Free The Devil You Know by Jo Goodman Page A

it back.”
    She took it but did not leave her chair. She tilted her head to one side and studied him, a small crease appearing between her brows.
    â€œWhat?” he asked. “Something I missed? Am I growing another lump?”
    She shook her head. “I’ve been wondering what you will look like when all the clutter is gone. I asked Willa if she thought you might be handsome, but she said she didn’t know and that it was not important.”
    â€œIt’s a little bit important.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought. No one wants to be ugly, although if it turns out that you are, I am sorry for saying so. I do like your eye. The color, I mean.”
    â€œThis one?” He pointed to the pig bladder.
    Annalea curled her lip. “No. The one you can see out of.”
    â€œHuh.” He envied her the shrug she gave him. Thus far this morning, he had managed to avoid that response. Thinking about it made him adjust his sling.
    Annalea’s chair scraped the floor when she pushed back from the table. She hopped up and returned the mirror to Cutter’s kit. “I’m going to take the tray to the house and then I’ll be back for you.”
    â€œBack for me? For what?”
    â€œOur walk. So you don’t seize up, remember?”
    â€œOh, that walk.” He looked around at the floor. “I don’t see my shoes anywhere.”
    â€œWilla told Zach to put them outside last night so it’d give you pause in case you wanted to leave.”
    â€œLeave? I don’t even know where I am.”
    â€œGuess Willa didn’t think of that.” She retrieved the shoes from just outside the door and gave them to him. “I could help you put them on.”
    â€œI can manage.”
    â€œI’ll clean them up tonight.”
    Israel supposed that meant the plan was to put them out of his reach again. It was a wholly unnecessary precaution, but it seemed Willa was going to have to come to that conclusion on her own. He might have brought her around to believing he was Israel McKenna, but here was proof that she did not trust him.
    Well, good for her. He did not trust himself either.
    *   *   *
    Willa waited until Mal and Eli Barber were over the ridge before she set Felicity on their path. She did not put it past them to circle back so they could watch her. If they were out of her sight when she reached the rise, she would know that’s what they were up to. If they were headed back to Big Bar by a direct route, she would still be able to see them.
    She dismounted just before she reached the crest and left Felicity behind a rocky alcove while she carefully climbed to the top of it. She stretched out flat and pulled herself by the elbows to the edge. When she was reasonably confident that she could see and not be seen, she raised her head and shoulders to look down the other side of the ridge.
    It seemed that Mal and Eli were in no particular hurry to return to Big Bar. Not only were they still visible, but they had traveled only a little more than half the distance that she had estimated. She swore softly. Malcolm Barber wanted to make sure she saw them. He was deliberately provoking her, taking his time leaving her land. She would not have been surprised if he had taken a piss somewhere to mark the territory he thought was his.
    The dispute over the land had originated between her grandfather and Malcolm’s father, Ezra Barber. When it was open range and ranchers were driving cattle long distances to market, property boundaries were more of a gentlemen’s agreement than a hard line. The railroad, barbed wire, and an influx of homesteaders changed that. Ezra put up his fence first, claiming the herds were mingling and he was tired of cutting out his branded cattle from Obie’s. Since Obie was of the opinion that Ezra had never done much in the way of separating the two herds, and that he was essentially a rustler posing as a