by Lisa Jackson
“B, blank, t, blank, blank, blank, a, l?”
“Right,” her father grunted.
Cassie thought for a minute, deliberately scooping up a spoonful of her father’s gooey concoction. But she paused midair as the word hit her. “What about betrayal?”
“Betrayal . . . it fits.” His lips flattened over his teeth as he scribbled the letters. The only sound was the scratching of his pencil and the barely perceptible chatter of the TV program in progress.
Prevaricator. Liar. Trick. Betrayal. The words rushed through her mind, though her father didn’t say anything.
Cassie turned her attention to the television set. She’d thought enough about lying and betrayal and loneliness for one night.
* * *
“You know, you’re the ugliest beast I’ve ever slept with,” Colton grumbled to Black Magic. He petted Magic’s velvet-soft muzzle only to have the horse toss back his head and snort indignantly. “Yeah, well, I don’t like it any more than you do.”
Colton hung his damp Stetson on a nail pounded into one of the rough-hewn posts supporting the hayloft. Sighing, he sat on the edge of the cot and pushed off one boot with the toe of the other.
He listened to the sounds of the wind whistling in the rafters and the rustle of hay as the horses settled in for the night. There were snorts, chewing noises and a quiet dry cough. Outside, the wind shoved a branch against the building, but Colton didn’t hear or see anything out of the ordinary.
Guarding the stallion might well be a waste of time, he thought, as he lay back on the sleeping bag, staring up at the floor of the loft and shifting so that his weight wasn’t on his bad shoulder. If that were the case and Magic was safe, there was no reason Colton couldn’t sleep in the house in a warm, clean bed instead of camping out here.
“You’re just getting soft,” he growled to himself, realizing that for the first time in eight years the old ranch house seemed a haven.
It was time to move on, get out of this place before he became complacent and self-satisfied. He considered his life beyond the ranch, remembering foxholes in Afghanistan, the hot, damp jungles of Central America, the blackened rubble of hideouts in war-ravaged Beirut. Why, he wondered, when he’d lived on the edge so long, had it begun to lose its appeal?
Chapter Seven
Beth Lassiter Simpson wasn’t one to take no for an answer. And she wasn’t taking Cassie’s “no” seriously. In Beth’s condition every meal was important, and a lunch that could combine friendship, gossip and food was an event. “Come on, you promised,” Beth insisted, shifting her ungainly weight from one foot to the other. Planted in the reception area of Three Falls Veterinary Clinic, she crossed her arms over her protruding abdomen and stuck her lower lip out in a childish pout.
Cassie couldn’t be tempted, at least not now. “I’m sorry, Beth, I’d love to, you know that. But I can’t. Not until Craig gets back from the Wilkerson ranch.”
“And when will that be?”
“Probably not more than an hour,” Cassie said, glancing at her watch and frowning.
“Good. Then I’ll wait,” Beth decided. “I have a few errands to run and I’ll meet you at The Log Cabin at one-thirty.” She must have seen the hesitation in Cassie’s eyes. “Come on, Cassie, you’ve got to eat anyway, and how often is it that I’m in town without Amy? Think about it. In a few more weeks I’ll have another baby and it will be ages before we can have lunch together!”
“All right, all right,” Cassie agreed, holding her hands up, palms out, in mock surrender while mentally crossing her fingers. “But if I don’t show, it’s because Craig got held up.” Cassie was worried. Craig had left early this morning, driving over to a ranch on the outskirts of town. The rancher suspected one of his horses had come down with equine influenza, which may have developed into pneumonia.
Beth’s eyes twinkled. “If you don’t show up, I’ll come looking for you!” With a giggle, she breezed out of the complex, leaving Cassie to deal with two cases of feline leukemia and a pet rat with a growth on its leg.
Two hours later Cassie was seated at a corner table in the main dining room of The Log Cabin, a house-turned-restaurant that specialized in hearty man-sized meals. Brass lamps hung from the ceiling, and blue-and-white checkered cloths covered the tables.
Beth shoved the remains of her spinach salad aside. “You’ll never guess who I saw today!” Her eyes shone with a private secret.
“I couldn’t begin to,” Cassie admitted.
“Ryan Ferguson! He’s back!”
Cassie glanced up sharply and ignored the uneaten half of her sandwich. “But I thought he swore he’d never set foot in Three Falls again.”
“Well, he lied. I saw him at the bakery this morning. Amy and I went in to buy some donuts and there he was, big as life, drinking coffee and talking to Jessica Monroe!” She motioned to the waitress, ordered a fattening, sinful dessert, then glanced back at Cassie. “The way I heard it, Denver McLean fired Ryan last winter. Caught him stealing supplies or something.”
Cassie remembered the rumors but didn’t put much stock in them. After all, she’d been on the unkind side of gossip more than once in her life. “I guess no one knows but Denver.”
“And Ryan,” Beth pointed out. “You know, I bet he’s only daring to show his face because Denver’s in L.A.!”
“Ryan has family here.”
“Just a sister,” Beth said. “And the way I understand it they don’t get along.”
“That could be just talk. Maybe he’s only visiting.”
Beth pursed her lips together and shook her head. “Nope. I talked to Jessica about him after he left the bakery. She said he was asking about work.”
“You think he’s back to stay?” Cassie was surprised. After Denver had accused him of stealing and fired him, Ryan hadn’t bothered defending himself and had simply left town.
“Who knows? According to Jessica, Ryan stopped over at her dad’s ranch earlier this week, looking for a job.” Beth’s eyes narrowed. “If you ask me, Ryan could’ve taken Black Magic—just to get under Denver’s skin. It would be like him, too—to wait until Denver was gone!”
“Then why would he stay?”
“Just to see Denver’s reaction.”
Cassie wasn’t convinced. “Seems farfetched to me.”
“Maybe,” Beth agreed. “Lots of people around here would like to get back at the McLeans. Nobody much liked John.” Her lips pursed. “He made more enemies than friends, and even though he’s gone, Denver and Colton haven’t won any popularity contests around town, either. Both of them turned their backs on Three Falls, then showed up again once John died and they inherited the place. It looks pretty mercenary to some of the ranchers who stuck it out through the bad years.”
“Some of the ranchers—meaning Josh?” she asked, mentioning Beth’s husband.
Beth shook her head. “No, Josh likes Colton and Denver, but his father Bill, and my dad never had any use for either of the McLean boys.”
“Neither does mine,” Cassie admitted, wondering just who disliked Denver and Colton enough to risk stealing their horse. This was more than a practical joke—taking a valuable stallion was a criminal offense, and Cassie didn’t doubt for a minute that, if given the chance, Colton would press charges.
Beth grinned as the curly-haired waitress deposited a huge wedge of chocolate mousse pie covered with a cloud of whipped cream in the center of the table. “This looks positively decadent,” Beth murmured, handing one of the long-handled spoons to Cassie. “Come on, help me out.”
Cassie sighed theatrically, but her eyes crinkled at the corners. “First Dad, now you,” she murmured, but plunged a spoon into the pie anyway. “I haven’t eaten so many calories in an entire month as I’ve consumed in the last two days.”
Beth’s lips curved upward. “You could use a few pounds.” She took another bite, then said, “I heard you had dinner with Colton last night.”
Cassie’s brows shot up. “How’d
you find out?”
“Josh’s brother was there with his wife. They saw you together at Timothy’s.”
“Colton dropped by after work and twisted my arm,” Cassie explained. “Kind of like you did today.”
“And so how was Colton? The same as ever? Restless and mysterious?”
“Conciliatory,” Cassie said, thinking. “A little on the mellow side.”
“That’s not the Colton McLean I remember.”
“Me, neither,” Cassie admitted. “But it was nice.”
“So you two ended the feud in one date?”
“It wasn’t a date.”
Beth polished off the last dollop of whipped cream. “If you say so.” She leaned back in her chair, linked her hands around her protruding abdomen and sighed happily. “Does he still think someone took his horse?”
“Oh, yes,” Cassie replied, nodding. “He’s convinced.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“I don’t honestly know. I’m just glad Black Magic is back where he belongs and Colton is off my dad’s back.”
* * *
Colton’s watch over Black Magic didn’t turn up anything suspicious. In fact, all he got for his efforts was a sore shoulder and a bad disposition from several nights of little sleep.
For years he’d existed on two or three hours’ sleep at a stretch, always wary, always concerned that he might wake up with a knife against his throat or the muzzle of a gun in his back. And yet, since he’d been back in Montana, the hours of physical labor on the ranch made demands on his body that five hours of sleep each night couldn’t replenish.
“It’ll get better,” he told himself, but secretly wondered if the reason he was tired all the time was that his nights were filled with wild dreams of Cassie—startling, vivid images that he couldn’t erase from his mind. He’d wake up burning for her, wishing there were some way to douse the fire searing through his mind and body.
Short of finding a woman, he had no cure. As he saw it, he had two options. Chase her down and start rebuilding a relationship or find someone else.
“Fat chance of that,” he told himself, knowing that as long as Cassie was nearby, no other woman would do. He jammed his pitchfork into a bale of hay, then made his way outside. It had been two days since he’d seen Cassie, and it seemed a lifetime.
Glancing around the sun-dappled fields, he felt a kinship with this land he hadn’t experienced in years. Swollen-bodied mares grazed, picking at grass. Red Wing and Ebony, Tessa’s favorites—the pride of her small herd—moved slowly with the rest of the mares. Colton hoped they wouldn’t foal until Tessa and Denver returned, as Tessa had been anticipating the birth of her prize stallion, Brigadier’s offspring, for months.
In another field, yearlings cavorted, kicking up their heels and playfully nipping one another’s necks.
No, this place wasn’t so bad if you could stand the lack of excitement, he decided as he strode to the Jeep. It was fine for Denver. His older brother had changed over the years. But Colton hadn’t, and if it weren’t for Cassie there wouldn’t be anything for him here.
The turn of his thoughts worried him. Admitting that Cassie was more than a passing attraction bothered him. But there it was. Colton believed in “calling ’em as he saw ’em,” and unfortunately he was forced to recognize the simple and annoying fact that Cassie Aldridge had gotten to him all over again. A restlessness overcame him—the same restlessness he’d experienced every night since that evening when he’d first seen her again.
“Idiot,” he muttered, striding across the yard and up the steps of the back porch. He flung open the back door and stopped dead in his tracks.
In the kitchen, an old apron tied around her thick waist, Milly Samms was polishing the stove. Her steel-gray hair had been freshly permed, and she bit her lower lip as she worked furiously. She glanced toward Colton, then stopped, her mouth dropping open. “Well, look at you,” she said, a wide smile cracking her round face. “I barely recognized you without your beard!”
“I got tired of it,” he said, eyeing her as she continued her work at a fever pitch. “I thought you weren’t due back for another week.”
The housekeeper nodded. If she noticed his impatience, she didn’t comment. “I wasn’t. But I heard about Black Magic and decided to cut my vacation short.”
“He’s been found.”
“That’s what Curtis said, but I didn’t want to let Denver and Tessa down.”
Colton grinned in amusement as he hung his hat near the back door. “We were surviving.”
With a frown, Milly motioned to the cluttered counters and spotted wood floor. “Looks like you could use a little help—a woman’s help. Tessa spent all last fall remodeling this house, the least you could do is keep it up while she’s gone.”
“I’ll remember that,” Colton replied, noting the freshly painted cupboards, tile counters and polished oak parquet floor. Between his sister-in-law’s hard work and Denver’s financial help, the old farmhouse had taken on a fresh luster.
“Do!” Milly said with mock severity as she placed a cup of coffee on the counter near Colton. “So tell me all about Black Magic. The way I heard it from Madeline Simpson, you think he was stolen again.”
“That’s right,” Colton allowed, blowing across his cup before explaining the events of the past three weeks. Milly didn’t stop scrubbing and shining every pot and pan in the house as well as the countertops, refrigerator and light fixtures. She listened to him, interjected her own two cents when appropriate and never once sat down.
“Well, all’s well that ends well,” Milly finally said when Colton had finished. She washed her hands for what had to be the tenth time, then wiped them on her apron.
“If it’s ended.”
“You don’t think it’ll happen again!”
“I hope not, but we don’t know for sure, do we?” he replied, his eyes narrowing.
“I suppose not,” Milly said absently. She stood in the middle of the kitchen, surveying her work. The appliances and brass-bottomed pots gleamed. “But I wouldn’t be thinking Ivan Aldridge was behind it, you know.”
Colton raised a skeptical brow.
“It could’ve been anyone around here. There’s a lot of good will and friendliness in ranching,” she said thoughtfully as she poured herself a well-deserved cup of coffee and added a spoonful of sugar. “But there’s a lot of jealousy and envy, too. All the ranchers in these parts lost money a few years back. Winters were bad, crops ruined and some of the stock froze to death. But this place”—she gestured grandly to the house and beyond, through the fields—“managed to get by. Barely, mind you. When Denver returned, he was fit to be tied—claimed Tessa and Curtis had run the ranch into the ground. But he soon found out that she’d turned the corner, forced McLean Ranch into the black when some of the other ranchers, Bill Simpson, Matt Wilkerson, Vince Monroe and the like, were having trouble keeping the banks from foreclosing.”
“Seems as if they all made it,” Colton observed.
Milly frowned. “By goin’ further in debt.”
“Including Aldridge?”
She shrugged her big shoulders. “Don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Cassie got herself through college and veterinary school somehow, and that’s not cheap!”
“Curtis seems to think Aldridge is the most likely suspect.”
Milly’s steely brows quirked. “So now you’re listening to a Kramer!”
“He’s family.”
“You didn’t always think that way.”
“I was wrong,” Colton admitted, thrusting his jaw out a bit.
“Yes you were, and you might be again. Just because there was a feud between the families, doesn’t mean that Ivan’s going to do something about it. Leastwise not anymore. And as far as what Curtis thinks . . .” She snorted. “He’s as stubborn as a bull moose.” Colton thought she was so agitated that she might spill her coffee as she raised it to her lips and took a sip. “Well,” she finally co
nceded, “I suppose we’re all entitled to our opinion.”
“Even me?” Colton asked, his eyes glinting with amusement.
“No, you’re the one person on this ranch that doesn’t count,” she teased, then chuckled to herself. “By the way, I found something earlier—now where’d it go?” She reached into the closet and pulled out a shoulder bag containing his 35-mm camera with a wide-angle lens. “This yours?”
Colton nodded, accepting the bag.
“It was in the den beneath a stack of newspapers a mile high! Thought you might be lookin’ for it.”
“Haven’t had much use for it here.”
“Why not? Seems to me you can take pictures of anything.” Her old eyes twinkled. “You don’t have to limit yourself to war and political scandals and all the rest of that nonsense.”
“Nonsense, is it?”
“If you ask me.”
He slung the strap of the bag over his shoulder. “I guess I’m just not into pastoral scenes.”
“Maybe it’s time you changed. Slowed down a bit. Before the next bullet does more damage than the last one.”
“It won’t,” he assured her, setting his empty cup in the sink. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“Anytime.”
With the same restless feeling that had followed him in, Colton shouldered his way through the door and walked outside. He considered Milly’s advice, discarded most of it, but couldn’t help wondering if she were right about Ivan. How much simpler things would be if Aldridge weren’t behind Black Magic’s disappearance. How much easier his relationship with Cassie would be.
Loading his camera without thinking, Colton lifted it, staring through the lens and clicking off a few quick shots—Len, tall and rawboned, the epitome of the twentieth-century cowboy, working with a mulish buckskin colt; Curtis leaning against the top rail of the fence, smoking and eyeing the surrounding land; the sun squeezing through thin white clouds. Snap. Snap. Snap.
And yet his mind wasn’t focused on the image in the lens; his thoughts kept wandering to Cassie. He forced himself to concentrate. Snap. He caught Curtis leading Black Magic outside. Snap. A shot of the horse yanking on the lead rope and rearing against a backdrop of late afternoon sky.