Chapter Seventeen

"We've got to figure something else out." Jarrod was sitting on the couch in the living room of the lodge, looking at Nick, who had arrived not an hour before. Jarrod shook his head. "I was only able to come up here because I brought some of my work with me. However," he said as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees while his hands hung downwards, "I can't continue to stay." If it wasn't for the fact that Michelle had cornered him after breakfast and asked to talk to Nick first, Jarrod would have added the fact that he and Nick needed to have a serious conversation.

Nick, who had done a lot of thinking as he passed one tree after another, rounded a few bends and gone around a few boulders on the way to the lodge had expected such an answer from Jarrod and started to explain his idea, only to have Michelle speak up. "I'm going back to the ranch." She turned away from the window she was standing by. "If the detective wants to talk to me, I will." She might as well have lit a stick of dynamite for the reaction that statement ignited.

"And if he figures out who you really are and tells you're father?" Nick demanded, as he stiffened as hard as any board Michelle had ever seen; terrified that her father would then follow through on his threat and kill her. That was the last thing Nick wanted to see happen, not with all the extremes they'd gone to protect her for months now.

Jarrod, who had taken forever to go to sleep after tasting Michelle's sweet lips, quickly changed his tune also. "If it's a choice between risking your identity being made known, thus endangering your life, and falling behind on my work, I'll fall behind in my work." He didn't care if he lost cases over it; Jarrod didn't want to attend Michelle's funeral in place of a secured career.

"No," Michelle shocked both men and Audra when she planted her feet and had the most serious look appeared on her face. "No more of this running. I'm tired of it. I cannot truly move forward until this matter has been put in the past. And," she said as she looked at Nick, with a quick glance towards Jarrod, grateful that he was remaining silent. "We need to talk afterwards. Only, this matter with the detective has got to be taken care of first."

For a change, Audra caught onto what Michelle was saying before her brothers did, and she gasped as her hands flew up to her mouth. "You're not going to tell him who you are, are you?"

Jarrod jumped to his feet while Nick took a few steps towards her only to have Michelle stop them dead in their tracks. "And don't tell me I have to change my mind!" Her voice was low and held a warning to it. "Yes, my father was very serious when he threatened my life. Yes, there's a high chance his attitude towards me and my 'unacceptable thoughts' is still the same. Only, like I just said, "I can't keep running." Her voice softened as she turned around and looked out the window. "I want to get on with my life." She then turned back to the window.

Nick started to lift his hand and open his mouth, only to close them again. He hated it only Michelle was right; she couldn't keep running. Besides, Michelle had had such a look of turmoil in her eyes when she said he and she needed to talk that Nick felt as if he was on pins and needles. The sooner they got back to Stockton, the sooner they got the detective out of their hair, the sooner he could find out what had really upset Michelle. "We'll start back in the morning." Nick said, and then excused himself, before grabbing some of the extra linen they kept at the lodge, since he was spending the night.

Audra excused herself saying she might as well park her bags if they were leaving first thing in the morning. The moment she was gone Jarrod spoke up. "I never would have given in and said anything last night; I never would have kissed you, or agreed to remain silent, if I knew it meant you would put yourself in harm's way again."

Michelle had never felt so torn in her life. Why did both Nick and Jarrod have to be such honorable men? It would have been easier if one had turned out to be some sort of scoundrel. "I believe you; however, you giving me an answer I was pushing for didn't bring this on. I was telling the truth; I am tired of running. Now, please, leave me alone." Michelle answered quietly. "I'm still tired and want to rest up before we head back to the ranch." She did too. When she faced Nick with the fact that not only had she pushed Jarrod into admitting what the real problem was, she had to make sure she was well rested. She was also going to think long and hard when it came exactly what she would say. The last thing she wanted to do was to send the wrong message to Nick or confuse him. No matter what happened, she wanted to do all that was within her power to at least keep the friendship she had with the Barkleys.

Like Nick, Jarrod started to speak only to keep quiet. If he was as interested in her as he'd been telling himself, he'd honor her wishes. Slowly, he turned around and left the room.

~oOo~

Detective Burns lay on the bed that sat in the room he'd rented for the week. He had not lied to Nick Barkley when he said he had other business to take care of. However, he had not told the rancher that he, Detective Burns, could have done the business elsewhere. No, the fact that he was trying to kill two birds with one stone was his own business. Now, with nothing but a soft breeze blowing through his open window, the man was tossing around all the facts he'd gathered so far. It did him little good as the last visit to the Marquee kept interrupting his thoughts.

"She has no choice! She's my daughter! Her place is here in this house!" The Marque's words, spoken as he again paced back and forth in his living room, rang through the detective's ears once more. It appalled the detective the way the man spoke about his own daughter. Right or wrong, the good man decided that if this Shelly LaBaron didn't know of Michelle Lecaise he was giving up the job. If she did, and Miss Lecaise didn't want to go home, he wasn't going to press her. He'd simply tell her father where she was and then tell him he was through with the job.