A Cowboy's Temptation

by Barbara Dunlop

  Then again, what self-respecting assassin brought a shotgun and an air horn to a hit? Nothing about the situation made sense.

  It was too dark for hunting, and way too noisy for vandalism. Then a lightbulb clicked on in Darby’s head.

  It was sound vandalism. The air horn was supposed to mimic a train.

  The shotgun went silent, and the air horn seemed to peter out. Darby strained to hear. She could barely make out voices.

  She moved onto the porch, sidling along the wall, staying in the shadows.

  “Is it jammed?” one male voice asked, and she realized they were hidden behind her shed.

  “Probably out of air,” came another.

  Darby realized they sounded young, maybe midteens.

  She heard the faint sound of sirens in the distance.

  One of the boys swore.

  “Run for it!” called the other.

  Darby took a chance. “Hold it right there,” she called in a no-nonsense, captain voice.

  Silence.

  “I’ve got you covered,” she lied. “Put down the gun and come out.”

  There were mutters of uncertainty from behind the shed.

  “Do it now!” she demanded.

  “Don’t shoot,” came the response.

  “We’re coming out.”

  Two teenage boys rounded the sidewall of the shed, arms dramatically in the air, eyes as big as saucers.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Darby demanded, staying back far enough that they couldn’t tell if she was holding a firearm.

  “It was just a joke,” one of them responded in a shaky, somewhat slurred voice, making it obvious they’d been drinking.

  “You could have killed someone,” said Darby.

  “We weren’t even pointin’ at you,” the kid protested, tone turning surly.

  “You don’t know what you were pointing at,” she told them. “It’s dark. You can’t even see who’s out here.”

  “You should have stayed in the house.”

  “You should have stayed home in bed,” she returned.

  The sirens grew louder, and flashing lights appeared on the horizon.

  “Why’d you call the cops?” one of the boys demanded.

  “Let me see…. Because you were shooting at us.”

  “Not at you.”

  “We were just making a little noise. Making a point.”

  “That point have something to do with the railroad?” Darby asked with disgust.

  Their mulish expressions answered her question.

  The headlights of two squad cars and a third vehicle bounced their way up the driveway, pulling up to the inn. The boys stayed frozen in place.

  “We’re so screwed,” one of them muttered.

  “Told ya we should have run for it.”

  The officers exited their cars and swiftly cuffed the boys. To Darby’s surprise, the third car contained Seth. He strode past the teenagers, staring hard at them as he made his way straight to her.

  “You all right?” Seth asked.

  “Fine. They were just making noise.”

  “I recognized them. They’re in very deep trouble.”

  He was dressed in a worn, gray T-shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans over scuffed cowboy boots. His hair was slightly messy, and he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “When they heard it was your place, they called.”

  Darby went on alert. “Why?”

  “Because of the railway vandalism. Why would you think?”

  “No reason.”

  “So tell me what happened.”

  “We woke up to air horn and shotgun blasts.”

  Seth glanced to where the two handcuffed teenagers were being led away by the uniformed police. Their shoulders and heads were bent. It was obvious they were having second thoughts about the stunt they’d pulled.

  “At first I thought they were shooting at Sierra Hotel, though I was pretty sure none of the shots were hitting the building. So I went outside to investigate.”

  “You went outside?” Seth interrupted.

  “Yes.”

  “To investigate gunfire?” he asked incredulously.

  “And an air horn. We figured anyone trying to sneak up and kill us would have skipped the air horn and come a little closer to the building before deploying the twelve gauge.”

  “You got them to surrender?”

  “They were hiding behind the shed. I ordered them to come out, and they did.”

  “What if they’d shot you?”

  “They didn’t. They told me it was a joke, that they weren’t shooting at the inn. They were just trying to make a little noise.” She gave Seth a pointed stare. “Train-type noise.”

  “Are you kidding me?” he asked.

  “Do I look like I’m kidding you?”

  “This is off the charts.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  With the teenagers in the backseat, one of the officers approached. “Can you come down to the station tomorrow morning?” he asked Darby.

  “Sure,” she agreed, wanting nothing more than to crawl back into bed at the moment.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” He tipped his hat. “Mayor.”

  “Thanks, Peterson,” Seth returned.

  The officer made a hand signal, and they started the squad cars, pulling back down the driveway.

  “I’m staying,” Seth said.

  Darby turned to gape at him. “What?”

  “There’s no way I’m leaving you up here all by yourself.”

  “I have ten guests.”

  “So what?”

  “So I’m not alone.”

  “Are your guests going to help you when the next guy shows up with a rifle?”

  “Nobody’s showing up with a rifle.” Though Darby wished she could tell Seth one of her guests was a SWAT-team member. Maybe that would put his mind at ease.

  The front door opened, and the guests spilled out. “Darby?”

  “Be right there,” she called to them. “Everything’s fine.”

  “I’m going to stay,” Seth repeated.

  She put a hand on his arm. “And tell people what?”

  “I don’t have to tell them anything.”

  “You’ll have to explain to your supporters why you spent the night with your archenemy.”

  “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  “Oh, that’ll fix it. Because crazy rumor and speculation never happens in this town.”

  “We have witnesses.”

  “Darby?” one of the guests asked again.

  She turned her head. “Shelley, can you put the kettle on?”

  “Sure.” The women retreated back into the inn.

  “I’ll stay for tea,” said Seth.

  “We’re having hot chocolate.”

  “Even better.”

  “Go home, Seth. Remember what happened with Joe? We absolutely need your supporters to know you’re with them. If they think you’ve betrayed them by fraternizing with me, who knows what’ll happen next.”

  He hesitated, then raked his hand through his short hair. “I don’t like this.”

  “I don’t, either,” she agreed.

  “You call me if anything else happens.”

  “I’ll call 911.”

  “Me. You call me.” He sucked in a breath, his hand covering hers where it rested on his arm. “Okay, you can call 911, too.”

  “It’s not your responsibility. It’s not your fault.”

  He looked deeply into her eyes. “It feels like my fault.” He paused.
“Darby—”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Don’t say anything else.”

  Seven

  Despite the interruption, Darby’s guests enjoyed the next three days of their stay at Sierra Hotel. And overtop of Marta’s objections, Darby put some focus on toning down the railway rhetoric. They revised the website and sent a letter to the editor in favor of civil debate and discourse, talking about the fairness of the referendum process and encouraging people to vote.

  Though everyone in Lyndon knew about the shotgun and air horn incident, and many of the anti-railway faction were incensed by it, Darby hoped she’d done her part to tone things down. At the end of the week, the guests departed.

  With the rooms all cleaned, and no new guests due for several days, Darby gave her four staff members some time off. No sooner had they all left, and she’d curled up in the great room with a promising biography, than a vehicle pulled up in the driveway.

  Disappointed, she rolled to her feet, making her way to the door, hoping it wasn’t a tourist looking for a room to rent. She hated to turn people away, but she wasn’t in the business of general tourism.

  Out on the porch, she was surprised to see Abigail Rainer and her two sisters, Mandy and Katrina, getting out of the car.

  “You said to come by and see the place,” Abigail called with a wave as they crossed the gravel turnaround. “Is this a bad time?”

  “Not at all,” Darby replied, hurrying down to meet them, quickly deciding her reading could wait. This would be a golden opportunity to present her case to Seth’s three sisters.

  “This is gorgeous,” said Katrina, craning her elegant neck to take in the front of the building. She wore detailed jeans and a white silk blouse. “How long has the bigger building been here?”

  “I’ve been working on it for a couple of years now.”

  When Darby inherited the property from her great-aunt, the roomy house had needed repairs. In order to turn it into Sierra Hotel, Darby had constructed an addition. The building was now six or seven times the original size.

  Mandy joined them beside the SUV. She was dressed far more casually than her younger sister, in blue jeans and a blue flannel shirt, her chestnut hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  “It reminds me of how long it’s been since I was up here,” she said. “I got along well with your aunt.”

  “That’s good to know,” Darby acknowledged. “I only met her a couple of times, and I was pretty young.”

  “Seriously?” Mandy asked.

  “My mom wasn’t close to her family.”

  “So this must have come as quite a surprise,” said Katrina.

  “A good surprise,” said Darby.

  Abigail arched her back against the weight of her protruding belly. “I absolutely love the deck.”

  “There’s a bigger one out back,” said Darby. “It has a fantastic view of the lake.”

  She motioned to the front porch. “If you’d like to see it, we can cut through the inn.”

  While Mandy and Katrina chatted and walked ahead of them, Abigail fell into step beside Darby. “Seth seems worried about you,” she opened.

  The statement took Darby by surprise. She hadn’t expected Seth to mention her to his family—other than to complain.

  “Worried how?” she asked Abigail.

  “He doesn’t like the mood of the city. He’s uncomfortable about your guests leaving, and you being alone up here.”

  Darby paused. “He knows my guests left?”

  Was Seth keeping some kind of tabs on her?

  “He’s the mayor,” said Abigail. “They would have flown out through the airport, right?”

  “And by what legal mechanism does he access airline manifests? Or my guest register, for that matter? What did he do, compare the two?”

  The night of the shootings, Darby had found Seth’s concern endearing. But now it sounded slightly underhanded.

  “I think it’s more likely the airport manager called him when your van pulled up with ten women boarding flights.”

  “So he has spies, then?”

  Abigail was smiling. “It’s a small town.”

  Darby reminded herself that she was supposed to be cozying up to Abigail, not challenging her. No matter what had happened, her quarrel was with Seth, not his sister.

  She quickly backed off. “I’m sorry. I have no reason to be angry.”

  “No need to be sorry. But honestly, I think the fact that he’s worried about you being up here all alone is more interesting than how he got the information.”

  “Well, he can keep his worry to himself. I’m perfectly fine.”

  “Okay to go in?” Mandy called from the porch.

  “Yes, please. Go ahead.” Darby started walking again.

  “That was a bit of a knee jerk,” Abigail observed, her tone mild.

  Darby mounted the staircase. “Letting them go inside?”

  “Assuming Seth was up to no good.”

  Darby had good reason for the reaction. “Believe me, I’ve learned a little bit about him over the past few weeks.”

  “I lived with him for a couple of decades.”

  Once again, Darby regretted her words to Abigail. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Are you attracted to my brother?”

  Darby bought herself a minute to think by moving single file through the doorway. Mandy and Katrina were already inside, oohing and aahing over the stone fireplace.

  “If I said no,” Darby ventured quietly, “I’d be protesting too much. Because your brother is an exceedingly attractive man. If I said yes, you’re going to take it the wrong way. Because it’s not what you’d think.”

  “What do I think?” Abigail asked with a knowing smile.

  “That I have some kind of an emotional reaction to Seth beyond sex.”

  “Sex?”

  “I mean sex appeal, of course.”

  “You said sex.”

  “He’s a sexy guy,” Darby allowed, deciding to give Abigail a little bit of what she was looking for. “I’ve fantasized about him.”

  Abigail’s eyes glowed with mischievous satisfaction. “And I’ll bet he’s fantasized about you.”

  Darby knew that he had. He’d flat out told her so.

  “I’m not the thought police,” she told Abigail airily. “He can fantasize however he likes.”

  “How many bedrooms?” Katrina called, gazing up the wide, polished-pine staircase.

  “Ten guest rooms upstairs,” said Darby, happy for an excuse to get out of the conversation with Abigail. “They each have their own bathroom.”

  “I hear this is just for women,” Mandy put in.

  “Just for women,” Darby confirmed. “It’s a nice retreat from the pressures of life, where women can kick back on their own and take it easy for a few days.”

  Katrina motioned to the stairway, a question mark in her expression.

  Darby nodded. “Go ahead. They’ve just been cleaned.”

  “We should come for a stay up here,” Mandy put in, following Katrina. “Us and Lisa. She’s our cousin,” Mandy added, obviously for Darby’s benefit.

  “Sure,” Darby agreed. Then she stepped straight into the issue. “Assuming I’m able to stay open.”

  “Would you really shut it down?” asked Abigail, as her two sisters trotted up the stairs.

  “I’d have no choice. I can’t afford to start over somewhere else. And what I’m trying to do won’t work here with the kind of disruption the trains will bring.”

  “It’s only a few trains a day.”

  “To start. But it’s definitely going to increase over time. And that doesn’t count the two years of construction, when there’ll be almost constant noise and activity. I can’t make it
two years with no customers.”

  “Seth knows this?”

  Darby gave a helpless laugh. “If he doesn’t, he’s even better at denial than I thought.”

  “You just did it again,” said Abigail.

  “Did what?” Darby was confused.

  “There’s a lilt in your voice when you talk about him.”

  “Must be a result of that midnight fantasy.” Darby answered quickly, starting for the stairs to cover her astonishment at Abigail’s powers of observation. “Come on up. Most of the rooms have balconies, and the views are amazing.”

  Abigail followed behind. “He does it, too.”

  “I put oversize, jetted tubs in each of the en suites,” Darby rattled on. “And each of the rooms comes with a wine rack.”

  “When he talks about you,” Abigail continued. “There’s something in his tone that—”

  “Are you here to check out Sierra Hotel or me?” Darby interrupted, pausing at the top of the stairs.

  Abigail hesitated, considering Darby’s expression. “You intrigue me.”

  “Well, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Congratulations. Seth has the hots for me, and I have the hots for him. We’ve both admitted it, but we’re miles apart on everything else.”

  “Seriously?” came Katrina’s voice.

  Darby turned to find both Mandy and Katrina gaping at her. Oh, perfect. She might as well have blasted it over the airwaves.

  “Wine, anyone?” she asked into the silence.

  “Absolutely,” said Mandy.

  “Fruit juice,” said Abigail with resignation.

  Darby quickly headed back downstairs, darting into the kitchen and concentrating on selecting a bottle of merlot from her own wine rack.

  What had she gone and done? How could she have been so careless?

  “Seth’s only ever dated casually,” Mandy stated as she entered the kitchen behind Darby.

  Darby peeled off the heavy foil and retrieved a corkscrew. “Seth and I are not dating.”

  “She might not want to talk about her sex life with his sisters,” Katrina admonished. “This is a fantastic kitchen.” She glanced around at the long counters, the new cabinets, a large stove and dual ovens. All were sparkling under the sunshine streaming through the big windows.