Wyoming Winter. Diana Palmer
she’d been hesitant to get out again. They’d talked about the upcoming presidential election, the state of the country, the beauty of Catelow in the snow. He’d teased her about wearing high heels to work instead of sensible boots, with snow already piling up, and she’d retorted that boots would hardly complement the pretty pantsuit she was wearing. He’d pursed his lips and looked at her, long and hard, and said Colie would look good in anything. She’d gone inside the law office, reluctantly, flushed and beaming after the unexpected pleasure of his company.
J.C. worked full-time locally, but he went back overseas periodically to train troops in Iraq in police procedure. He was supposed to go back in a few months to do it all over again with a new group. J.C. worked as security chief for Ren Colter, who had a huge cattle ranch, Skyhorn, outside Catelow, Wyoming. Ren was ex-military as well, and he had somebody fill in for J.C. while he accommodated a former commander by drilling new recruits.
Giving orders was something J.C. was very good at. He was also gorgeous. He had jet-black hair, cut short, and eyes so pale a gray that they glittered like silver. He was tall and muscular, but not like a bodybuilder. He had the physique of a rodeo cowboy, lithe and powerful. Colie liked to just sit and look at him when she had the opportunity. She’d never known anybody quite like him. He had a unique background, about which he rarely spoke. Rodney had told her that J.C.’s father was a member of the Blackfoot nation up in Canada. His mother had been a little redheaded Irish woman. Quite an uncommon pairing, but it had produced a handsome child. J.C. never spoke of his father, Rodney added.
Colie wanted a family of her own, badly. She and Rodney had lost their mother two years previously to bone cancer. It had taken her a long time to die, but even then, she’d been cheerful and upbeat around her children and her husband. Colie’s father was a Methodist minister, a pillar of the community. Everybody loved him, not just his own congregation. They’d loved Colie’s mother, too. The little woman, named Beth Louise but called Ludie, had always been the first to arrive if there was a sick person who needed caring for, or a child who needed a temporary home. She’d even fostered dogs that were picked up by the local no-kill animal shelter while they waited for an adoptive family.
All that had passed, along with her. The house was suddenly empty. Jared Thompson, Colie’s father, had been almost suicidally depressed after his wife’s death, but his faith had pulled him through. It was, he told Colie, not right to mourn someone who had lived such a full life and had gone on to a happier, more wonderful place. Death was not the end for people of faith. They simply had to accept that people died for reasons that were, perhaps, not quite clear to those left behind.
Colie and Rodney had grieved, too. Rodney had been overseas for almost four years, with only brief visits. He couldn’t come home for his mother’s funeral, although he Skyped with his father and sister after the services. He was a sweet, biddable boy until he went into the service. When he came home, he was...different. Colie couldn’t figure out why. He became fixated on fancy cars and designer clothes, neither of which fit in his small budget. He’d obtained a job at the local hardware store when he came home, because it was owned by a friend of the reverend Thompson. Rodney seemed to be a natural salesman. But he complained all the time about getting minimum wage. He wanted more. He was never satisfied with anything for long.
The one thing that bothered Colie most was that her brother wasn’t quite lucid much of the time. He had red-rimmed eyes and sometimes he staggered. She worried that he might have been hurt overseas and wasn’t telling them. She knew it wasn’t from alcohol, because Rodney almost never took a drink. It was puzzling.
During Rodney’s tour of duty in the Middle East, J.C. and Rodney hung out together when Rodney was off duty. Rod didn’t write often, but when he did, he mentioned things he and J.C. had done overseas during the time J.C. was there. They went out on the town when Rodney was on liberty. Odd thing about J.C., Rodney had commented. He never drank hard liquor. He’d have the occasional beer, but he didn’t touch the heavy stuff. Like Rodney. But the brother who used to tease her and bring her wildflowers and watch television with her seemed to have gone away. The man who came back from overseas was someone else. Someone with a darkness inside him, a lust for things, for material things.
He’d been vocal about the old things in the house where he lived with his sister and father. It was primitive, he scoffed.
Colie didn’t find it so. It looked lived-in. The small house was immaculate, Colie thought as she looked at her surroundings. The sofa had a new cover, a pretty burgundy floral pattern, and her father’s puffy armchair had a solid burgundy cover. The spotless wood floors had area rugs, which were beaten clean by Colie on a regular basis. There were no cobwebs anywhere. The marble-topped coffee table that her father had found at an antiques shop graced the living room, where an open fireplace crackled with orange flames and the smell of burning oak.
Colie didn’t look too bad herself, she reflected, glancing in the hall mirror at her wavy collar-length dark brown hair. It never needed curling. It was naturally wavy. She had an oval face, sweet and pleasant, but not beautiful. Her eyes were large and dark green under thick lashes. Her mouth was a perfect bow. She had an hourglass figure, with long legs always clad in denim jeans. She had only a few dresses and a couple of nice pantsuits, which she wore to church and to work at the local attorney’s office where she was a receptionist and typist. Around the house, she wore jeans and boots and pullover sweaters. This one was a nice medium green, long-sleeved and V-necked. It showed off Colie’s small, firm breasts in a nice but flattering way. She never wore low-cut things or suggestive dresses. After all, her father was a minister. She didn’t want to do anything that would embarrass him in front of his congregation. She didn’t even curse.
Rodney did. She was constantly chastising him about it.
Just as she thought it, he walked in the door, stomping snow off his big boots on the front porch as he stood in the open doorway, letting in a flurry. He closed it quickly behind him.
“Damn, it’s cold out!” he swore. “Snowing like a son of a...”
She interrupted him. “Will you stop that? Daddy’s a minister,” she groaned. “Rodney, you’re such a pain!”
He had her dark green eyes, but his hair was straight and thick and a shade lighter than hers. He was tall, with perfect teeth and a rakish smile. No choirboy, Rodney, he was always in trouble throughout high school. Presumably, he’d been better behaved in the military, since he was discharged early.
“Daddy can curse,” he retorted. “Haven’t you heard him?”
“Yes, Rodney, he says ‘chicken feathers!’ That’s how he curses.” She glowered at him. “That’s not what you’re saying when you lose your temper.” He lost it a lot lately, too.
He shrugged her off. “I have issues,” he said easily. “I’m working on it. You have to remember that I’ve been around soldiers for several years, and in combat.”
“I try to take that into account,” she said. “But couldn’t you tone it down, just a little bit? For Daddy’s sake?”
He made a face at her. “God, you’re hard to live up to, do you know that?” He sighed, exasperated. “You’ve never put a foot out of line. Never had a parking ticket, never had a speeding ticket, never even jaywalked! What a paragon to try to live up to!”
She grimaced. “I just behave the way Mama taught me.” The thought made her sad. “Don’t you miss her?”
He nodded. “She was the kindest woman I’ve ever known. Well, besides you.” He chuckled and hugged her, and just for a minute, he was the big brother she’d adored. “You’re just the best, sis.”
She hugged him back. “I love you, too.” She sniffed and her nose wrinkled as she drew back. “Rodney, what’s that smell?” she asked, frowning as she sniffed him again. “It’s like tobacco, but not.”
He let her go and averted his eyes. “Just cigarette smoke. Some of that imported stuff. I have a friend who gets them.”
“Not J.C. He doesn’t smoke,” she said, curious.
“Not