Boots and Bullets

by B. J Daniels

  “You could have been killed,” he said, sounding angry, although it was fear and concern for her behind the anger.

  She’d never met anyone like this man.

  “If we keep digging into this—”

  “So you’re just willing to drop it?” she demanded. “Kate—”

  “You know it wasn’t just a dream. You’ve always known. You knew the moment you saw my mother’s bracelet, don’t deny it. You saw the bracelet in your dream, didn’t you?”

  He nodded slowly, reluctantly. “It was lying beside her. One of the bells had fallen off.”

  Kate felt her heart stop. “What?” Suddenly she felt faint again. “Are you sure?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My grandfather made the bracelets a little different so my mother and aunt could tell them apart. My mother’s had only eleven bells. My aunt’s had twelve. The one upstairs has eleven. What if it isn’t my mother’s?”

  He shook his head. She could tell he was as confused as she was.

  “But if it’s my aunt’s, then how did my grandmother get it? And where is my mother’s bracelet?”

  “Kate, you don’t want to do this,” he said, lowering his voice to what felt like a caress. “I can’t bear to see you hurt. Or worse.”

  She looked into his dark, bottomless gaze and wondered if they were still talking about the murder—or about what was happening between them. “Is that it or is it some kind of cowboy code?”

  He looked confused for a moment, then realized she wasn’t talking about murder. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  He dragged his Stetson from his head and raked a hand through his dark, thick hair. “Someone just tried to hurt you.”

  “Which proves I’m right.” Kate closed the distance between them. Her palm cupped his wonderfully handsome face. She had to go up on her tiptoes to reach his mouth. Her lips brushed over his.

  She could feel Cyrus’s chivalrous cowboy code trying to intervene.

  But she won him over as she kissed him again.

  His arm looped around her waist and he dragged her to him with a groan, deepening the kiss as if, like her, he’d been wanting to do this almost since the first time he’d laid eyes on her.

  A live wire of current shot through her veins, settling at her center. She felt a jolt of desire so strong it made her toes curl.

  Who knows what would have happened if her cell phone hadn’t rung.

  Cyrus drew back, looking shaken by the kiss and the desire he couldn’t hide in his gaze. “You’d better answer that,” he said, sounding breathless.

  She glanced at the caller ID. It was Andi and it was marked urgent.

  CYRUS WATCHED KATE take the call, both relieved and sorry for the interruption. He knew instinctively that Kate wasn’t the kind of woman who took making love with a man lightly. And because of that he couldn’t possibly let it happen. After Halloween he had to get back to Denver, get back to work, get back to his life.

  But the thought came with a strange feeling of regret. After coming out of the coma, he’d been anxious to get to Montana and find out the truth about his murder dream. But then he’d always known he would go back to Winchester Investigations. He enjoyed his work and normally would be champing at the bit to get back to it.

  However, nothing had been normal since he’d seen Kate in the old hospital hallway. He had a feeling nothing would be normal again.

  Still, as she hung up the phone, he reminded himself of all the reasons kissing Kate again would be a very bad idea. Because he knew that what he wanted more than anything was to make love to this woman and one more kiss…

  As she stuck the cell phone into her jacket pocket, she said, “That was my friend Andi. She’s a reporter for the Milk River Examiner, our local weekly newspaper, and she just found what she believes is the only murder ever committed at the old hospital.”

  “Kate—” Cyrus wasn’t even sure what he’d planned to say. No doubt an apology for kissing her the way he had. But she didn’t give him a chance.

  “Don’t you see what this means?” she demanded, waving an arm to encompass the basement. For a moment he thought she was talking about the kiss, about the passion that had sparked between them. “Whoever cut that cable doesn’t want us finding out what really happened to my aunt and my mother. This proves it and now Andi has found an old murder she said she thinks we’ll be interested in.”

  He couldn’t believe this. She was just going to ignore the kiss, ignore what had just happened between them? He knew damn well she’d felt it, too. Or, like him, was she afraid to look too closely at whatever was developing between them? If anything?

  Kate was looking at him as if she couldn’t understand why he was still standing there, why he wasn’t excited about this news. She obviously was.

  He stared at her. “This doesn’t prove anything,” he said, finding himself wanting to grab her and kiss some sense into her. “Except that, because of me, someone wants to hurt you.”

  “They must think I know something.”

  “But you don’t know anything and neither do I. Except that there wasn’t a murder the night I spent in the old hospital.”

  Her green gaze locked with his. She grinned at him, completely disarming him. “Don’t look so upset,” Kate said, brushing a lock of his hair back from his forehead. The tips of her fingers grazed his skin, shattering his senses. “This is good news. It proves you aren’t crazy. Take some encouragement in that.”

  He shook his head, unable to resist her. “I have never met anyone like you, Kate Landon.”

  “Trust me, you’re my first psychic cowboy.”

  “If I were psychic I’d have seen that someone was going to cut the cable that hit you.” And I’d know what was going to happen with the two of us, he thought, wishing for the first time that he was psychic. Then he would know if Kate was going to be safe.

  “Let me say this again,” he said. “Someone just tried to hurt you, possibly even kill you. If it really was about your aunt’s death and your mother’s disappearance, then us digging around in it could get you killed. I can’t let that happen.”

  She smiled. “But you also can’t stop me.”

  “Kate—”

  “I need to get over to the newspaper. Are you coming or not?”

  He looked into her eyes and knew that he would follow her anywhere, anytime. They were in this together. At least until he found out who had tried to hurt her. He had a bad feeling he already knew why.

  ANDI LIFTED A BROW and mouthed “Hottie!” when Kate came into the newspaper office with Cyrus Winchester. Andi’s expression changed, though, the moment she saw where the cable had connected with Kate’s forehead. “What happened to you?”

  “A little accident in the basement while she was finishing up the haunted house,” Cyrus said. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” He held out his hand. “Kate has told me all about you.”

  Andi arched a brow as she shook his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you, as well.”

  “I’ll bet you have,” Cyrus said and laughed. It was deep and throaty and Kate loved the sound. She looked over at him as he shoved back his Stetson. The man really was gorgeous. And boy, could he kiss. Her toes curled at the memory of being in his arms.

  “I thought you might be interested in the only documented murder I could find at the old hospital,” Andi said and led them back to the archives at the back of the small newspaper office.

  Since the paper had gone out the day before, the office was nearly deserted except for a young woman doing billing.

  The headline on the newspaper article Andi had found jumped out at Kate, making her heart begin to pound.

  Nurse Found Murdered in Hospital.

  Her gaze flew to the date. Dec. 19, 1980. Thirty years ago. She gripped the back of the chair in front of the microfiche. Then her gaze focused on the victim’s name: Candace Porter.

  She frowned. The name meant nothing to
her.

  As Andi moved the microfiche so they could see the rest of the story, a photograph of a dark-haired woman came up.

  Kate almost didn’t recognize her aunt. Katherine looked so different from the photographs she’d seen of her when she’d had blond hair. But there was no doubt. Candace Porter and Katherine Landon were the same woman.

  The same murdered woman—straight from Cyrus Winchester’s dream, only thirty years ago, just as she’d feared.

  Suddenly her legs seemed to give out. She felt Cyrus’s large, warm hands grab her and ease her down into a spare chair behind Andi. He’d seen the photograph of the murdered nurse. He’d recognized her aunt.

  “It doesn’t say how the woman was killed,” Andi was saying, unaware of the drama going on behind her. “In fact there is little information. There’s a follow-up story, but apparently the woman wasn’t from around here. There’s no apparent next of kin. No wonder I’d never heard of this.”

  Her aunt had been murdered at the hospital one night—just like in Cyrus’s dream. But she hadn’t been going by her real name. Was it possible her grandmother hadn’t known the truth of what had happened to Katherine and that was why she’d made up the story about the weak heart?

  “What about the killer?” Cyrus asked Andi.

  “Apparently never caught,” Andi said. “The only other story I found about the murder was a follow-up twenty years ago on the tenth anniversary of the woman’s death. The murderer was still at large.”

  “Can you make me a copy of the stories?” Cyrus asked.

  “Sure,” Andi said. “So is this exactly like your dream?” Cyrus didn’t answer and Andi looked back at Kate. “Are you all right?”

  Kate could only nod. She knew eventually she would tell Andi everything, but not now. Not when she was too upset to discuss it.

  “Kate’s still a little dazed from being hit by the cable,” Cyrus said.

  Kate could tell that Andi was bursting at the seams to ask more questions.

  “I should get you home,” Cyrus said to Kate. “She took a pretty good hit on the head,” he told Andi.

  Andi nodded. “I can’t believe that cable would break. Maybe we should use something else.”

  “Don’t worry,” Cyrus said. “I’ll fix it so there is no chance it will fall on anyone again.”

  “So do you think this is the murder you thought you saw?” Andi asked Cyrus again as she walked them to the door.

  He shrugged. “I think it’s a coincidence, but kind of interesting,” he said, playing it down.

  “That would be wild if you dreamed a murder that took place thirty years ago,” Andi said. “If that turns out to be the case—”

  “You’ll be the first to get the story,” Cyrus said as he folded the copies of the articles and put them in his jacket pocket.

  Kate felt Andi’s gaze on her. “Maybe you should swing by the hospital and have a doctor check you out.”

  It wasn’t until she and Cyrus were outside in the brisk fall air that she felt she could breathe. “I don’t understand.”

  “Me neither, but then I’ve been confused about this since the beginning. Let’s talk about it back at the shop.”

  She shivered as she saw him glance around as if he thought someone might be watching them. He put his arm around her and they started back toward Second Hand Kate’s.

  The main drag had been decorated with cornstalks and pumpkins and, while there were Halloween decorations in most of the windows, Christmas music played from a few of the stores they passed.

  Kate found herself watching the people who drove past them in a way she’d never noticed anyone before. She tried not to think about what this all meant. Her head ached but she still noticed that Cyrus seemed even more worried about her than he had earlier.

  Her aunt had been murdered.

  Why had that come as a shock to either of them? Cyrus had seen her aunt dead in the hospital nursery. And all her life Kate had felt there was more to the story. Still, seeing it in print…

  “Is there any reason the front door of your shop would be open?” Cyrus asked, jerking her from her thoughts.

  Kate turned to look. The door was ajar. “My friend Jasmine might—”

  “Stay here,” Cyrus ordered as he pulled a gun from a shoulder holster under his jacket and ran toward her open shop door. Had he been wearing the gun since he’d come to town? Or had he only put it on after the cable incident? He’d gone to his pickup while she’d changed clothes…

  Kate had never been good at doing what she was told. She was right behind him when he eased the front door all the way open, and she saw the broken glass sparkling on the rich patina of the old wooden floor—and Jasmine.

  CYRUS RACED toward the dark-haired young woman standing in the middle of the room with a fireplace poker gripped in both hands. The woman lowered the poker the moment she saw Kate behind him and burst into tears.

  “I scared him away,” the woman said through her sobs.

  “Oh, Jasmine,” Kate said, pushing past him to hug her friend.

  “Him?” Cyrus asked after Jasmine calmed down a little. He’d surveyed the damage and found that the only thing that looked as if it had been broken into was the glass case that held Kate’s mementos.

  The silver bracelet was still where it had been. Apparently Jasmine had scared the robber away before he could get what he’d come for. Assuming, of course, he’d been after the bracelet.

  It made little sense to steal the bracelet. There wouldn’t be any evidence on it after thirty years. That was also assuming there was something to his dream and Candace Porter, aka Katherine Landon, had actually been wearing the bracelet when she died.

  So far, the only details he could verify from his “dream” were that the woman he’d seen actually had died in the old hospital nursery—but it just happened to be thirty years ago on December 19, 1980.

  That and, as Kate had pointed out, asking about the old murder had someone in town apparently stirred up enough to attack her—and break into her shop.

  “You said ‘him.’ You’re sure it was definitely a man you saw?” Cyrus asked Jasmine again.

  By now they were all sitting around Kate’s red-checked 1950s table upstairs, Jasmine cupping a mug of hot chocolate. While red-eyed, she seemed to have pulled herself together.

  Kate had insisted they come upstairs while they waited for the sheriff to arrive so she could make hot chocolate as she said her grandmother always did when she was sad or upset.

  She handed Cyrus a cup and took a seat across from him at the table she said she’d found at a farm auction north of town. There was something so cozy and serene about the upstairs apartment—in vivid contrast to the tension in the room.

  He watched Kate close her eyes and take a sip of the hot chocolate, a large melting marshmallow floating on top. It reminded him of last night at the frybread stand.

  She’d made the top floor into a three-bedroom apartment. There was plenty of room in the high-ceilinged space and it was clear she’d let herself go, decorating it with some of her favorite finds.

  He had removed his Stetson and held the large mug of hot chocolate with both hands now. Like Jasmine, he felt he needed the warmth.

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Kate suggested to Jasmine as she shot Cyrus a look to be patient.

  Jasmine took a shuddering breath and let it out slowly. “I let myself in with the key you gave me. I didn’t turn on a light because I didn’t want anyone to think the shop was open. As I headed for the basement…” She took a sip of the hot chocolate. “This is really good,” she said to Kate, who beamed and said, “Thank you.”

  “So you came in and headed for the basement,” Cyrus nudged gently. “In the dark?”

  Jasmine blinked. “It wasn’t dark. I remember now. There was a light on upstairs.”

  He glanced over at Kate. She shook her head that she hadn’t left a light on.

  “Then what happened?”

  “I
glanced upstairs, but didn’t hear anything, so I assumed you had just left a light on for when you came home. Then I opened the basement door and started to go down the steps.” She paused to put down her mug. “I was about halfway down when I heard someone upstairs. I thought it was you.” She smiled over at Kate. “So I went back downstairs feeling weird, you know. That’s when I heard the sound of breaking glass.”

  “The intruder must not have heard you come in,” Kate said and reached across the table to cover her friend’s hand with her own. “I’m so sorry you had to go through this.”

  “So then what did you do?” Cyrus asked.

  “I called to Kate from the basement stairs where I had stopped again, asking if she was all right. I just assumed she’d come home and dropped something.” Jasmine shrugged apologetically. “When she didn’t answer and it got real quiet, I had a bad feeling. I came upstairs. I was just passing the room with the wonderful old fireplace…did Kate tell you that I helped her strip off all the old paint on the mantel?”

  “We hadn’t gotten to that yet,” Cyrus said, feeling Kate’s imploring gaze on him, asking him again to be patient with her friend. “That’s where you found the poker, right?”

  Jasmine nodded. “I grabbed it and came out to the main room to find the front door open and glass all over the floor.”

  “You scared him away before he could do any more damage, apparently,” Cyrus said. “You said him, but you never saw the person?”

  Jasmine shook her head. “I just assumed it was a man. A woman would not break the glass on that beautiful case.”

  Cyrus smiled to himself, thinking of the investigations he’d been involved in where a woman had done much more than break a little glass.

  Kate got up to get her friend more hot chocolate.

  “I’d like you to look around and make sure nothing else was taken before the sheriff gets here,” Cyrus said to Kate.

  He could tell she was shaken by the break-in and her friend’s near run-in with a burglar. But he suspected it was nothing after what they’d seen at the newspaper—the picture of a murder victim who Kate had been told had died from a weak heart.