in the office doorway. “Fifth, inhale another bite and follow Madison. I want you two gone as fast as possible.”
Fifth caught the surprise in her eyes a moment before she grabbed a satchel and ran for the back door.
He was right behind her. He had no trouble matching her long strides as she stormed toward a helicopter parked on the other side of Kirkland’s barn. “You’re the pilot.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, and you must be the passenger I came all the way from Wichita Falls to pick up.” She glanced over at him. “You’re the expert on rough terrain they were talking about. I thought—I thought...”
“I think I know what you thought.” He grinned. “You’re not the only one who gets set up with strangers because of their height.”
“I’m sorry,” she said as she opened the passenger door.
“Forget it. How about we start over?” Fifth dropped his hat in the cargo bag and put on headphones. “You’re the pilot and I’m the expert.” He watched her circle the chopper and climb into the pilot’s seat before adding, “Only, I hope you’re a better pilot than I am an expert. I’ve been studying up for months, but I’ve had no field experience.”
“Climb in,” she shouted as she started the helicopter. “You’re about to have the ride of your life.”
Fifth folded into the passenger seat, bumping her shoulder as he buckled himself in. “So, I guess sex on the kitchen table is off the agenda?”
She laughed, then winked at him. “Not necessarily.”
Fifth froze. Now he was shocked, but by the time his brain cells fired, it was too late to run. They were already in the air.
Peace
TORI WALKED THE rocky ground behind Parker’s house near Crossroads. The land didn’t look good for much as far as farming. One field near the road was plowed, but the rest seemed like it had always grown wild. Whoever built this house had wanted peace, she decided. The front porch faced the morning sun. Trees had been planted in a circle out back years ago and now offered a small meadow of shade.
She already loved it here. Her mind had settled, and she could feel herself growing stronger. When—or if—her stepfather found her, she wouldn’t be the same person as she had been two weeks ago when she vanished.
She was twenty-four, and it was time she took control of her own life. She should have done it years ago, but her mother kept saying that her new husband, Tori’s stepfather, knew best. He was a businessman, and he would run everything so that all Tori would have to do was paint. When Tori had protested again, at nineteen, her mother had reminded her of how the mixing of business and art had driven Tori’s father mad. He’d loved being the carpenter, working with his hands, but when his carvings began to sell for thousands, he lost the simple joy in creating.
Tori had backed off, letting her mother win, again. And again. And again. Letting her mother and stepfather handle the business side of her career so she could paint. Only lately she’d felt like a factory, always pushed to produce.
She twirled in the meadow. “Freedom,” she yelled, then laughed.
Maybe she’d paint today. Maybe she’d sleep in the sun. Maybe she’d go visit the man at the edge of town who called her Rabbit.
But, no matter what, she’d do what she wanted to do. She’d live her own life.
Dallas in cadet-gray rain
PARKER LOVED THE gallery after dark. The lights of a rainy Dallas surrounded her as they glowed through the forty-foot wall of glass that framed the building. Paintings seemed to float between the city and the rich, earthy reds of Saltillo tiles.
Somehow the art seemed to come alive as shadows bordered each creation’s elegant grace. Her gallery was a still, unpolluted kind of paradise that always made Parker feel safe and comfortable.
The possibility of dying couldn’t reach her here. She could push the prospect from her mind and just breathe.
She took one last walk through her world. She almost had everything ready. Her staff believed she had a scouting trip in the planning stages but she was, for the first time in her life, running away to have an adventure. To paint. To live. To help a friend.
For years, she’d been saying she’d take off when everything slowed down. She’d go to Crossroads, Texas, where she’d bought a farmhouse almost ten years ago. Her someday dream had always been to paint. She’d been driving from Dallas to Albuquerque one summer on the back roads and seen a For Sale sign hooked to a barbed-wire fence in the middle of nowhere.
On a whim she’d turned off a road that was posted as private. The land, if it had ever been tamed, had gone back to nature. One edge dipped down into a canyon with rich earth shades that took her breath away. The other direction spread over rolling prairie spotted with wildflowers and clusters of trees surrounding small ponds. She remembered seeing the little two-story farmhouse peeking out from behind a huge oak planted at the bend in the lane leading up to the place.
The old house was perfect. Small, with an unfinished attic that could serve as a studio. High ceilings with good light streaming in. Tall windows in the back with a canyon view. Heaven at the end of a private road. A painter’s hideaway. The rancher next door owned the small chunk of land and had said he needed money to pay taxes. She’d made an offer and he didn’t even bother to counter. Within hours she’d bought the place, hired a couple to clean once a month and headed back to the city.
Her someday place would be waiting for her.
A few years later, the rancher offered to lease the small field that bordered his place for a percentage of the profits. She said she would if he’d use the money to keep up her house and the road they shared. “Whatever you pay out, spend it on repairs and paint,” she’d said, knowing she had little time to even think about the farm. She was almost thirty and had had a business to build.
“Will do, lady,” he’d said.
A month later he’d called and asked what color she wanted the outside painted.
“The color of the Texas sky in summer. And, cowboy—” she’d forgotten his name by then “—when you have enough in my balance to paint the inside, don’t bother to call me—just paint each room the color of a different flower that grows on my land.”
“Will do,” he’d said again and had hung up without saying goodbye.
But Parker knew the colors didn’t really matter. She’d probably go the rest of her life seeing the place only in her mind. It’d be blue, like the sky. One room would be the yellow of sunflowers, another the violet of morning glories or the scarlet in Indian paintbrush.
The cowboy never called again, and the house slowly became more of an imaginary place in Parker’s thoughts than a reality.
Until now. Maybe, with Tori visiting, Parker might actually start creating her own work. She smiled. With her luck, the cranky cowboy would be color-blind and she’d have to repaint the whole house before she even set up a canvas.
The buzzer on the gallery’s main door pulled her from her thoughts. Parker moved close enough to hear the security guard, but stayed in the shadows.
“I’ll