The sun had begun its downward slide behind the mountains to the west, casting the valley in a warm bath of amber and shadow. She stood on the deck for a long while, staring down at the stream, realizing that the animals she had seen grazing along its banks weren’t horses at all, but the llamas.

The thought of their gentle eyes and regal bearing made her smile. She wanted to just go and be with them and listen to their pleasant humming. She would sit on the fence and let them rub their noses over her. She would talk to them and try to absorb their air of wisdom. They would want their supper and she would tell them to wait until Rafferty came.

She wasn’t sure he would come today. The book she had read over her lunch break had been short on details about llama diets. They had an inexhaustible supply of grass and water. Perhaps they got the feed pellets only as a supplement once or twice a week. At any rate, Rafferty probably had better things to do with his time than troop down for a chore any ten-year-old ranch kid could have mastered. God knew, he didn’t even like her. He had kissed her in anger, had pinned her down beneath him because she had attacked him.

And he held you while you cried because why, Marilee?

Because I didn’t give him a choice.

She scowled at the reminder. Still, he had agreed to help her with the animals. Because she was his neighbor.

That was part of the code of the West, she suspected. Part of Rafferty’s personal code. That touched her heart in a spot she hadn’t even known was vulnerable. She had spent too many years working in a world where it was every man for himself.

Feeling restless, she walked around to the front of the house and wandered across the yard toward the out-buildings, going in search of llamas. The lawn needed mowing in a big way. Add that to the list for tomorrow: find a lawn mower or bring a llama into the yard. She tried to think what Lucy must have done. Nothing, of course. She had gotten someone else to do it for her. Kendall Morton, hired hand from the Outer Limits.

She wanted to ask Sheriff Quinn a question or two about Morton. If they were in California, she could have called any one of half a dozen friends in law enforcement and had the guy checked out for wants and warrants or a prior record. But this was not California.

A hired hand, she mused. A ranch in a place where land was worth its weight in gold. A herd of exotic animals. A new Range Rover in the garage sitting beside Lucy’s red Miata. Where the hell had all the money come from?

A windfall, Lucy had told her. An inheritance from some remote relative. But who would have left her that kind of money when no one had cared enough about her to rescue her from the endless string of foster homes she had endured growing up?

The questions raised an uneasiness in her that itched beneath her skin. Stupid, Marilee, it doesn’t matter anymore. Lucy’s gone. Her killer’s been punished.

Punished. She sniffed in disgust. A suspended sentence and thousand-dollar fine. Life came cheap when you were a plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills and had influential friends. She tried to picture the man, tried to imagine him crying all through the brief court proceedings that were mere stage dressing for a guilty plea. He hadn’t meant to shoot Lucy. He hadn’t known Lucy was there. He had walked away and left her to rot.

No matter how Mari replayed it, she couldn’t muster much compassion for Sheffield. It always came down to the same conclusion. He had behaved irresponsibly, cost a human life, and the consequences of his actions hadn’t even put a dent in his wallet. She knew damn well if the shooter had been some out-of-work cowboy, he’d be whiling away his days at the expense of the state for a year or better. Lady Justice may have been blind, but she could smell money a mile off, and her scales tipped accordingly.

But what if Sheffield hadn’t shot Lucy after all?

Stopping at the corral, Mari hooked a sneaker over the bottom rail and lay her arms on one higher up, the beer cans dangling down. She wished fervently for a cigarette, but denied herself the pleasure. Earlier in the day she had actually stooped to searching beneath her car seats for strays, coming up with three. Two remained in the breast pocket of her jacket.

She had vowed to start a new life. No more dead-end career. No more living in the shadow of her parents’ expectations. No more meaningless relationships. Throwing out her cigarettes had been symbolic. She had taken up smoking in the first place to appease the tension and tedium of her job. She had chucked the job, so she had chucked the cigarettes. New Eden had sounded like the perfect place to start that new life. A sabbatical in paradise. No smoking, no stress allowed.

But her head was pounding and her mood was low. Her nerves were jangling like a wind chime in a cyclone. She fingered the flap of the jacket pocket. Just one…

Rafferty chose that moment to make his appearance, riding down out of the wooded cover of the hillside on his big sorrel horse. The brim of his black hat shaded his eyes, but his mouth was set in a grim line and he held himself in a way that suggested he hurt all over but would never display the weakness of slouching. Something about that touched Mari, and she did her best to shake it off. She had never had time for bone-headed males who set their pride ahead of their common sense. There shouldn’t have been anything appealing about this one.

“Fixing to set the place on fire again?” J.D. drawled, nodding toward the pile of dead plants and splintered furniture that crowned the charred remains of her business suits in the center of the corral.

Mari gave him a look. “Yeah, I wanted the chance to have you tackle me again. I’ve got three or four ribs you somehow neglected to crack yesterday.”

He swung off his horse, swallowing the groan that threatened. He’d been in one saddle or another since dawn. There had been a time when his body hadn’t protested that kind of abuse, but that time had passed a couple of birthdays back. He narrowed his eyes at the woman before him. “Way I recall, you jumped me.”

“Yeah, well, I hate to disappoint you, but don’t expect it to happen again tonight,” she grumbled, rolling a shoulder. “I’m beat.”

She looked more tousled than usual, her wild hair escaping the bonds of a ponytail in rippling waves. She had a smudge of dirt on her chin and her eyes seemed deeper and larger, dominating a face that had a delicate and strained quality to it.

“Yeah, I hear those vacations can be hell on a person,” he said dryly.

“I stopped calling it a vacation when I found out my friend was dead,” Mari said sharply. “And for your information, I’ve been working all day, trying to set the house to rights. I’m sure that doesn’t compare to punching out cows or whatever it is you do with your time, but it’s hard work to me.”

He growled at her a little and started toward the barn. Instantly, Mari wanted him back. Not that she wanted him personally, she assured herself. She just wanted the company. She wasn’t used to so much solitude. Even a conversation with Rafferty seemed preferable to the tangle of thoughts and feelings that had been tumbling around inside her all day.

“Hey, wait,” she ordered, skipping to catch up with him. “You want a beer?”

“Why?” he asked, turning back toward her. “Trying to ply me with liquor again, Mary Lee?”

He smiled that slow, sardonic smile, a predatory-male gleam in his eye.

“I already told you that wasn’t necessary,” he said, his low voice abrading her nerve endings like sandpaper. “Just say the word. I could stand to ride something softer than a horse tonight.”

She took a half-step back and tried to look annoyed. “In your dreams, Rafferty. I offered you a beer, not my body.”

J.D. chuckled wickedly. He reached out and settled a hand at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, his thumb dipping into the shallow V above her collarbone. “Your pulse is racing, Mary Lee,” he murmured. “You always get this worked up over a can of Miller?”