Letter to a Lonesome Cowboy

by Jackie Merritt

  Ten

  “Rand…please don’t,” Suzanne whispered, wary of someone overhearing this embarrassing discussion.

  “You don’t believe I’m serious, do you?” Rand laid his hand over hers where it rested on the counter next to her plate.

  “I don’t see how you could be.” She tried to slide her hand from under his, but he curled his fingers around it and held on. “Rand!”

  “Simmer down and talk to me for a minute. Do you have any reason to go back to Baltimore? Something I don’t know about?”

  “It’s my home. Do I need a better reason?”

  “But you live in an apartment. What kind of home is that?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my apartment. And, if you’d care to think about it, it’s full of furniture that belongs to me. I also have a car.”

  “Your car and furniture could be shipped to Montana.” He probed the depths of her eyes. “Is there anything else?”

  She dropped her gaze. “You know there isn’t. But…”

  “Let me finish. You have nothing to go back to, and neither does Mack. The three of us could have a good life together. I have plans. I inherited a little money from my parents, and I’ve been saving most of my pay for a long time. I’m going to have my own ranch someday, probably in another few years. There’s cheap land for sale out there, but I want a good place, with grass and water and a decent house. Nothing I could afford will be perfect, I know that. But if I start out with the basics, I can make it perfect. I’d like you to make it perfect with me. You’re smart and capable, Suz, and if you’d be willing to handle the paperwork and take care of the house and meals, me and Mack could do the rest. I believe the three of us would make a damned good team.”

  “A damned good team,” she repeated slowly. “Yes, I can see why you might feel that way. But from where I’m sitting, it sounds like you’re offering a business arrangement rather than marriage.”

  Rand thought a moment. “Guess I’m offering both.” He squeezed her hand. “What do you say, Suz? I think it would work. What do you think?”

  Financially speaking, it was the best offer she’d ever received. So why didn’t she immediately grab it? Why did she feel slightly sick to her stomach instead of elated? Rand was a good man, handsome, clean, hardworking, and she couldn’t deny the physical attraction between them.

  But there was denial in her system, strong and potent. Total rejection of his plans. Revulsion that he would think she would be receptive to such a callous marriage proposal.

  “I…” She was about to tell him no deal, as tactfully as she could, of course, when the men began filing in with their dirty dishes.

  Rand let go of her hand and straightened his back. “We’ll talk again later,” he said in a conspiratorial undertone.

  She managed a weak, thin smile as she got off her stool and rounded the counter to begin cleaning up. It was all she could give Rand in her present state of confusion.

  Suzanne had no intention of taking up that conversation where it had left off, and the minute the kitchen was in order, she hurried down the hall to her bedroom. She realized that she’d been no more emotionally shaken during her divorce than she was now, and she considered divorce to be one of the best examples of human-caused misery in today’s rash and reckless world.

  But a marriage proposal without so much as a hint of feelings topped the emotionless legal proceedings for a divorce, she felt now. With her stomach churning she showered and got ready for bed, all the while wondering and worrying how she was going to elude another discussion of marriage with Rand. Avoiding him completely was out of the question, especially if he deliberately sought her out, which she knew in her soul he was going to do. Worse, she suspected he would not take a simple no for an answer, and would keep on trying to make her see his long-term plan for their future as sensible.

  The trouble was that it was sensible. If she was looking for a man to feed, house and clothe her and Mack, then Rand was a ready-made patsy. But what about love? What about caring for a man so much you put his well-being before your own? Didn’t Rand ever want to feel that way about a woman?

  Her own thoughts sickened her. What was so great about love? Why was she so stubbornly opposed to a loveless marriage when the supposed love of her life had turned out to be a grade-A jerk?

  She wiped a circle of steam off the mirror above the sink and took stock of herself. Looking into her own dark eyes she questioned her ambiguity. She, herself, had thought that Rand was the answer to her problems only yesterday, then, after they had made love, her attitude had taken a major change. She was still going back and forth on it. Why in God’s name couldn’t she settle on one opinion and stick with it?

  With a disgusted shake of her head and a soulful sigh, she dug out her hair dryer and plugged it in. Ten minutes later, with her hair dry and wearing her pajamas and robe, she walked from the bathroom into the bedroom.

  Her mouth dropped open. Rand was sitting in the room’s one chair, his right ankle resting on his left knee. He looked as settled in and as comfortable as anyone she’d ever seen, as though he had every right to enter her room without permission!

  “Hi,” he said, untangling his legs and getting to his feet. “I was in the office when you rushed by. Looks like you’re ready to go to bed. I was hoping we could do a little more talking.”

  She was so upset that she couldn’t speak any way but stiffly. “This is the second time you’ve walked into this room without knocking. Should I expect that to be the norm?”

  “I knocked, you just didn’t hear me.”

  “I happened to have been in the shower,” she said sharply.

  “I figured that out for myself. You’re mad at me.” He took a step toward her. “Don’t be mad, Suz. If I’d been up to no good, I would have joined you in the shower.” He grinned slightly and looked adorably boyish, which Suzanne tried hard to ignore. His voice softened. “Maybe you wouldn’t have minded.”

  “I most certainly would have,” she retorted, although she wasn’t sure it was true. It wasn’t at all comforting to realize that with Rand she didn’t know what was truth or utter nonsense! Certainly it was true that he affected her physically, and it was true that she liked him as a person. But it was also true that she didn’t seem to know right from wrong anymore, although in her response to Rand she wondered if there was any difference.

  Rand chuckled over her quick comeback. “I wonder if you’re just saying that to get a rise out of me. After what happened between us…”

  She flushed. “I told you sleeping together gave neither of us a hold over the other.”

  “I remember, but the thing is, Suz, we didn’t do any sleeping.”

  She had to change the subject. This was getting out of hand. “Speaking of sleeping,” she said, “why did you sleep at the foot of the stairs last night instead of in your room?”

  Her question took Rand so by surprise he couldn’t immediately come up with a deceptive but reasonable answer. “Uh…you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me,” she taunted.

  Rand shook his head. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m dull-witted, Rand. Don’t you think I’ve wondered about men guarding the place at night, about your searching every nook and cranny of this building for some mysterious object and then your sleeping on the floor? All those things are connected, aren’t they? There’s something going on you won’t talk about. Don’t bother to lie about it, I know there is. It probably has something to do with the murders of the Kincaid family.”

  At Rand’s surprised expression, she added, “Yes, I heard about that grisly affair, about ten minutes after I landed in Billings.”

  “It’s no secret,” Rand said calmly.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Is what’s going on now connected to the Kincaid murders?”

  “No.” He’d spoken firmly, positively, but Suzanne’s question had opened a brand-new school of th
ought. Was the sabotage somehow related to the Kincaid murders? How could it be? Why would it be? Most of the players in that awful chapter of Whitehorn history were dead.

  Except for baby Jennifer.

  Well, a small child certainly wasn’t responsible for the reprehensible acts on this ranch. The whole idea was preposterous.

  And he was on to Suzanne’s evasive tactics, too. “You’re bringing up anything you can think of to avoid talking about marrying me, aren’t you? Why, Suz? Don’t you like the idea?”

  Suzanne’s bluster vanished like a puff of smoke. Her mind raced for some way around a direct answer.

  She even attempted a small laugh. “Rand, I don’t even know if I like Montana. What have I seen of it? I drove from Billings, most of the way in the dark. I got out of the car and skidded myself through the snow to the door of this building, and I haven’t left it since. I haven’t even seen the ranch, although I can vouch for it having a remarkable kitchen and a so-so office.”

  “But you will see the ranch,” Rand said eagerly. “When the sun comes out and the snow starts melting, you won’t believe how beautiful it is. Wildflowers and new grass will start popping up through the snow. The sky will be so blue you’ll need dark glasses to look at it.”

  He suddenly stopped talking to listen. “Do you hear that?”

  “I hear something. What is it?”

  Rand was thinking the worst. “Stay here,” he told her. “I’ll go find out what it is.”

  Suzanne thought he would dash from the room, but instead he gingerly opened the door a crack to peer down the hall. Then he sidled through the crack and hugged the wall as he made his way to the front door.

  “Good grief,” Suzanne mumbled over such histrionics. Whatever was happening on this ranch, it had Rand Harding, whom she was positive was afraid of nothing, acting like a private eye in a grade-B movie.

  She watched from her door. Apparently when Rand reached the outside door he could better tell what the sounds were because he pulled it open without any more drama.

  In rushed a scraggly dog, whimpering and wriggling his scruffy body all over the place. Rand knelt down, and the mutt licked his face.

  “And who might you be?” Rand asked, scratching the dog’s ears. There were clumps of frozen snow matted in the animal’s dingy white coat, and he looked half-starved. Suddenly the dog took off up the stairs so fast that Rand ended up on his seat on the floor. “What in hell? Where’re you going?” he yelled at the speeding dog.

  Getting up, Rand took the stairs three at a time to chase down the stray before he woke up every man on the second floor.

  But the dog woke only one man—J. D. Cade. Evidently J.D. hadn’t latched his door securely before retiring, because the dog nudged it open, ran into the room and jumped right onto J.D.’s bed, landing squarely on the man’s chest. J.D. came awake snorting and cussing.

  Rand arrived. “J.D., I’m sorry as hell. This here mutt…” He stopped, noticing how J.D. was petting and hugging the mangy animal.

  “Freeway, how in hell did you find me?” J.D. looked at Rand. “He’s mine, Rand. For a while he was, anyhow. Then, just before I got here, I lost him at a truck stop. Don’t know how it happened. I looked everywhere for him, and the only thing I could think of was that he’d gotten in a truck with some friendly guy.”

  Rand grinned. “Did I hear you call him Freeway?”

  “That’s what I named him, ‘cause I found him wandering a highway. What I can’t figure out is how he found me now. That truck stop is a hundred miles from here.”

  “I’ve heard of things like this, J.D., where a dog or cat will track its master for hundreds of miles. That’s what Freeway must have done. The storm probably slowed him down or he would have been here long before this. Well, there’s plenty of dog food in the barn with Daisy and her pups,” Rand said. “Help yourself.”

  “Thanks, I will. Is it okay if he sleeps in here, though?”

  “If his smell doesn’t bother you, it won’t bother me,” Rand said with a laugh. “Night, J.D.”

  “Good night, Rand, and thanks.”

  When Rand left, J.D. was up and getting dressed. Rand went back downstairs and knocked softly on Suzanne’s door. It was hard for him not to go back in her room, but he quickly explained about the dog, then wished her a good-night. She stared at him with a puzzled expression for a moment, then said good-night and shut her door. Feeling all mixed up, sweetheart? Rand thought. Well, join the club.

  Maybe Freeway’s arrival hadn’t been timed the best, but he hadn’t really been getting anywhere with his marriage discussion, anyway, Rand told himself as he detoured to the kitchen for a glass of milk before going to bed.

  After pouring it, he sat on a stool at the counter and let his thoughts ramble. There were two men on guard duty tonight, so he’d be able to sleep in his own bed. He’d sent them to the bunkhouse early this afternoon to get some rest because of their having to stay awake all night. Too damned many people were losing sleep because of one rotten apple, he thought with an onslaught of bitter feelings.

  At least he’d been believing he was dealing with only one man. He took a swallow of milk, thinking there could be more than one. His mind began working on that angle. Were there any two men in the crew who were really close?

  He couldn’t think of any. Oh, some were friendlier than others, that was only natural. But none struck him as a team.

  Then there was that startling question of Suzanne’s to ponder: is what’s going on now connected to the Kincaid murders? His eyes narrowed. Was it possible?

  It didn’t make any sense to him, and after a few minutes of puzzling over it he moved from that topic to Suzanne. At once his body felt warmer, more alive. Thinking of their intimate interlude in her bedroom today caused a predictable reaction, and he squirmed on the stool to strategically loosen his jeans.

  She liked him, he knew she did, so why wouldn’t she talk about marriage? Hell, he’d offered her everything he had, what more could he do? And she had to know how much better off Mack would be with a stable home. She was going to have trouble in getting the boy to leave Montana, no doubt about it, and she knew it, too, or she wouldn’t have asked for his advice today. So why didn’t she just add up the pluses, accept his marriage proposal and let it go at that?

  Rand finished off his milk, sat there pondering all that was happening for a few minutes longer, then sighed and got off the stool. He was beat. It was time for bed.

  He headed for his room.

  Suzanne was up before daybreak the next morning, but as the men left for work after breakfast she noticed the breaking of dawn on the eastern horizon and realized the sky was clear. Her spirits took a decided jump upward. Today she was going to see the sun! The storm was over, and already dripping icicles were forming on the eaves as the snow on the roof began melting.

  She stood at one of the windows in the dining room and watched the sun rise, and as it got lighter and brighter outside, she got her first completely unobstructed look at the ranch compound. Sun-speckled snow covered everything, giving the scene a fairy-tale quality. Only a small portion of the lower half of the trunk of her blue rental car was bare, and if she didn’t know she was looking at a car, she wouldn’t have any idea what lay under that smoothly rounded mound of snow.

  Next to it was another large mound, but she could tell it was a vehicle. Craning her neck she looked for other vehicles, those “great” trucks Mack had told her the men drove.

  “Must be another parking place somewhere,” she murmured.

  Perhaps what she found most intriguing on this beautiful morning was the Kincaid mansion. Questions about it arose in her mind as she studied it. Had the Kincaids been murdered in that lovely, lonely-looking house? How many Kincaids had there been? Who was the woman who had supposedly done the murders, and how had she died?

  The ringing of telephones startled her, and she dashed to answer the kitchen extension. Thrilled that the phones were working again, she breathle
ssly said, “Kincaid Ranch. Good morning.”

  “Good morning, ma’am. This is Sterling McCallum. May I ask who you are?”

  “Certainly, Mr. McCallum. I’m Suzanne Paxton. I am so glad the phones are working again. It must have just happened, because I tried them only a short time ago.”

  “Yes, things are finally getting back to normal, Ms. Paxton. You should see snowplows out that way some time today. Are you from around here?”

  Obviously Mr. McCallum, whoever he was, hadn’t expected a woman to answer his call, Suzanne thought with a small smile.

  “I live in Baltimore, Mr. McCallum.”

  “Got caught in the storm, I expect.”

  Suzanne didn’t think an explanation of why she’d gotten trapped on the Kincaid Ranch was necessary, so her answer was brief. “That I did.”

  “I would imagine you’re relieved to see the end of that blizzard.”

  “Very relieved.”

  “By any chance is Rand Harding around?”

  “No, sir, he’s not. I’ll tell him you called the minute he comes in, if you wish.”

  “Please do that. He has my number. Oh, if for some reason he doesn’t come in until late, tell him to call me at home. He also has that number.”

  “I’m writing your message down as we speak, Mr. McCallum.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Goodbye.”

  Suzanne had no more than put the phone down when it rang again. She answered as she had before. “Kincaid Ranch.”

  A high-pitched female voice stammered, “Uh, hello. I didn’t know there was a woman on the ranch.”

  “I got caught in the storm,” Suzanne said, deciding to stick with that simple explanation of her presence.

  “Oh, too bad. Well, I’m Janie Carson. One of the men working out there is my brother. Do you know Dale?”

  “I know him, yes.”

  “Is he all right? I’ve been terribly worried. The storm was so awful, and the phone lines were down, and I’ve been going a little crazy wondering if Dale is all right.”