Colton's Cowboy Code

by Melissa Cutler

  But all Sleekie did was wind around Hannah’s legs, purring.

  Hannah scooped the cat up and stood, her attention on Brett and Daniel as they cantered along a dirt road headed west, into the setting sun. Despite having to bid Brett goodbye and her worry about him staying safe, evenings were her favorite time on the ranch. After near-daily afternoon rainstorms, the world seemed to hush in reverence to the setting sun amid the lingering storm clouds. The prairie glowed warm with oranges and purples and deep, dark greens. The ranch itself turned peaceful and sleepy. Even the cows and other livestock seemed to understand the coming of night.

  After Brett and Daniel disappeared from view, she lingered on the front steps of the office, absentmindedly petting Sleekie and watching the sunset over the piece of land she was growing attached to. The moment the sun dipped below the horizon, she closed her eyes and said a prayer for Brett, for their baby, and to thank God for providing such a good life for her. She hadn’t understood why He’d taken her life on such a difficult path, but she was starting to see the plan for her at the Lucky C with the Coltons and she definitely approved.

  When Sleekie started to squirm, she set the cat down and returned to the office. Flipping all the lights on, she got back to business. After setting aside Brett’s horse-breeding proposal, she opened the spreadsheet for the Lucky C. The numbers weren’t adding up the way she would’ve hoped. Every month for the past year, the ranch’s account was coming up short by several thousand dollars.

  The errors were probably a result of Big J’s haphazard style, compounded by his occasional forgetfulness Brett had mentioned to her on the sly. Whatever the cause, the result was the same. She had her work cut out for her. Tonight’s plan involved cross-checking deposit receipts with the hand-printed ledgers and the computerized spreadsheets that Big J had created, then inputting the real numbers in the brand-new spreadsheet that she’d created earlier that week.

  Sleekie leaped onto the desk and sat herself down right on top of the open ledger.

  Hannah scratched her behind the ears before moving her to the side. “Well, Sleekie, since you don’t have fingers, how about you cross your paws that I’m right about these shortages being typos? Otherwise that means someone’s stealing money from the Coltons and we can’t have that, can we? Not after everything they’ve been through.”

  The mere thought of someone stealing money from the Coltons made Hannah spitting mad. She really hoped she was able to find the nearly twenty thousand dollars that looked to be missing.

  Sleekie gave a meow, then tipped on her side and got down to her own business of giving herself a bath, unconcerned with the missing money.

  Not ten minutes later, Hannah cursed under her breath and shot to her feet, angry and shocked at what she’d found. She picked up the check stub that she’d cross-referenced with a bank statement and gave the two a second look. In her hands she held the first clue about what had happened to the money. “Sleekie, it’s not a typo.”

  Footsteps sounded, coming up the steps. Sleekie dived off the desk, but Hannah didn’t have time to do more than wedge the check and the bank statement into the open ledger she’d been working with and flip it closed before the door opened.

  Rafe seemed as surprised to see her as she was to see him.

  “Oh,” he said, backing up a step. He removed his hat and pressed it to his chest. “Evening, Miz Grayson. I didn’t expect you to be here so late.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” Too late, she realized how rude that had come out. “Sorry. You startled me and that came out wrong. I mean, how can I help you tonight?”

  He moved farther into the room. “My apologies for giving you a start. I saw the light and thought it’d been left on accidentally. Thought I’d do my part for the environment and the Coltons’ electric bill and come turn it off.”

  He propped one hip on her desk, his broad grin revealing a row of straight white teeth. “But come to find out, it’s just purdy little Hannah making herself useful.”

  It struck her then that she’d once teased Brett that he was as slippery as a snake-oil salesman. She hadn’t met Rafe Sinclair yet. With one eye on him, she reached a hand to the keyboard. One hit of a button and the computer monitor went into sleep mode.

  “Yep. It’s just me, trying to get these books figured out.” She tried out a smile, but she had trouble making it happen. She’d seen the man nearly every day since arriving at the ranch, and so far he hadn’t been guilty of anything except misogyny, but still, Rafe made her uncomfortable. He didn’t seem to understand the concept of personal space and his gazes at her lingered a little too long and were a little too studious.

  He picked up the ledger she’d closed. “I’ve got a good mind for numbers and I’d be happy to help you. In fact, I can see it now, the two of us working together, me helping you make heads and tails of this complicated business so you can get back to your evening and relax, maybe sneak some of Maria’s strawberry jam, like you do.”

  Since when had he seen her eating jam? She only did that in her suite. Then again, she was so addicted to the stuff that there was a chance she’d had a spoonful at breakfast on the porch without remembering it. “That’s sweet of you to offer to help, but I’ve got a good handle on my job.” She eased her hands around the ledger and gave a tug, but Rafe’s grip held firm.

  “Doesn’t mean you couldn’t use a man’s help.”

  Oh, brother. “Sorry to break it to you, but that’s exactly what that diploma on the wall behind me means.”

  His attention slid past her to the wall. She took his momentary distraction as an opportunity and tugged on the ledger again, harder this time. He released it with a low chuckle.

  “So it does, Miz Hannah.”

  She didn’t want to remain in Rafe’s company for a second longer. Men who felt entitled to come on to women no matter how uncomfortable they became and who paid no mind to personal boundaries made her skin crawl. There’d been men like that in the Congregation of the Second Coming, men like that at her college campus library, and there would always be men like that the world over. But that didn’t mean she had to suffer in their company.

  She slipped around the side of the desk, affording him a wide berth, strode to the door and opened it. “I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave so I can keep working. Thank you for understanding.”

  After a long pause, he stood and replaced his hat on his head. “Forgive me for interrupting your work. Have a safe night, Miz Hannah.” When he reached the door, he gave the handle a jiggle. “And be sure to lock this door behind me so the bogeyman can’t get in.”

  What a slimeball, shrouding his threats in disingenuous charm and implications, giving her no concrete grievances to share with Brett, should she choose, except for the way he creeped her out.

  She certainly did lock the door behind her and pulled the curtains closed, but she couldn’t concentrate on her work anymore. Rafe had gotten in her head. She locked the ledgers, bank statements and other evidence into the desk’s largest drawer. On a gut instinct, she backed up the ranch’s accounting files to a portable drive and pocketed it. Then she added a password to the computer’s launch page before logging out—a version of her due date using random capital letters—just in case.

  The whole time, she couldn’t shake the sensation that someone was watching her. Of course, that was just her imagination being ridiculous, because the curtains were closed.

  “Must be that bogeyman Rafe mentioned. Huh, Sleekie?” But the comment she’d meant as sarcastic, as a means to point out how silly she was being getting so freaked out, hovered in the stillness.

  She hadn’t seen Sleekie since Rafe’s visit, so the smart cat must have hightailed it out of the room. To make sure she didn’t accidentally lock the cat in overnight, she checked every nook and cranny of the office, under chairs and tables and behind the curtains. />
  She had one hand on the doorknob when she thought twice about leaving the ledgers and other possible evidence behind. Yes, she’d locked them up, but her gut was talking again and this time it was telling her to take it all with her back to her room for safekeeping.

  After stuffing the loose papers and files into a manila envelope, she stepped outside, locked the office and set off across the grounds to the Big House. She still couldn’t shake the notion that there were eyes on her, and her pulse pounded faster with every step she took. Thankfully, she was spared from walking in total darkness by floodlights gracing the eaves of the stables, the feed shed and just about every other building on the grounds. Her path was lit and out in the open and just about as safe as could be. There were no bogeymen, no ghosts, and no one was going to get her on this short walk home in the middle of the Coltons’ property.

  Chapter 9

  On the porch of the Big House, Hannah glanced over her shoulder in the direction that she’d felt someone’s eyes on her throughout the evening. Movement, a splash of white, caught her eye near the bunkhouse. The skin on her neck prickled. She stood still, watching the night, but saw nothing else. It had to have been a curtain blowing in the breeze because someone left a window open. Had to be.

  She flung the main door of the Big House open a little too hard. It banged against the wall, the sound echoing in the silence within. She didn’t draw a full breath again until she’d locked the front door and flipped on every light operated from the switch panel in the foyer.

  “Hello, Edith? Are you still around?”

  Nothing. As usual, Edith had retired for the night with the setting sun. Maria must have left already, too. Knowing that Edith and Big J were somewhere in the house should have proven a comfort to Hannah, but her unease only ratcheted up. So silly. She was freaking herself out for no reason.

  She made it up the stairs in record time. Subdued lighting glowed throughout the hall from wall sconces. The floor-to-ceiling window at the end of the hall was nothing more than a black rectangle, showing the darkness of the ranch’s land. Brett and his brother were out there in the night, patrolling to keep her safe. She had nothing to worry about, tucked away inside a perfectly secure home.

  Her attention pulled toward the hallway that led to Abra’s suite. The crime scene.

  Stop thinking about it, Hannah. For real.

  She hugged the envelope to her chest and scuttled to her room. As usual, Edith and Maria had left a light on for her inside.

  She opened the door and at the first glimpse of movement, yelped and stumbled back. Someone was in her room. She pressed herself to the hallway wall on weak knees, breathing and wondering what the heck she should do next.

  Maria appeared in the doorway. “Oh, my God, Hannah. I’m so sorry I scared you.”

  Hannah sagged against the wall and let her hand holding the envelope flop to her side. “It’s just you.” She let out a peal of nervous laughter. “Oh, God. My heart.”

  “Are you okay?” Maria asked.

  “I think so.”

  Maria disappeared into the room again, then reappeared holding a glass of water. “I knew you were working hard and I thought you might like a late-night snack when you got home. I’m sorry I scared you.”

  Hannah accepted the water and drank deeply from it, feeling her heart beat in her throat as she swallowed. “Truthfully, I was already spooked before I opened the door. Got myself all worked up over something I thought I saw on the walk back here. Of course, it was nothing.”

  “Was it the ghost? A woman?”

  Hannah clutched the glass and gaped at Maria. “You’ve seen her, too?” she whispered.

  Maria nodded. She wrapped an arm around Hannah and led her into a chair in the suite’s sitting area. “So have some of the ranch workers. I think she might be the woman whose baby’s bones were found at the Coltons’ family cemetery last month.” She made the sign of the cross on her chest.

  Hannah’s head was spinning. “Excuse me?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Jack found them in the family cemetery, like I said. They don’t know who the bones belong to or where they came from, but the police think they were planted there. Ryan said that they didn’t look like they’d been there long. Soon after they were discovered, we started seeing the ghost. I think the mother still walks the prairie, looking for her baby.”

  “That’s horrible.” Not just because a baby had died, which was unbearably sad in its own right, but that someone had disrespected the bones by moving them. And if they’d planted some poor, sweet baby’s bones at the Lucky C on purpose for the sake of scaring the family or confusing the investigation against Abra’s attacker, then that was a despicable excuse for a human being.

  Hannah shook her head, pushing away the thought that someone could stoop to such depravity. Though she was aghast about the bones, and frustrated on the Coltons’ behalf, she didn’t believe in ghosts. Did she? Then again, she sure had believed in the possibility a few minutes earlier. She thought about the photograph she’d taken on her phone. Ready to share the photograph with Maria, she looked around for her purse, but realized almost immediately that she’d forgotten it in the office.

  “I hope I didn’t frighten you all over again,” Maria said. “I can’t imagine anything else bad happening at the Lucky C. Not with so many people patrolling the grounds and the police investigating the crimes against the family. I’m sure the worst is behind us all.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” she said instead. Hopefully Maria didn’t hear the lie in Hannah’s words. She clutched the envelope tightly to her chest—the possible proof that not all the worst was behind the Coltons. She hated the idea of breaking it to Brett that his family may have yet another crime to weather.

  After Maria left, Hannah locked the suite door, then prowled the rooms, looking for the perfect hiding place for the folder of evidence. Before she’d found one, she saw a Bible she didn’t recognize lying open on the vanity.

  Even from a distance, she could see a circle of red marker ink on one page. Baffled, she moved in for a closer look. What she discovered had her huffing in disbelief. Guess her first semilogical explanation that Maria had left it behind had been wrong.

  “Mavis, you crazy girl.”

  The Bible was open to Deuteronomy, the circled verse commanding the righteous to stone unmarried fornicators as a way of purging evil—one of the most popular passages misappropriated by the Congregation of the Second Coming.

  Shaking her head at Mavis’s nerve, she slid the folder of evidence between the vanity and the wall, out of sight. Then she flipped the pages of the Bible to her favorite psalm about forgiveness. Let’s see you try to twist that verse into something hurtful, Mavis.

  Smiling now, she rummaged through the desk for a pen and circled the verse over and over again until she’s created a thick blue frame for the exalted words. Just because her parents’ cult could twist the word of God for their own agenda didn’t make them right or true. Forget creeps like Rafe and religious fanatics like Mavis; Hannah was above them all. She knew in her heart who she was and what she stood for.

  And what she stood for right now was indulging in the late-night snacks that Maria had left for her. Tonight’s choices were a plate of fruit, nuts and crackers, as well as a bottle of sparkling apple cider. God bless Maria. She flounced onto the sofa and popped a nut in her mouth.

  Inevitably, her thoughts shifted to Brett. He might have rejected her every advance and refused to consider the possibility of them as a couple, but he’d made all this possible for her—the comfy bedroom, the great job, the pampering from Maria and Edith, and, most importantly, the sense of security he’d brought to her life. No matter how jumbled up her feelings were for him, or how unconventional their arrangement, she knew she could count on h
im, no matter what, even if she hadn’t felt very secure on the ranch itself that night. She glanced at the curtained windows, hoping his night had been more peaceful than hers.

  * * *

  The ranch was quiet and the night air was balmy and pleasant, neither of which explained Outlaw’s restlessness one bit.

  Brett and Daniel sat astride their horses on the far reaches of the ranch’s epicenter, keeping one eye on the backcountry and the other on their homestead. The Big House glowed like a beacon in the distance, while the bunkhouse and barns stood like a line of matchsticks. Windows were lit and clusters of men sat outside smoking and shooting the breeze. One ranch hand whom Brett didn’t recognize in the dim light strummed a guitar. Every now and then, he caught a chord on the breeze.

  When Outlaw whinnied and stamped the ground for the hundredth time, Daniel tipped his head towards Brett’s horse. “My horses have been on edge lately, too. Their appetites are low and they’re nipping at each other. Something’s in the air.”

  “We’re feeling it at our end of the ranch with the workers. A few of them swear they’ve seen a ghost in the field. A woman.”

  “What do you think?” Daniel asked.

  Brett swung his attention away from the homestead and toward the darkness. “Like you said, something’s in the air. All I know is that it sure wasn’t a ghost who put my mother in the hospital or tampered with our fences.”

  “Not to mention the bones in the cemetery last month.”

  “Man, that was terrible. Disturbing.” Even now, the memory of those bones haunted Brett’s mind in Technicolor detail. “What I don’t get is why the perpetrator would still be skulking around the ranch. And the hospital, if we believe that druggie who tried to sell Mother’s locket to a pawnshop.”

  Daniel’s gaze went distant. “Secrets.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Daniel shrugged. “Maybe the perp accidentally left something behind around here. Or he didn’t find what he was looking for in Abra’s room. There would be lots of reasons to come back, which is why you and I are killing a perfectly good night sitting out here in the dark.”