High Desert Detective, A Fiona Marlowe Mystery (Fiona Marlowe Mysteries)

by Thelen, Marjorie

  The old man turned his gaze from his goat friends and looked to Fiona. “It’s taking such an awfully long time.”

  Jake said, “I’d consider the idea that you stay on here, but the question is, do you want to sell?”

  “I guess I’ll have to. The bank says they’re going to take it from me. Have you been here before?”

  “Once, a while back when your wife was still alive. You had all the neighbors over for a barbecue. I believe it might have been a friend of one of your goats that was the main dish.”

  The old man smiled for the first time. “Things were different then. We used to have picnics and invite the neighbors over for a goat roast in the summer.” His smile faded away. “Now all I have is memories. Just memories.”

  Jake wasn’t sure what to do. The old man didn’t seem to have his full faculties, and he wondered if someone else had power of attorney. He wasn’t aware of any children or relatives. He’d have to look into that.

  Then like the sun coming out after a storm, the old man’s eyes lost their cloudy look, and he said, “You take a walk around and look the place over. There’s a deed to the place around here somewhere, but I don’t know where. There’s the house and outbuildings. The well is deep. The water tastes good.”

  “How many acres do you have?” asked Jake.

  “I think there’s four hundred total. My place is long and sort of winds back toward the canyon. It is not a perfect square or anything. There’s a little grove of apple trees toward the creek. Need some pruning though. You look around. I’ll see if I can find that deed while you are looking.”

  Jake and Fiona started toward the back sheds.

  “Let’s see what kind of machinery he has,” Jake said. “I can tell by the look of the place he hasn’t done any farming for a long time. I doubt he’ll have any decent equipment.”

  Fiona stopped to look at flowers, landscape, the back of the house, the goats. She talked to them and made a fuss. He’d forgotten how much a woman wanted a home and a man an occupation. Work was everything to him, but he could see that Fiona was more interested in the trappings of a home. That was a good sign.

  They finally made it to the shed where a tractor and other farm equipment sat. The tractor was newer than Jake had imagined and didn’t have much dust on it. He found more relatively new equipment which surprised him. Where did the old man find the money? Why did he need this equipment when he wasn’t farming? He probably couldn’t afford the payments and that was why the bank was going to foreclose.

  Fiona had gotten bored with the machinery and had walked down the road toward the pasture. Jake followed her.

  “It’s pretty here,” she said when he caught up with her. “Look at those buttes. I thought I saw some horses up on one of those, but maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me.”

  Jake looked in the direction of Fiona’s gaze. “You may have seen horses. Wild horses, probably. Kiger mustangs are known to roam in this area.” He studied the pasture and saw a lot of fresh manure but no cows. He wondered if the old man was leasing his pasture to another rancher. Maybe the equipment belonged to someone else. He’d ask the old man.

  They opened a gate, closed it again, and walked through the pasture which circled the back of the ranch buildings.

  “This would make a good pasture for horses,” said Jake. “It has more grass, not any greasewood that I can see.”

  Again he saw fresh cow manure but no cows. That was puzzling. He looked around 360 degrees but saw no small black or brown dots that would indicate cow and calves.

  “Horses make a ranch, don’t they?” said Fiona. “They are such beautiful creatures.”

  “Cows and bulls make a ranch for me. It is peaceful watching horses graze, but they are expensive to maintain and dangerous. I’ve been kicked more than once and bitten as well. I like a well-trained horse for ranch work. They have to work to earn their keep in my opinion. But we could get you one like Harriet, a nice, quiet mare or gelding, and we could ride the ranch together.”

  Fiona looked far away into the distance. Would she tell him what she was thinking? He watched the breeze lift strands of hair from her shoulders. He liked when she wore it down. He put his arm around her shoulders. They watched the play of the sun and wind in the trees in the distance.

  “It’s beautiful here,” she said.

  He turned and gathered her into his arms. It was now or never, he thought. He wanted to ask her to marry him. He had never voiced the words before. But he hesitated. If he asked her to marry him, and she refused, then what? They’d be back at square one. If she said yes, where would they live? He had no home to offer her yet. But what could it hurt to ask that simple question?

  He cleared his throat. “Will you marry me, dear, beautiful Fiona?”

  She returned his gaze and searched his eyes. “That’s the first proposal I’ve had today.”

  Jake laughed. “Stop it. I’m serious. I want you to marry me.”

  She sighed. “Living out here would be a big step for me. There’s so much to work out before we make any decision about us.”

  “I may explode before that.”

  She smiled. “Don’t explode.” Then her gaze turned serious. “Jake, we haven’t known each other very long. Do you realize that we were together about two weeks last year when you were in Virginia and now a little over a week here? That’s not enough time for me. People crazy in love with each other ride off together into the sunset only in one of Olympia’s romance novels. But that’s not us.”

  “Fiona, I’ve been in love with you since I first saw you. I loved you when you weren’t here. I loved you when you didn’t return my calls. I loved you when you went to Australia without me. I’ve had a lot of practice loving you already. I’m prepared to do it for the rest of my life.”

  She put her cheek against his, and they stood pressed together. Her body was soft and inviting. His passion for her was hard to rein in. He released her, took her hand and began to walk back toward the house. If he kept holding her, he would burst into flames. He wanted to throw her on the ground and make love to her right then and there. But he knew how fragile their relationship was. For a long time he had held onto a fantasy that she would feel the same passion for him. Reality was much different. Much, much different. He had not realized how much she was not your basic, standard, let’s-get-married female. She was her own woman, with her own strengths, goals and aspirations. He realized that he was not in that mix and might never be. But he could keep on trying.

  He stopped again and faced her. “You could move in with me. I mean, Fiona, we’re adults. What’s holding you back?” He wanted her to say that she loved him. He wanted to hear the words and if she couldn’t say them, he needed to know why.

  She said, “I’d like waking up to you in the morning.”

  “That’s a big step. What about marrying me and being my wife and we make a home together?”

  “I need more time. I can’t make fast decisions like you can. I need to think about them, get used to the idea. I have never considered being married. Do you realize that?”

  “I do now. I thought most women wanted to be married.”

  “Maybe in your world, but not in mine. But then I’m probably the only woman in the world that feels that way and you, the marrying kind of man, had to fall in love with me, the strong willed, independent, career woman.”

  Jake sighed. “At least the question is on the table. I’m not going to take it off.”

  “I promise I will consider your proposal. Please believe me that I have to get used to the idea. You are asking me to do a 180 degree turn in my world. That takes some thinking about. I need more time.”

  He smiled. “Okay, okay, okay. We’ll see how things go.”

  She turned the conversation away from making a commitment. “This ranch has possibilities. It has a nice setting, nice views. Probably the house would have to be replaced.”

  “I’ll talk to the old man about some things that concern me. Like
the new equipment and the fresh cow manure.”

  “What?”

  “New farm equipment and a pasture full of fresh manure don’t fit with an old man with a rundown ranch and one person coming in to feed two goats.”

  “Let see if he’s found a deed or something that can tell us what he owns and doesn’t own.”

  They found old man Lovejoy sitting on a chair on the deck, looking at the floor boards.

  “Are you okay?” asked Jake. “Can I get you anything?”

  The old man looked up. “Who are you?”

  Jake sighed. This was going to be more difficult than he had hoped, but at least Fiona now had his very solid marriage proposal to consider.

  * * * * *

  On the way home Fiona’s thoughts circled not so much on Jake’s proposal but what she had not shared with Jake and that was her disastrous affair with Rob Calloway. They had been lovers when Rob was going through a difficult period with his mentally unstable wife. Not until after they had consummated their passion had she learned he was married. She broke it off but that didn’t last. He had said he would leave his wife, but then the doctors found the right combination of medications to keep his unstable wife on an even keel. And his two teenage children needed a father. A month before she had met Jake in Virginia, Rob had ended their on-again-off-again affair that had manifested in long sultry afternoons at her condominium. Occasionally they escaped on overnight excursions on his sail boat on the Chesapeake Bay. They had talked of business partnerships, of a future together. But that was never to be.

  Her fondness for Jake couldn’t blossom and bloom because Rob Calloway still took up the region of her heart where romantic love resided. She had sealed up that region with a wall. Walls could keep emotions under lock and key, but more difficult was turning off her hormones. Jake triggered them for sure, and it had been all she could do to stay out of his bed. She might not be able to keep the hormones under wraps much longer. Jake was too sexy. She wasn’t the only one who thought so. She could see it in the way other women looked at him. How they flirted with him. He was a catch, no doubt about it. Susie and some of the other women might jump at the chance to be his wife. She had felt little pricks of jealousy about those women. She would keep that nice, solid wall around her wounded heart, but maybe let her roaring hormones loose.

  * * * * *

  Sammie had tried to entertain Opal on the trip to town to keep her mind off things. She had told Opal funny stories and sang songs to keep the mood light after the scene with Tillie. Sammie was more than annoyed with her sister. She’d have another talk with her.

  In the house Opal said, “Sammie, I’d like to have a lie down. Will you see if Jake and Fiona are around? That’s Doc’s rig out there. They must have come to help. See if you can find them.”

  Sammie helped Opal to her room, taking her purse and laying it on the dresser. Opal lay back on the bed with a sigh. “I feel so tired. So tired.” She closed her eyes.

  Sammie stood by the bed. “Don’t you worry, Aunt Opal. Just rest for now.” She closed the mini-blinds against the glare and shut the door as she left.

  She was glad Doc had come to help. He was one of the more dependable of the nephews, though he was no young man himself. The kitchen seemed to be in order. Queenie had left a note on the counter to say she had made beef stew that was in the crock pot for dinner. Rolls were in a bag in the cupboard. She’d be back in the morning. Dinner, at least, was off the list of things to do.

  Sammie walked out the back door. In the distance she could hear the sound of farm machinery. It sounded like a rake. She had grown up on a ranch that her parents had tried to keep going for years while she and Tillie grew up. As far as she was concerned they had worked themselves to death, her mother teaching school and her father driving truck for a local business while trying to keep a herd of cows fed and watered. Calving season was the worst in the freezing cold weather of February and March.

  How she detested the daily struggle of ranch life. It was the reason she went off to college, working her way through, getting a degree in computer science, ending up with a good job at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington. Her mother had died of breast cancer. Her father followed soon after of a heart attack. She and Tillie had had to sell the ranch to pay off the debts. There was little left over. Tillie had bought a small, worthless spread and married a small, worthless man.

  Samantha shuddered. She wanted no part of any ranch. She was only here because Opal needed help. Ranching brought nothing but bad memories. She owed her allegiance to Opal. This dear aunt always was kind to her, always provided a home for her after they had sold her parents’ ranch, always had seen that she had a little extra spending money when she needed it. She wasn’t going to let Tillie bully her way across the end of Opal’s life, not if she could help it.

  * * * * *

  Two days went by without another dramatic incident. No angry relatives showed up. No one tried to burn anything down. They didn’t lose any more cows. Fiona had marriage to consider. Jake had a new ranch possibility to think about.

  Old man Lovejoy had found the deed while they were there, and they discussed the extent of the property. Jake was thinking about having someone survey the place. He was hoping to hear from the lady at the bank this week whether he could get a loan on Opal’s ranch that might turn into a loan on Lovejoy’s ranch. The sooner he could work out where he would live and ranch, the better it would be for him and Fiona, the girl he didn’t understand sometimes.

  Curiously, old man Lovejoy had said he hadn’t leased the place to anybody and couldn’t account for the equipment in the shed. He had discussed this curiosity on the way home with Fiona. She came to the same conclusion he had. The rustlers were using the Lovejoy ranch as a base of operation.

  “We should be watching his place,” Fiona had said.

  “I’m not a security service,” Jake had said. “I’m a rancher.”

  “True, but someone’s stealing from you, and it’s hurting your operation. We’re going to have to solve this mystery ourselves.”

  “I’m already spread too thin.”

  “True, again.”

  They had left it there, but Jake had spent the better part of the last two days thinking about the strange things going on at the H Bar O. That was, of course, when he wasn’t thinking of Fiona.

  On Sunday he invited Fiona to go to church with him. The pastor from the cowboy church had called Saturday night and asked Jake to fill in on the worship team Sunday morning since their regular guitar player was sick. Even with all he had to do, Jake said yes, because sometimes it felt good to be inside a church singing cowboy gospel songs. With the ranch and everything, it seemed he never had time to get away for Sunday services.

  “Church?” said Fiona. She looked like she hadn’t ever heard the word before.

  “Yes, church. C-h-u-r-c-h.” He spelled it out for her. Maybe the word brought back bad memories.

  “I haven’t been inside a church in years,” she said and made a funny face that involved scrunching up her nose.

  “It won’t bite or give you a disease,” Jake said. “I’m going to play guitar, and I thought you might like to ride along. That’s all.”

  She studied him. “I’m finding out new things about you all the time.”

  He shrugged. “This is part of ordinary living. People go to church Sundays in a lot of places in this world. It doesn’t involve chasing down clues to a mystery. It’s not some intense drama like finding Glory unconscious in the pasture or what we went through back in Virginia. It’s just plain ordinary living.”

  Fiona smiled. “That’s why I didn’t recognize it. It’s too ordinary. I never found church exciting even as a little girl. I suspect it hasn’t changed.”

  Jake smiled back at her. “I kind of like these last two days. No excitement. I got a good night’s sleep last night. The hay is raked. We should be able to bale this week. The cows are in their new pasture and have water. Life is good. I’m going to chu
rch to celebrate.”

  Fiona watched him with a smile. “Ranch life is back to normal. Being with you I realize how important this way of life is for you.”

  He nodded in agreement. “It’s not for everyone though.” He felt sad saying that because she might not fit here. She might choose to go back to her old way of life. She was the round peg in the square hole. But maybe she’d get to like him more and want to stay. Being the practical man he was, he told his hopes to be quiet and lie down.

  Then she said, “What should I wear?”

  He looked her over with a discerning eye. “What you are wearing is fine. You never look bad to me. Jeans are always good here. This isn’t New York. We’re going to church in rural America. Nothing fancy. I’m wearing what I got on.”

  She looked him up and down. “Pressed jeans. Fancy cowboy shirt, black vest with bolo tie. No wonder you’re all duded up. You’re going to church. You look nice. You make a fine cowboy.”

  “Buckaroo,” he said. “I’m a buckaroo today. Are you going or aren’t you? If we don’t leave soon I’ll be late, and I’ll have to drive eighty miles an hour.”

  She smiled the pretty smile that he always fell for. “All right. I was telling Opal the other day that I have more exciting adventures in me. Why not church?”

  “Attagirl.”

  They made it to the cowboy church outside of Rocky Point with ten minutes to spare. Jake walked in with his guitar and amplifier. He was particular about an amplifier and always travelled with his trusty Fender. Fiona sat in a back pew. He couldn’t persuade her to sit up close to the musicians. That was asking too much. Having his girl in the audience made his male ego light up and glow with a thousand watts. He had the lead in all the songs, and he sang them for her. Her smiling face made him sing all the better.

  After the service she managed to smile her way through people coming up to greet him and even participated in a conversation about how they were going to start baling hay this week. He couldn’t help puffing up like the proud, love struck buckaroo that he was, showing off his girl. Yes, he certainly was showing her off.