by Kat Martin
“You were the star quarterback, right? Most popular guy in school? Or am I jumping to conclusions again?”
He’d been an all-star quarterback, so he didn’t correct her.
“I wanted her to marry me as soon as she graduated.”
“And Heather wanted that, too?”
“Heather wanted to go to college first. I didn’t want to wait. In the end, we compromised. We got married, and she went to the community college in Vail instead of going away to a four-year school.”
Ellie studied him. “I think I see where you’re going with this.”
“Do you?” He leaned toward her. “Heather cheated because I boxed her in. It was my fault. I pressed her to marry me. Her parents pressed her. I was heir apparent to the Diamond Bar Ranch. My family had money, social position. Heather craved freedom. I should have seen it, but I was too busy making plans for the future. Too busy working to build the ranch I’d someday own.”
“And after you were married?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face, weary of the conversation. He hadn’t talked about Heather and his failed marriage since the day she’d walked out. Hell, he’d never really talked about it.
“My father died a year after we married, and I took over running the ranch. I’d been working on the Diamond Bar since I was a kid. It was all I ever really cared about. I worked long hours, didn’t spend the time I should have with Heather. After a few years, she got restless and started cheating. The first time I found out, I pretended not to know. The second time I caught her, I filed for divorce.”
He sighed. “Maybe if I’d tried to work things out, she’d still be alive.”
“Or maybe not. You had certain expectations when you married her. I imagine she knew what those were.”
“She knew I wasn’t the kind of man who would tolerate a woman who cheated, if that’s what you mean.”
“Would you have let her go if she’d been the one to ask for a divorce?”
He’d thought about it after Heather had left. “I’d loved her since high school. I would have let her go if it would have made her happy.”
Ellie’s big green eyes remained on his face. “Then your failed marriage wasn’t entirely your fault. Heather knew the rules. She decided not to play by them.”
He just stared. No one had ever said anything like that to him before. He had blamed himself, and no one had ever disagreed. Not Heather’s family. Not his mom, who had died a few years after his dad. Not his brothers, who mostly stayed out of his life. Not even Sam. Kade looked at Ellie, and something loosened in his chest.
He rose behind his desk. “If we’re done here, I’ve got a ranch to run.”
Ellie stood up across from him. “Thank you for being so honest.”
“I assume our conversation won’t leave this room.”
“You don’t have to worry about that, Kade. Not about this or anything else you say to me.”
He just nodded.
“You may not realize it, but you’ve given me a mental picture of your wife. I’ll talk to other people, add to the image. It’ll help me sort out the kind of man I might be looking for.”
“Like I said, Heather was beautiful. Guys pretty much fell at her feet.”
“I’m not looking for men who would have wanted Heather. I’m looking for men Heather would have wanted.” Turning, she walked out of the room and silently closed the door.
Kade sat back down in his chair. His pulse was hammering. His chest felt tight. He had a strong suspicion he had underestimated Eleanor Bowman.
CHAPTER FOUR
ELLIE ENTERED THE KITCHEN BEFORE DAWN THE NEXT MORNING thinking of Kade and their conversation in his study. She had jumped to conclusions when it was her job to remain objective. She’d figured a handsome man like Kade who exuded authority, charisma, and virility wouldn’t be satisfied with just one woman.
Halfway through the interview, she’d realized her judgment was colored by her past. She was divorced from a man who had been deceptive and unfaithful. Mark Jeffreys was a handsome attorney, educated at Harvard and incredibly charming. She’d been in love with Mark, too blind to see him for the man he really was.
When she’d walked into their apartment and found him in bed with the wife of one of his clients, she was forced to face the truth she had suspected since a few months after their wedding. Mark was far from the perfect husband she had believed him to be.
And it was past time to file for divorce.
Being single again turned out to be a blessing. Ellie built a new life for herself and reclaimed her independence. She would never give up that independence again.
She thought once more of Kade. She didn’t want to like Kade Logan. If she did, the attraction she felt for him would make her job even more difficult.
Last night, she’d had a dozen more questions she’d wanted to ask, but she could see his patience was thinning. She needed his cooperation to find the man she was hunting. She’d have to take it slow.
Ellie grabbed a dark green apron with a Diamond Bar brand printed in white on the front and tied it around her waist. Outside the kitchen windows, a gray dawn was beginning to lighten the sky. Maria arrived while Ellie was turning on the big Viking eight-burner stove.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Ellie said. “I wasn’t sure if you lived on the ranch or in town.”
“I live with my grandmother in a cabin a few miles down the road. My mother passed, and my grandmother was lonely.”
Ellie smiled. “It’s nice that she has you for company.”
Maria seemed pleased.
Ellie reached into a cupboard and took out a big frying pan. “We’d better get started. It’s only my second day, and I’m still trying to figure things out.”
But she had already taken a couple of cartons of eggs and a mound of bacon out of the big Sub-Zero refrigerator. The kitchen was huge and modern, all stainless steel with long stainless counters, glossy white cabinets, and commercial-grade appliances.
This was a working ranch miles from the nearest café. Every day, there was a hungry crew to feed.
Maria started frying bacon while Ellie scrambled the eggs, the two of them sliding into an easy routine. Ellie hadn’t cooked for a crowd in years, but as she’d figured, it all came back without much effort.
“I heard some gossip in town,” she said as she stirred the eggs, brown shells with bright yellow yolks from ranch chickens. Kade had actually been the source of some of the information, but she needed to keep him out of it. “I guess Kade’s late wife’s missing car was recently discovered. I heard she was murdered.”
Maria nodded. “Sí, she was killed years ago, but the sheriff only just found her car. Señor Kade was very upset.”
“They say the husband is always the first person the police suspect. I’m surprised they never considered Kade could have done it.”
“Oh, for a while, they thought he did. After his wife’s body was found, the police were here almost every day. But there was no proof Señor Kade was involved.” She looked up at Ellie with big dark eyes. “If they’d seen the way he grieved, they would have known he was innocent.”
But Ellie had seen the guilt he still carried. Was it possible after he’d caught Heather cheating, he’d been angry enough to kill her?
It was unlikely the man who had killed her would hire a detective to find out the truth, and from what Kade had said, since his wife had gone missing, she was the second investigator he had employed.
“So you’ve worked for Kade for quite some time?” Ellie asked, watching the eggs thickening in the skillet.
Maria nodded. “I’ve known him since before I started high school. My mother worked for him. I helped her after school and on weekends. After my mother was killed in a car accident, I moved in with my grandmother. Señor Kade hired Mabel, but he let me keep my job here on the ranch. He’s been very good to my family and me.”
Ellie filed the information away.
“Did you know his wife?” One
thing about two women working together, talking was a natural way to pass the time.
“Sí.”
“What was she like?”
Maria flipped the bacon sizzling in the pan. “It’s not good to speak badly of the dead, but I did not like her.”
“Why not?”
“Ms. Heather always wanted attention. She flirted with the men and liked to make trouble. Señor Kade’s a good man. He deserved someone better.”
“I see.” Breakfast preparations continued with only a few minor catastrophes, which Ellie figured would smooth out as she got used to the job. Maria told her they made sack lunches for the men’s midday meal, since they were often too far away to come all the way back to the house. The Diamond Bar was a far bigger spread than the small ranch she had been raised on.
She glanced at the clock on the wall. At five a.m., the men started filtering in from the bunkhouse, removing their hats and coats one by one, hanging them on the coatrack next to the door. Last night at supper, Kade had introduced her to all of them.
“Mornin’, ma’am.” Roy Cobb was tall and beanpole thin, with a cowlick in the middle of his forehead. Ellie had a very good memory and a knack for recalling faces.
“Good morning, Roy.”
“Ms. Bowman,” another man said. Seth Ackerman, early forties, curly brown hair and crooked bottom teeth.
“Seth.”
Each man greeted her. Slate Crawford, not bad-looking, with linebacker shoulders as wide as Kade’s but more thickly muscled, and short brown hair neatly trimmed. He had all the markings of a lady’s man, and she couldn’t help wondering if he had been one of Heather’s lovers. Then she remembered Kade’s hard jaw and the dark look in his eyes when he had talked about this wife.
Probably not.
Turtle Farley was short and stout, round-faced and always grinning.
Alejandro Ramirez followed him in, tall, well-built, jet-black hair and eyes, just enough of a Spanish accent to sound sexy. He was incredibly good-looking. Maria blushed every time Alejandro glanced her way, though he didn’t seem to notice.
Riley Parker was engaged to be married to a girl who lived down the road. He had a mop of blond hair he constantly shoved back from his forehead.
Last man in, Kade’s foreman, Wyatt Knowles, was older, maybe sixty, with silver hair and a handlebar mustache that curved around his mouth and turned up at the ends. He was quiet-spoken and always watchful, which likely made him good at his job.
The men were sitting at the table, wolfing down their meals, when Kade walked into the kitchen. The room momentarily went silent, his larger-than-life persona briefly capturing everyone’s attention. Then they returned to shoveling food into their mouths.
Kade walked toward her, his jaw solid, his hat pulled low. Ellie felt a hitch in her breath that she determinedly ignored. Kade surveyed the kitchen, saw most of the mess had already been cleaned up, then glanced over at his men.
“Doesn’t look like they’ve got any complaints about the food.”
Ellie shrugged. “It’s breakfast. Bacon and eggs aren’t much of a challenge.”
“Not if you know how to cook them without setting the kitchen on fire.”
She smiled.
“I’m glad you’re settling in.” Kade’s eyes caught hers in silent communication. “I’m heading into town a little later. Why don’t you make a list of the supplies you need and you can ride in with me? Save you having to drive in yourself.”
She’d been planning to make the trip into Coffee Springs no later than tomorrow. “That would be great.” She could dig around, begin asking the raft of questions that crowded her mind. Unfortunately, for every one that got answered, another question came up.
Still, it was a start, and she appreciated Kade making it easy for her.
He served himself a plate of breakfast, took off his hat and sat down with the men, ate, then disappeared down the hall. Ellie and Maria doled out sack lunches and sent the men on their way. They had just finished the final cleanup when Kade returned.
“You ready to go?”
“I’m ready.” Ellie flicked him a glance as she grabbed her purse and puffy down jacket. She felt a little zing as he walked up behind her, and both of them headed out the door.
* * *
Kade started around to help Ellie into his big, metallic brown, diesel Ford dually pickup, pausing for a moment to give Smoke a quick rub. When he looked up, she was stepping on the running board, hoisting herself into the passenger seat without any help.
Kade rounded the truck and slid in behind the steering wheel, both of them buckled up, and he started the engine. It was ten miles into Coffee Springs, but once they reached the main road, it was paved the rest of the way, so it wasn’t a bad drive, and he never grew tired of the beautiful scenery, the open pastures, forested hillsides, and snow-topped mountain peaks.
“So what do you think of the place?” he asked.
Ellie pulled her gaze away from the same landscape he was admiring. “Your ranch is beautiful, Kade. You’ve really taken care of it.”
“My dad left the place in my hands. I couldn’t let him down.”
“So you were an only child?”
“I’ve got two brothers, Gage and Edge, but they’ve never been interested in ranching. They wanted to see the world, make their own way. Gage is, well, I guess you’d call him an adventurer. Travels all over the world looking for one thing or another. Edge is in the military, deployed God-only-knows where. What about you? Any siblings?”
“Nope, only child. My dad died when I was in college. My mom died a few years after I graduated. I still miss her.”
He nodded as if he understood. “Why’d you go into law enforcement?”
“Actually, I’m mostly into the investigating part of the business. I go in and figure things out, give the information to my client, and let them take it from there. Sometimes they go to the police; sometimes they handle it a different way.”
He wondered what she’d do if she knew he planned to administer his own deadly justice to the man who’d killed Heather. “Seems like an interesting job. How’d you get started?”
“It was kind of an accident. I took a drama class in high school and found out I was good at playing different roles. But I had no desire to actually become an actor. A few years back, I got sucked into helping a friend who had a problem with one of his employees. I played the part of a new hire, managed to find out who was embezzling company money, and realized I had a particularly useful skill set.” She looked at him and smiled. “Now here I am.”
He started to ask something more when his cell phone started ringing. The service out there was spotty at best, but it was better than nothing.
“Logan.”
“Kade, we got another dead steer. Same as before, bullet in the head. I figured you’d want to take a look.”
He muttered a curse. “On my way.” Tossing his cell up on the dash, he slowed and began to make a U-turn. “Change of plans. That was my foreman. Looks like you’re going to have to make that drive into town tomorrow.”
“What’s going on?”
“Another dead steer. That makes two. Not much chance it’s a hunter now, but I need to take a look. It’s closer if I just drive straight from here. You all right with that?”
“Absolutely. I’m an investigator. Maybe I’ll see something you miss.”
It was possible, he supposed. He drove back the way they’d come but turned the pickup onto a rutted dirt road a half mile back.
He’d expected Ellie to badger him with questions. Instead, she rode silently beside him. In the easy quiet that settled between them, some of his tension eased.
Wishing it hadn’t rained last night, Kade drove along the fence line until he spotted a couple of bay horses and a big Appaloosa tied to a post and three of his men grouped together in the pasture. He pulled the truck to a stop. He and Ellie got out and walked toward the men.
Kade crouched next to the steer to get a clos
er look. A single bullet had penetrated the animal’s skull. He turned the steer’s head, saw that the bullet had gone all the way through from the side. Not much chance of finding it.
“Nice clean shot,” Slate said. “Guy was no amateur.”
“My guess, steer’s been here a couple of days.” Wyatt smoothed his silver mustache as he stared down at the carcass. “Probably killed the same day as the first one.”
Kade studied the dead Hereford. With their curly red coats and snowy white faces, he had always thought they were beautiful animals. “He shot one, moved, then killed another one.”
“He might have figured the gunshot would alert someone,” Ellie said. “It’s pretty far away from anything, but maybe he was being cautious.”
Kade cast her a glance. “Sounds about right. The question is why?”
“We took a look around,” Turtle said. “Didn’t see any more dead animals in the area.”
“What about signs of the shooter?” Ellie asked.
“If he left any trace, the rain washed it away,” Wyatt said. “If I was going to pick a place to take the shot, I’d be up on that knoll over there.” Wyatt pointed. Ellie nodded in agreement and started walking in that direction.
Kade turned back to his men. “I’ll take it from here. Ride on up toward Blowout Canyon. Seth spotted a bunch of strays up there before he rode in last night.”
“You got it, boss.” The men headed for their horses, swung up in their saddles, and nudged the animals off through the grass at an easy lope.
Kade took a last look at the steer, then strode off to catch up with Ellie. She had slender hips, but the kind of round, sexy behind that drew a man’s attention. He cursed the heat that slid into his groin as he followed her trail and walked up beside her.
“I don’t like losing stock to predators, especially not the two-legged kind.”
Ellie flashed him a sympathetic glance and kept walking, head down as she searched the ground on the way to the knoll and began to circle around it. Kade carefully approached the ground at the top. No brass casings. No footprints. Or if there had been any, they’d been washed out by the rain.
Ellie broadened her circle, glancing from the knoll to the road, picking the shortest route between the two. She turned and started walking, and just as she reached the fence, she paused.