by Ginna Gray
"You see, all through high school I had a gigantic crush on Kurt, but he didn't look at me twice. I'm positive he knew. Everyone did. It's impossible to keep a secret in this town.
"Inevitably those adolescent feelings faded. I went away to college and forgot all about Kurt.
"After the scandal, though, he was the only one in town who defended Zach and me, and … well I guess some remnants of the girlish crush remained. I was flattered and happy when he stood up for me, and thrilled by all the attention he showed me. When he said he loved me and wanted to marry me, I believed him."
Her voice cracked on the last, and J.T. ground his teeth as he watched her fight for composure, blinking furiously to contain the tears that threatened.
"Fool that I was, I even let him move in here after we became engaged. I thought we were going to be life partners, standing shoulder to shoulder against all the gossip and ugliness. Then one day I had to go to Durango on an errand. I had gotten just a few miles down the road when I remembered that I had forgotten my checkbook, so I came back for it. I found Kurt wildly searching the house for the money.
"It turned out the people in town had chosen Kurt to court me. They figured if I fell in love with him, he could wheedle it out of me where the money was hidden. When that didn't pan out as they expected, he decided to search for it."
J.T. put his hand over Kate's clasped ones, and when she finally met his gaze he said softly, "I'm sorry, Kate."
She attempted a brisk smile, but the effect was spoiled by the slight quiver of her lips. "Yes, well, I'm older and wiser now."
And that, J.T. thought, explained a lot.
She turned her head and fixed him with a direct look that demanded a straight answer. "And there you have it. That's our side of the story. So now who do you believe?"
Leaning back until the chair balanced on the rear legs, J.T. studied her. She sat with her spine stiff, her face set, braced for the insult she was sure was coming.
Absently he raised his hand to his chest and fingered the medallion fragment beneath his shirt. Was he letting his feelings for Kate and the possibility that Zach Mahoney might be his and Matt's brother color his judgment?
The journalist in J.T. winced at the idea.
No, that wasn't it. He didn't know Zach Mahoney or what he was capable of doing, but years as an investigative reporter had sharpened his instincts about people, and his gut was telling him that Kate could not have been involved in Bob Sweet's scam. Those gray eyes were clear and guileless, shimmering with hurt, and her whole body radiated righteous indignation.
J.T. shrugged. "Seems an easy enough call. It all boils down to Sweet's word against your brother's. Personally, the word of a swindler doesn't mean squat to me. The authorities obviously feel the same. Sweet went to prison. Your brother didn't. That's good enough for me."
"Then … you … believe me?"
"Yeah."
She stared at him, her eyes growing suspiciously moist again, and he wondered why she looked so stunned. Then he realized that it had been a long time since anyone had believed in her.
His heart twisted with sympathy, and a warm rush of emotions too complicated to analyze.
J.T. stared at her tear-drenched eyes and her trembling mouth and could not resist.
The front legs of the chair hit the floor with a thump. Before Kate could move, J.T. leaned across the corner of the table, hooked a hand around her nape beneath the collar of her robe, and put his mouth on hers.
Her breath caught and her eyes widened, but in the space of three heartbeats her eyelids drifted shut. Beneath his hand, J.T. could feel the erratic dance of her pulse. She sat ramrod straight, her hands clamped together in a white-knuckled grip on the table, the quiver of her soft lips against his her only movement.
The kiss was as soft as thistledown, a press of warm lips, a rub, a nibble, the merest touch of tongues. Yet for all its gentleness and brevity, the caress carried a punch that rocked J.T. to his soul. A shudder rippled through Kate, and he knew that she felt it, too.
He pulled back, shaken, but he grinned when her eyelids lifted as though they were weighted with lead. She blinked slowly and tried to focus, and his grin grew wider, cockier.
"Wh-why did you do that?"
J.T. winked. "To show you that I'm on your side. Besides, you looked like you needed it." He rubbed his thumb along her jaw and winked. "Hey, don't look so stricken, Katy. It was just a little kiss between friends. Nothing to worry about."
To emphasize the point, he gave her another quick peck on the lips, then stood up and stretched with a lot more nonchalance than he was feeling. "Now, I don't know about you, but I'm going back to bed for a few more hours of shut-eye. Tomorrow I'll give you a hand with the garden and flower beds."
"Oh, no, that's all right. Guests aren't expected to help."
"I thought I told you not to think of me as a guest." He touched the end of her nose with his forefinger and grinned. "We'll have to work on that later."
He headed for the door into the hall, but when he reached it he stopped and looked back at her. "Before I go, would you answer one question?"
She tensed again and shot him a wary look. "What?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Pardon me?"
"Why do you stay here and take the abuse you do?"
Her spine straightened and her shoulders went back in that proud way he was beginning to recognize. "What else can I do? Sell the house? To whom? The real estate market in Gold Fever is worse now than when Smithson heirs were trying to sell. And my parents put too many years of hard work into this place. I won't walk away and leave it. Anyway, leaving would be like admitting guilt. Plus, this is my home. No one is going to run me out of it. No one."
J.T. looked at the jut of her chin and the belligerence shimmering in those gray eyes. He grinned and shook his head. "Ah, Katy, Katy. There's that stubborn pride again."
* * *
Chapter 7
« ^ »
Rarely did anyone come to Kate's door after tourist season ended. When the Westminster door chimes reverberated through the downstairs a little before eight the next morning, she was so startled she nearly dropped the pan of blueberry muffins she had just removed from the oven.
"Who in the world?"
Kate dumped the muffins into the bread warmer and hurried to the front door. The instant she opened it, her spine stiffened.
"Oh. It's you." Unconsciously Kate squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. She gripped the edge of the door with one hand and the frame with the other. She had no intention of inviting him in. "Is there something you need, Sheriff?" she asked coldly.
Alvin Huntsinger replied with a curt nod, but didn't bother with a greeting. "There's been some complaints about you. I'm going to have to place you under arrest."
"Arrest!" A chill race down Kate's spine. "What for?"
"Assault with a deadly weapon for starters. Maybe even attempted murder."
"Attemp— That's ridiculous!"
"I got four men in town who say otherwise."
"Then they're lying."
"You saying you didn't shoot at Cletus and his friends last night?"
"I fired my shotgun, but I was shooting rock salt. I certainly didn't assault anyone."
"Well now, I only have your word for that, don't I."
"And mine."
The deep rumble of J.T.'s voice was the most wonderful sound she had ever heard. Kate looked around, weak with relief to see him ambling toward her down the central hall. Coming to a halt directly behind her, he stared at the sheriff over her head.
Sheriff Huntsinger frowned, his eyes narrowing. "And who might you be?"
"J.T. Conway."
"Ah, yes. You're that writer fella I've been hearing about."
"That's right."
"And you saw Kate shooting at four men last night?"
"No. I saw Kate fire a warning shot of rock salt into the air."
"Into the air, huh? How do you kno
w she was shootin' rock salt?"
"I examined the shells when I unloaded the gun. You know, Sheriff, in most Western states there's no law against discharging a firearm on your own property if you live out of town on acreage, as Kate does. But I'm quite certain every state has laws against trespassing. Not to mention breaking and entering and vandalism."
"Breaking and entering! Now just hold on a minute," Sheriff Huntsinger blustered. "Those boys just came up here to have a talk with Kate is all."
"At three in the morning? I don't think so."
"While Cletus and the other two were digging up my property, Ward Atkinson was trying to cut the padlock off my garage. If that's not breaking and entering I'd like to know what is," Kate snapped, emboldened by J.T.'s support.
J.T. gave the sheriff one of his charming smiles, but his eyes held challenge. "You know, Sheriff, I have no stake in this. But if it ever came to trial, as a neutral third party, I'd have to testify to what I saw. And I have to say, I think any jury would find that Kate was within her rights in protecting her property. If I were you, I'd tell those guys to forget any idea of pressing charges against her, and just be glad she's not pressing charges herself."
The subtle warning was not wasted on the sheriff. He stared at J.T., his face turning a mottled red, but after a moment he jerked his head in a curt nod. "All right. I'll talk to them."
When he had gone, Kate closed the door and leaned her forehead against it, nearly sick with relief.
"You okay?"
She looked up at J.T. with a wan smile. "Yes. I am now. He wasn't bluffing, you know. He really would have arrested me." She put her hand on his arm. "Thank you, J.T. I'm just sorry you had to stretch the truth for me. We both know I wasn't shooting in the air."
"What stretch? The only shot I saw you fire was when I knocked the gun barrel up."
The mischief in his eyes made her laugh. "So it was."
She exhaled a long sigh of relief, then straightened her shoulders. "Well. Now that we have that settled, let's have breakfast, shall we? I have blueberry muffins in the warmer," she said, heading for the kitchen.
"Mmm. Sounds great, as long as there's coffee to go with them. Uh, Kate … there is just one thing."
She stopped and looked back at him. "What's that?"
"Those shells you were firing … they were loaded with rock salt, right?"
* * *
"It's about time you got in touch! Why the devil did you change your cell phone number? I've been trying to reach you for over a week."
J.T. winced and jerked the telephone receiver away from his ear. "Jeez, Charlie, it's nice talking to you, too."
"Don't get cute with me, Conway. I distinctly remember telling you…"
While his editor ranted, J.T. held the cell phone out from his ear and wandered over to the front windows of his room.
Through the lace curtains he saw Kate, working furiously to repair the damage Cletus and his friends had done to the rose beds the night before.
It had snowed during the night, covering the ground nearly a foot deep, and it was still coming down. She'd had to clear the snow off the tops of the beds before she could even begin the repairs. Kate's coat and red knit cap were dusted with the white flakes, but she was determined to save her precious roses.
J.T. shook his head. Stubborn woman. She'd flat-out refused his offer to help. Gotten downright huffy about it. He'd never known anyone, male or female, with so much stiff-necked pride.
"…give an order I expect you to follow it. You hear? Now, where the hell are you, boy? And why haven't you called?"
J.T. ignored the first question. "Sorry. I haven't had a chance," he said absently, smiling as he watched Kate replant an uprooted bush and pat the soil in place around the base with the tender care a mother would give a baby. "Besides, there hasn't been anything to report."
Charlie pounced on the statement like a duck on a june bug. "You're calling now, so that must mean you have something."
"Mmm. Maybe. I don't know. I'm looking into something, but until I have more to go on, I'd rather not talk about it. Mainly I'm just checking in so you won't go ballistic on me."
"Now, look here, Conway, if you've got a hot story brewing I damned well want to know about it."
J.T. sighed and raked his hand through his hair. He was already regretting making the call to his boss. Charlie was like a pit bull: once he got his teeth into something he didn't let go. "You will, don't worry. As soon as I'm sure there is a story I'll tell you all about it. This may turn out to be nothing."
"Yeah, well, you'd better," he growled. "So how's the book coming along?"
"Fine."
It wasn't a lie. The first draft was shaping up, and he'd picked up a lot of usable color and background from the guys at the lodge and technical and historical info from Sean Mahoney's library. However, his story had taken a back seat to the real-life drama that had taken place in Gold Fever four years ago.
All morning he hadn't been able to think about anything else. Or write about anything else. If handled right, a fictionalized version of the crime and all that had followed had the makings of a first-rate novel. He already had five pages of outline written.
Charlie harrumphed, somehow managing to imbue the sound with utter derision. "And how about the search for your other triplet? How's that going?"
Automatically J.T. raised his hand to his chest and fingered the medallion piece he always wore. "Nothing definite yet, but it looks promising."
"Yeah, sure. Which means, you've got bubkus. Why don't you just forget all this nonsense about writing a book and digging up long lost relatives and get back here where you belong?"
"Forget it, Charlie. I'm doing this."
"Yeah, well … if that's all you've got to say, I gotta go. Unlike you, I got work to do."
J.T. chuckled. It was a typical Charlie response. When the man couldn't win an argument any other way, he cut you off. "So long, Charlie."
"Yeah, yeah. Keep in touch, Conway. Ya hear!"
J.T. pushed the power button on the cell phone and flipped it shut, but for several seconds he merely stood there, watching Kate.
What would it hurt if he did a little digging of his own? If he could unravel the mystery of what happened to the money, it would remove suspicion from Kate and Zach. He would be doing them a favor.
And providing yourself with the basis for a blockbuster story, his conscience niggled.
J.T. frowned and tapped the small phone against his chin. So what was wrong with that? It wasn't as if he'd be hurting anyone. The story of the swindle had already made the papers.
He flipped the cell phone open, but still he hesitated, torn, and not sure exactly why.
Finally, ignoring the prick of his conscience, he hit the power button again and punched in the number. "Dammit, what harm could it do?" he muttered, but as he waited for the connection to complete, he turned away from the window and his view of Kate.
"Houston Herald. How may I direct your call?"
"Hey, Josie. It's J.T. again. Put me through to Sunny will you, darlin'?"
"Anything for you, sugar," the grandmotherly woman replied.
"Morgue. Roberts speaking."
"Hi-ya, gorgeous. How's it going with my favorite girl?"
"Save the sweet talk, J.T. What do you want?"
J.T. grinned. Sunny Roberts had worked in the Herald's morgue for over forty years and had run it for the last twenty-two. Sunny was, however, the very antithesis of her name. She had the disposition of a grizzly with an impacted tooth, and a sour puss that would stop a clock. However, when it came to research or locating something in the newspaper's archives, there was no one better. Luckily for J.T., the woman had a soft spot for him in that stone she called a heart, though she would walk through fire before admitting it.
"That's what I love about you Sunny, you have such an even temper. Always rotten."
"Yeah, yeah. I'm busy, Conway. What do you want?"
"I need all you can find
on a swindle that took place in Gold Fever, Colorado, around four years ago. Five, tops. Also, anything you can dig up on a Reverend Bob Sweet. I know he was arrested on Antigua, extradited back here, tried and sent to prison for the crime. I want every scrap of coverage on those events and anything else you can dig up on the guy."
"Got it. Anything else?"
"No. Wait! Yes." J.T. hesitated, and rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing. "If you can find anything on a rodeo cowboy named Zach Mahoney, send me that, too."
"A crooked preacher and a bronco buster, huh? Now there's a combo for you. What're you up to, J.T.?"
"No good, darlin'," he drawled. "No darned good."
"Now that I'd believe. So where do you want this sent?"
When he'd given her the general delivery address and hung up, J.T. wandered back to the window. Kate had finished replanting and was shoveling the last of the compost and mulch back on the beds.
I won't hurt you, sweetheart, he swore silently. Whatever I find, I won't let anything hurt you.
Kate finished covering the beds and stopped to arch her back, but suddenly she turned toward the road or, at least, what you could see of it.
Around dawn J.T. had heard the snowplow, but another couple of inches had fallen since then, obliterating the road except for the snow furrow along its outer edge.
The sound of a vehicle approaching reached J.T., and he saw a dump truck filled with firewood lumbering up the snow-covered track.
Carrying her shovel, Kate went out to meet the truck when it pulled into the driveway. She exchanged a few words with the driver, and he drove around to the back of the house with Kate following on foot.
J.T. wandered back to the desk and poured himself another cup of coffee from the carafe that Kate had filled for him that morning. Absently sipping the brew, he settled in front of the laptop and pulled up the outline he'd been developing on the swindle.
He worked straight through the next few hours and two more cups of coffee, developing the plot and various subplots, the characters, twists and turns and a few red herrings. Frowning at the screen, trying to come up with a background for his Reverend Sweet character that would explain but not excuse his actions, J.T. reached for the carafe again to refill his cup, but only a trickle came out of the spout.