The Ranger's Secret Read online

  “Be sure you guys wash your hands first,” she admonished before opening the front door of the condo.

  “Why do you always say that, Mom? We’re not babies.”

  Uh-oh. “You’re right. I’m afraid I’m still in the habit of treating you like one.” In ways her daughter was growing up too fast, but maybe it was a good thing considering the conversation they would have later when they were alone. A certain amount of maturity was needed for Roberta to consider moving to a unique location.

  “My mom says the same thing. Be sure and brush your teeth and say your prayers.”

  While they ran off to Roberta’s room, Annie freshened up before putting some frozen ground beef in the microwave to thaw. Yesterday she’d shopped for groceries and pulled all the necessary ingredients from the fridge.

  The girls joined her. While they chopped and grated, she fried the tortillas and browned the meat. Before long she’d whipped up a fruit salad.

  No sooner did they sit around the table to eat than Julie arrived. She’d forgotten Debbie had a violin lesson and they needed to leave immediately. Annie jumped up and packed a couple of tacos in foil for her to take with her.

  “Thanks, Annie. See ya tomorrow, Roberta.”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  Once they’d gone, Roberta came running back to the table to eat. “I’m glad you didn’t make me take violin.”

  “Everyone should learn some kind of instrument. Since I used to play the piano, I thought of renting one so you could start taking lessons this year, but before we talk about it, there’s something else we need to discuss first.”

  Roberta finished fixing herself another taco. “What is it?” she asked before biting into it with enthusiasm. “Did you and Grandma have another argument?”

  Annie stopped munching. “Is that how it sounds to you?”

  “Sometimes,” came her quiet answer.

  “I’m sorry. When we talk it may sound as if we’re arguing, but sometimes that’s just how we communicate. They love you and wish we lived in San Francisco.” She studied her daughter. “Do you ever wish we lived there?”

  “Maybe. Sometimes.” After another swallow she said, “Do you?”

  “Sometimes, but I can’t do my work there.”

  “I know. If Daddy hadn’t died, we’d live with him and you could do it.” Her logic couldn’t be disputed.

  “That’s right, honey.” Annie had told Roberta the truth. She and Robert hadn’t had a chance to get married before he was killed, but they’d planned to because they’d been painfully in love. He was every bit her father, even if there hadn’t been an official engagement or wedding ceremony. “We would have always been together.”

  Now was the time to broach the subject of her new job offer, but the turn in the conversation had made her reticent. Was she hurting Roberta by living away from her parents? Would her daughter be better off being close to the grandparents who adored her?

  “If I were willing to do another kind of work entirely, we could live in San Francisco.”

  “Like what?”

  “I—I don’t know yet,” she stammered. Roberta sounded interested in the possibility.

  “Grandpa said he’d take care of us and you wouldn’t have to work.”

  She let out a heavy sigh. “When I was a girl he took care of me, but now that I’m all grown-up with a daughter of my own, do you think he should still have to take care of me?”

  After a period of silence, “If Daddy hadn’t died, he would have taken care of us.”

  “But he did die, and that was a long time ago.”

  From the beginning Annie had done everything possible to help her daughter know and understand the wonderful, adventurous man who’d fathered her. It had been easy to do because Robert had been a breed apart from other men, academically brilliant yet fun loving and kind. Annie had made certain Roberta understood he was courageous to work in a relatively hostile environment and had made her feel perfectly safe.

  She’d assured Annie that he’d looked forward to getting married and having children. The two of them had had dreams of the family they planned to raise. Her photographs revealed a strong, handsome, vital male any girl would love to claim for her father.

  As a result, Roberta never forgot for a second that he would have loved her and would have been the most terrific dad in the world to her if he hadn’t been killed. After such praise, to remind Roberta that Annie had been taking care of her since she was born didn’t mean the same thing in her daughter’s mind.

  She straightened in her chair. “How come Julie and Debbie don’t live with Julie’s parents?”

  Roberta shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s probably because Julie likes to take care of her daughter just like I like to take care of mine.” Now, no matter the consequences, it was time to ask the definitive question. “Would you feel better if Grandpa took care of us?”

  Those clear blue eyes stared at her. “Not if you wouldn’t.”

  “Oh honey—” She reached out to grasp Roberta’s hand. “Please be honest with me. Do you want to move to San Francisco? We can, you know. I’ll find a job there.”

  “You mean and live with Grandma and Grandpa?”

  She bit her lip. “Not exactly. We could find our own place, but that way you could visit them a lot. Maybe ride your bike to their house after school and on weekends.”

  “Don’t you like it here?”

  “Yes. What about you?”

  “I just want to be with you.”

  Humbled by the answer, Annie had to believe that sentiment came from her daughter’s heart. “Then let me ask you another question. How would you like to live someplace else, just for a year? We’d be together a lot more because I’d do most of my work at home throughout the winter.”

  “Would it be a long way away from Debbie?”

  “No,” she said without hesitation. “She could come and visit you on weekends. So could Grandma and Grandpa. Sometimes we could visit them.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Yosemite National Park.”

  “That’s where they have those big sequoia trees. I think they look like giants.”

  “Yes. How did you know that?”

  “I’m in fourth grade, Mom. We’re studying California history. Mrs. Darger showed us a video the other day. We’re going to go on a field trip to Yosemite next year near the end of school.”

  Of course. On back-to-school night the teacher had passed out copies of the fourth-grade curriculum. Annie had only given it a cursory glance. “The park is very famous.”

  “She said part of our water comes from a dam built in the park. It’s in a funny-sounding place. People are fighting about taking it down.”

  “I know. You’re talking about the Hetch Hetchy Valley.”

  Roberta nodded. “How did you know that?”

  “Your grandparents took me to the park a lot when I was young. It’s an amazing, beautiful place.”

  Annie’s parents had bought an original black-and-white photograph of Yosemite’s Half Dome taken by Ansel Adams from a collector back in the early forties. It was worth a fortune now and hung in her father’s den.

  “What kind of work would you do?”

  “What I always do. Archaeology.”

  She cocked her head. “In the park?”

  “Yes. The Yosemite Valley is designated as an archeological district. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States. That’s where I developed an interest in archaeology. Do you know it has more than one hundred known Indian sites that give information about prehistoric lifeways?”

  “Do Indians live there now?”

  “Some. Because of timber falling and rockfalls or slides, the park has archaeological treasures hidden in the ground. My job would be to catalogue data and, when possible, try to unearth some of them.”

  Annie could hear Roberta’s mind ticking. She had her interest now. “Where would we live?”

 
; “Somewhere in the park. I’ve been waiting years for the opportunity. Finally a letter has come in the mail telling me I could have the job. If I’m interested, the Forestry Department will fly me there for a one-day orientation to see if I want to take it. While I’m there, the director of archaeology will give me all the information we need to know.”

  Her daughter slid off her chair. “Can I go with you?”

  “Not for the fly over. I’d leave early Monday morning and be back that night. If you want, you can go to Grandma and Grandpa’s, or we’ll make arrangements for you to stay with Debbie or Penny. But I won’t do any of it if you don’t want me to.”

  Roberta suddenly darted out of the kitchen, causing Annie’s spirits to plummet. “Where are you going?”

  “To look up the park on the Internet!”

  Her little bookworm was very savvy when it came to grazing Web sites. Annie followed her into the dining room where they’d set up the computer for Roberta’s homework and her own work at the CDF in Santa Rosa.

  She stood in the doorway, waiting until her daughter figured out the right spelling of Yosemite and pulled up the site on the park. It seemed an eternity before she exclaimed, “You can ride horses there!”

  Annie wasn’t surprised to hear excitement in her voice. Before the Harry Potter books had arrived to absorb her daughter, Roberta had gone through a reading phase on animals—everything from cats and dogs to wolves and polar bears. However, her favorite animal was a horse.

  In another life she would have wanted to be born on a horse farm in Kentucky. Robert had loved horses and would have been thrilled to know their daughter had an affinity for them. Annie had taken them riding at a local stable a couple of times and both of them had loved it.

  “That sounds fun.”

  “This says there are miles and miles of horse trails.” After a few minutes she lifted her head again. “I don’t see any schools.”

  “Well, since school is for the children whose parents work there, they wouldn’t advertise it on the Internet.”

  “I forgot about that. They don’t want predators finding kids.” Her daughter sounded a hundred years old just then.

  A shiver ran down Annie’s spine. If nothing else, she could be thankful her daughter’s school was teaching them awareness of the ugly side of society. To do her part at home, Annie had put a filter on their Internet server to help keep them both safe.

  “What do you think?” She held her breath. “Should I go and find out about it or not?”

  Roberta was glued to the screen. “Yes. After Debbie’s violin lesson, I’m going to call her and tell her to look up Yosemite Park. This says some of the rangers ride horses. Debbie could go horseback riding with me. I’ll ask her if I can stay at their house until you get back.”

  Annie couldn’t believe it. Her daughter hadn’t said no. Of all Yosemite’s wonders, who knew it would be horses that spoke to Roberta. Maybe it was in the genes.

  “While you do that, I’ll send an e-mail to the director and tell him I’ll be ready to go on Monday.” That was five days away. Enough time to read up on the latest information he’d sent about a project she would be working on along the Tuolumne River. The Awahnichi had lived there in 500 A.D.

  Now that she had a chance to do some fieldwork, she was starting to get excited. Except for Roberta, who was the greatest joy of her life, she hadn’t known true excitement since before losing Robert.

  AFTER LUNCH, Beth poked her head in the door of Vance’s office. “Chase? Ranger Baird is on line two. He says he’ll hold until you’re off the phone.”

  Chase nodded to Vance’s personal assistant before finishing up his call with Ranger Thompson about the fall cleanup and repair of several of the camping areas. This was Chase’s least favorite time at the park. The waterfalls were a mere trickle of their former selves and the trails were well worn from the locustlike traffic of summer crowds. Without rain this season, the controlled forest fires left a smoky smog over everything, especially while the weather was still warm.

  Nicky wanted to watch the black bears go into hibernation, but that wouldn’t be for a while. Right now they were so active, they broke into cars and camps where they could smell food and stuffed themselves.

  His thoughts went to Vance, who would be back at the park with his family tomorrow afternoon. Chase planned to pick them up at the Merced airport. Where had the three weeks gone? He’d been so busy doing the work of a dozen men, he hadn’t noticed the time passing. His respect for Vance just kept growing.

  The one dinner he’d had at the Bairds’ house last night to meet his wife’s single cousin had gone well enough. Susan was a dentist in Bishop, California, and a very attractive woman. Though she’d dropped hints she’d like to see Chase again, he had no desire to encourage her and couldn’t pretend otherwise. Frank Baird was a straight talker and so was Chase. He’d understand. Still, Chase didn’t like hurting anyone.

  Once he’d hung up with Ranger Thompson, he clicked on to the other ranger. “Frank? Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “No problem. I figured if there’d been a spark last night, I would’ve heard from you early this morning. You know—in case you didn’t want Susan to leave for another day.”

  Chase heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry to say you figured right. She’s a talented, beautiful woman, but—”

  “Don’t bother to explain. I’ve been there and know what it’s like. Before I met Kim, I went through women like water. Your problem is, you were married once.” Not quite. “I think it’s harder to go through all that rigmarole again.”

  A sardonic laugh escaped Chase’s lips. “I planned to call you tonight and thank you and Kim for going to all that trouble for me. The Sunday dinner was delicious by the way.”

  “Kim appreciated the bottle of wine you brought, so we’re even. Better luck next time.”

  “You know what, Frank? No more going into things blind. After Vance gets back from Miami, I’m leaving on a long vacation. Who knows? I might actually meet someone.” Yet deep in his gut he didn’t quite believe it.

  The old blackness was starting to seep in, robbing him of even small pleasures. As Vance had expressed after his grandmother, the last member of the Rossiter family, had been buried at the beginning of the summer, he felt empty. Chase could relate. Something had to change.

  “I hear you.”

  “Talk to you later.” He rang off and buzzed Beth. “What time is my meeting with Superintendent Telford tomorrow?” The man’s ideas for advertising the park’s attractions could take them into a lengthy discussion.

  “Ten-thirty in the morning.”

  “Would you call him and ask if we can start at nine-thirty?” Vance’s flight was due in at 4:10 p.m. Chase didn’t want to be late.

  “I’ll take care of it. Will you want goodies?”

  He chuckled. “Do you have to ask? Bring on the works and plenty of coffee!”

  “You’re as bad as Vance. I’m going to miss you when you’re not sitting in his chair.”

  “You’re full of it, Beth. In case you didn’t know, the sacred chair is his with my blessing.”

  “You mean you don’t want to be Chief?”

  Chase grunted. “If anyone needs me, I’m leaving for the Lower Pines Campground to inspect the latest damage.”

  “Good luck.”

  Laughing because they both knew it was in the worst shape of all, he hung up and headed out the back door of the visitors’ center for his truck. No sooner had he climbed inside the cab than another call came in. It was a typical Monday. The phone had rung off the hook since early morning. He clicked on. “Ranger Jarvis here.”

  “Chase? It’s Mark. Five minutes ago Tom Fuller was at the controls of a forestry helicopter when it went off radar somewhere over Mount Paiute. There’s been no contact since. We know that means it’s down.” Chase groaned. “I’ve called out air and land rescue units, but it will take a while to get to the crash site. I left word for Tom’s wife to ph
one me immediately.”

  His hand tightened on the receiver. It was the flight that Superintendent Telford had asked Chase to authorize. He wanted more archaeologists working with the park director of archaeology and had come up with the funding.

  “Let’s pray they’re found soon.” Dead or alive, Chase didn’t want to think what could happen to them while the bears were actively foraging. “Give me the name of the passenger.”

  “Margaret Anne Bower from Santa Rosa, California.”

  Bower?

  Just hearing that name after all these years squeezed the air out of Chase’s lungs. His mind reeled in shock. It couldn’t be Annie. It wasn’t possible. Still…

  He raked a shaky hand through his hair. His thoughts went back ten years. She would have told him if she’d been named Margaret. He would have remembered. They’d shared everything. And surely by now she would be married with a different name.

  “If you’ve got a phone number on her, better call her family.” Chase didn’t dare do it or his caller ID would show up and that would involve him personally.

  “I already did. An answering machine came on and a man’s voice said no one was home. I left a message for her husband to call me.”

  She was married then.

  Maybe she went by her maiden name. “That’s all you can do for now, Mark. Keep me posted.”

  “Will do.”

  After Chase hung up, he started the truck with the intention of talking to the rescue units before they took off, but the hairs stood on the back of his neck when he realized his assumption about Annie being married might be wrong.

  Just because a man’s voice came on the line, it didn’t necessarily mean it belonged to her husband. In order to prove a man lived in the house, she could have asked a male neighbor or friend—or a lover—to program her phone. Even her father. San Francisco wasn’t that far away from Santa Rosa.

  This woman was an archaeologist. She’d probably been to the park many times. If she were Annie, then he knew she had.

  Was it possible she’d spotted Chase on one of her recent visits and realized he was alive? Could it be the reason she’d applied for the position Superintendent Telford had opened up, so she could find out the truth without letting anyone else know?