What Madeline Wants Read online

  Praise for The Man in the Photograph:

  by Linda Style, winner of the 2002

  Daphne du Maurier award.

  “A tale of striking intensity…a compelling romance.”

  “From California to Chicago, and through the

  jungles of Costa Rica, author Linda Style

  leads the reader through a tale of striking intensity

  in The Man in the Photograph. Style has a gift

  for creating intriguing settings and characterizations

  that allow the reader to escape to a

  world of danger, intrigue and passion.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Ms. Style has written a riveting tale….”

  “You will be hard-pressed to put this story down.

  While billed as a romance, it also has a powerful

  element that keeps you captivated as the characters

  search for the truth about The Man in the Photograph.”

  —Writers Unlimited

  “An exhilarating romantic suspense.”

  “Linda Style provides an exhilarating romantic

  suspense novel that keeps readers wondering

  until the end. The story line is action packed….”

  —TheBestReviews

  “An exciting, heart-stopping reading experience…”

  “Ms. Style writes highly original stories that include

  characters with great depth.

  This book is no exception.”

  —Old Book Barn Gazette

  Dear Reader,

  I love to write stories set in my home state of Arizona because, even though I know it so well, I’m still awed by the beauty and diversity of the landscape—from the rugged snow-capped mountains to the amazing windswept sand dunes in the desert near Yuma. In this book Los Rios, Arizona, is a fictional town, but the setting is real.

  A traumatic experience caused Madeline Inglewood to withdraw from life, but now she’s determined to change all that, and Tripplehorne Ranch is the place she’s chosen to do it. For J.D. Rivera, the ranch is just another way station. Fate has taken away everything he ever held dear. His parents, his best friend, his fiancée, his career and his future. Just getting through each day is a supreme challenge.

  Can two wounded people help each other? That’s exactly what happens in this story. One woman’s determination to change her life ends up changing the lives of many others. It’s a story about dreams and courage. I hope you enjoy it.

  Wishing you the best,

  Linda Style

  P.S. I always enjoy hearing from my readers. You can reach me at [email protected], through my Web site at www.LindaStyle.com, or write me at P.O. Box 2293, Mesa, AZ 85214.

  What Madeline Wants

  Linda Style

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  To my wonderful family, my friends and colleagues

  for making a difficult year much easier.

  To Connie Flynn, Judy Bowden, Sharyn Liberatore,

  Susan Vaughan, Ann Voss Peterson, Virginia Vail,

  Sheila Seabrook, Claire Cavenaugh, Ilene Style

  and Geri Style. Thank you for your love,

  support and encouragement—and for listening.

  To Linda Barrett and Colleen Endres

  for sharing your experience and wisdom.

  And especially for Jay, who’s always there for me.

  Acknowledgments:

  Many thanks to those who contributed to the research

  for this book. Elizabeth Jennings for her information on

  Simultaneous Interpreting; the U.S. Immigration and

  Naturalization Service; the United States Border Patrol;

  Arizona State University; Distance Education for Mexican

  American Farmworkers; the Chief Economist’s Office;

  United States Department of Agriculture; Agriculture Labor

  Affairs; The National Institute of Mental Health for

  information regarding cynophobia, post-traumatic stress

  and anxiety/panic disorders.

  Since this is a work of fiction,

  I have taken some liberties. Any errors are mine.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  “HEY, REB. You’re up next.”

  J.D. Rivera, aka Rebel, watched the F-14 fall away in front of him. “Nice vapes,” he said on the flyby. High speed and low altitude created dramatic vapor trails—a visual display he’d never tire of watching.

  His turn. He banked left taking the Tomcat into a dive between two other F-14s, his execution flawless. The cloudless blue sky was perfect for the air show. And after one more pass, they’d be on their way home.

  In plenty of time for the wedding rehearsal.

  “Time to spare,” he told Eric, his radar intercept operator and about-to-be best man.

  Eric, aka Zeus, hadn’t wanted to do the show, but J.D. had insisted. Hell, he had to do something to take his mind off the fact that in twenty-four hours he’d be walking down the aisle. Something he thought he’d never do.

  “What’s he doing! Watch your twelve o’clock! Zeus shouted.

  The F-16 came out of nowhere, swooped up in front of them, pulling their Tomcat into its jet wash. In the turbulence, the blast distorted the airflow to his right engine and Boom!—in less than a second, the engine flamed out. The tail swung around in a yaw. He shoved the stick to correct, but he couldn’t bring the nose up. Now they were spinning and dropping altitude fast.

  “Punch out!” J.D. shouted.

  “We’re too low!”

  “Eject! Now!” J.D. grabbed the loud handle. The canopy exploded and shot upward, and he blasted out of the cockpit on a tornado of wind, debris spraying like buckshot. Something crashed against his leg, and at the same time he heard a sickening crunch.

  Through his screaming pain, J.D. felt the pilot seat fall away. His chute ballooned open, snapping him upward. He squinted, searching for Eric’s chute, but saw only the black contrails of the F-14 as it crashed into the ground in a ball of flames.

  J.D. bolted awake drenched in sweat.

  Dr. Chastain, his physician at the V.A. Hospital, walked into the room. “How’re you doing? Ready to go home?”

  Home. Where the hell was that? For seventeen years, the navy had been his home. His life.

  “I can’t walk. How the hell am I supposed to go anywhere?”

  “You’ve made excellent progress in the three months you’ve been here. It’ll take a while for the surgery on your leg to heal completely, but with physical therapy you should be able to get around just fine with a cane.”

  “Yeah, between my cane and my disability checks every month, what more could I want?”

  The doctor frowned. “You’re alive. You’ve still got your leg, and I’ve got ten other patients a lot worse off than you, Rivera, so stop feeling so sorry for yourself. I made a recommendation for you to see Dr. Lange. The rest is up to you.”

  A freaking shrink. What was a shrink going to do? Could he bring Eric back?

  The pain of losing his career didn’t even come close to the grief J.D. felt over Eric’s death.

  “You’re going to be discharged tomorrow mor
ning, sometime before noon. Do you have a ride?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got transportation.” The Yellow Cab Company. Because his fiancée—his former fiancée—was in Hawaii on the honeymoon they were to have taken together. Jenna had postponed the wedding as he’d expected. He hadn’t expected her to dump the relationship. But why not? What good was he to anyone now?

  The doctor moved toward the door.

  “Doc.”

  The white-haired man turned to look at J.D.

  “Sorry I was such a crappy patient. I appreciate all you’ve done.”

  Yeah. Eric was dead and he was going to walk away. They should’ve let him bleed to death.

  CHAPTER ONE

  HE KILLED A MAN.

  The words—spoken in low hushed tones behind his back at the general store yesterday—echoed in J.D. Rivera’s head.

  Only two weeks since he’d returned to Los Rios, Arizona, and the locals were already talking. He should have stayed away. Stayed in the flea-ridden motel where he’d spent the past six months.

  Twenty years away from this town hadn’t changed a thing.

  Bam! Bam! Bam! Three loud thuds sounded outside, the perfect accompaniment for the killer headache about to split open his skull. He burrowed under the pillow and wrapped both arms over the top. If he died right now, it wouldn’t be too soon.

  Probably what the two guys who’d ambushed him on the road last night had in mind. He touched the baseball-size lump on the back of his head.

  The banging noise sounded again, from the front of the house somewhere. He groaned and rolled his battered body to the side of the bed, shoved both legs over the edge and sat up, vaguely aware of the cool adobe tile under his bare feet. After a few shaky starts, he made it upright, but just as he did, a lightning bolt of pain shot up his leg. His knee buckled, and he swayed to the side.

  Groping wildly for something to hold on to, he crashed into the nightstand and spiraled down, knocking over the lamp and a half-empty can of Michelob before he hit the floor on his knees. Stabbing shards of pain launched him forward—flat on his face in a puddle of stale beer.

  He closed his eyes, the smell of alcohol a potent reminder of all the nameless hole-in-the-wall bars where he’d spent the last year and a half.

  Waiting for the pain to pass, the sting of inadequacy and his own helplessness burned in his gut.

  But lying there wasn’t going to get the work done. He braced himself on an elbow, sat for a second, then grasped the rumpled sheets and struggled to his feet again.

  Gently, he put pressure on his leg, testing it a couple of times. Yeah. That’s it… Okay. He was ready… He hoped.

  As he flipped open the blinds, bright white sunlight flooded the room, the glare so intense it hurt his eyes. He braced himself against the wall. Damn. It was late. And probably blast-furnace hot outside.

  Had it been this hot before? In September? He didn’t think so, but then…he’d been an angry fifteen-year-old and the weather had been the last thing he’d noticed.

  Since then, he’d been back to Los Rios only once on his way from Miramar Naval Air Station in California to Fallon near Reno. He wasn’t used to living in an inferno.

  Yeah…well, your life is shot to hell, anyway, so you might as well be living here.

  Images he’d shoved into the darkest part of his brain crawled from the blackness. For eighteen months now, wherever he went, the images followed—from the Nevada mountains to the salt marshes of Maryland and finally to the sleazy Las Vegas hotel where his crazy aunt’s attorney had found him four weeks ago to tell him he’d inherited the run-down ranch near Los Rios.

  Like a horror movie on perpetual rerun.

  Work. He needed to get to work. Ignoring the fire in his knee, he pushed off the wall and staggered into the bathroom. At the sink, he tossed down painkillers and caught his reflection in the mirror.

  Man, oh, man. He looked as if he’d gone ten rounds with Rocky Balboa.

  No big deal. Those creeps might have laid him out last night, but not before he’d gotten off some of his best shots. He’d bet his wings they looked worse than he did.

  The battered face in the mirror mocked him. If you had wings, buddy boy. You’re finished. Done. Kaput!

  Bitterness rose like bile in his throat. Anger burned in his belly. Hands clenched, he swung out, slashing at the shelfful of pills above the sink. Bottles flew. Plastic containers bounced on the floor, spewing their contents in multicolored profusion around his bare feet.

  Spent, he slumped against the old cast-iron pedestal sink, palms flat, head bowed as he tried to drag oxygen into his lungs—tried to find a reason to make it through another day.

  More banging outside sent another round of cymbals clanging in his head. “Dammit, quit making all that racket, willya.”

  “Hello-o,” a faint, high-pitched voice trilled from outside.

  Crap. Probably some town do-gooder come to save his soul. Where the hell had they been when he could’ve used their concern? No one in this poor excuse for a town had ever done him any favors, and it wasn’t likely they’d start now.

  “Go away!”

  The banging continued. He glanced down at his naked body, at the angry crimson scar that jagged along the side of his right leg—a permanent reminder that he was responsible for Eric’s death. A reminder that he’d been the one who’d convinced Eric to do the air show…

  He hauled in another deep breath. He should probably put on his pants.

  Or…maybe not.

  He grinned as his perverse side urged him to go to the door as he was. Shock the hell out of the church lady, and she’d be outta there faster than Mach 1.

  But he couldn’t do that in his grandmother’s house; she’d lecture him from her grave.

  He snatched a pair of dirty jeans from the top of the hamper and shoved one leg in and then the other. On his way through the living room, he could see a woman’s form outside the front window. As he got closer, he noticed that she was young, passably pretty and severely uptight in her buttoned-to-the-neck shirt and beauty-shop hairdo that didn’t move.

  Prim and proper was stamped all over her. Soul saver.

  Perfect. She’d soon find out he had no soul to save.

  RIVERS OF PERSPIRATION ran down Madeline Inglewood’s face and neck and between her breasts as she squinted against the blaze of the noonday sun, looking for some sign of activity. The ranch seemed deserted and her hope of finding someone at home plummeted. Down the gravel road a quarter of a mile, steam hissed from under the hood of her rental car.

  Good Lord. How had she gone from her nice Midwestern girl’s existence in Epiphany, Iowa, to having the life leeched from her body on a desert road in the middle of Nowhere, Arizona?

  She knocked on the dilapidated door again, this time even harder. Glancing around as she waited, she saw stunted trees, thorny cacti and a dead rattlesnake draped over a rusty barbed-wire fence. A mud-brown lizard scurried past her foot—the only movement in a landscape that defied life in any form.

  But she was too hot and too tired to react.

  According to the directions, this was the place she’d been trying to find. But obviously it couldn’t be. The map had to be wrong.

  However, if no one lived here—and it certainly seemed as if no one did—she was going to die in the desert, her bones picked clean by buzzards.

  So, Mr. Michael Bruchetti, number-one guru of self-help, what would you advise now? She wiped her sweaty forehead with a tissue. This was all his fault.

  Then again…if she hadn’t been trying to make her best friend, Kayla, feel better when no one had come to her garage sale, Maddy wouldn’t have bought the book, and if she hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t have decided she needed to take control of her life. And if she hadn’t decided that, she wouldn’t be here now.

  But what was the alternative? Stay in Epiphany for the rest of her life?

  Madeline turned to knock again, forcing herself to remain positive and in control as the book
said. Just then the door opened with a jerk, and a man appeared in front of her. One eye was swollen shut, the other one was blood red and his bottom lip was split and puffy.

  “Oh,” she gasped, and pulled back so far she nearly tripped over her own feet. Besides his facial problems, the man wore nothing but a pair of dirty, bleached-out jeans, unbuttoned at the top, and with holes in the knees so wide, one pull on a thread and he’d be wearing shorts.

  “Yeah?” he said, shoving an unlit cigarette between his lips. “What d’ya want?”

  His rudeness eclipsed her relief at finding someone at home.

  “I’m sorry. I knocked for such a long time I didn’t think anyone was here, and…well, you startled me.” She cleared her throat. “Is this the Tripplehorne Ranch?”

  He crossed hard-muscled arms over his bare chest, tanned and slick with sweat. The scent of stale alcohol offended her nostrils.

  “Who wants to know?” His gaze drifted over her, his manner rude. Insolent.

  Any empathy she might have had for the man’s condition faded. Clutching the map in her hand, she raised it and pointed to the spot she’d circled. “I’m looking for this place.”

  The sun beat mercilessly on her back as she waited for his response. She drew in a long breath, only it felt as if she’d pulled fire into her lungs instead of air.

  With a cursory glance toward the map, the man plucked the unlit cigarette from his lips and said, “Well, you found it.”

  She looked around nervously. The house was falling apart. The whole ranch was falling apart. This couldn’t possibly be where she was going to work for the next six weeks…could it?

  For one thing, it wasn’t anything like a dude ranch. She’d imagined a place like the one in that old movie where Billy Crystal went out West with his buddies and herded cattle with Jack Palance.