Читать книгу Smokin' Six-Shooter - B.J. Daniels, B.J. Daniels - Страница 8

Kate Corbett saw at once that her oldest stepson wasn’t himself at supper. The quietest of the five brothers, Russell also was the most grounded. He was the one who’d gone into ranching with his father right out of college. Grayson couldn’t manage without Russell working the ranches with him so Kate was thankful for that.

When Grayson had sold out his holdings in Texas and moved to Montana, his sons had been shocked and blamed Kate, she knew.

Later when Grayson had asked them all to come to Montana for a family meeting, the other four had come, but not happily.

Fortunately that had changed, she thought, as she glanced around the supper table at the large family she’d married into. It had grown since they’d all been in Montana.

The second oldest, Lantry Corbett, was a divorce lawyer of all things. And while he was still in Montana on the ranch, Kate didn’t expect him to stay.

Shane Corbett, the next oldest, had been on medical leave from the Texas Rangers. Kate knew that if he hadn’t fallen in love with a local girl, he would have returned to Texas.

Instead, he’d hired on with the Whitehorse sheriff’s department as a deputy. He and Maddie Cavanaugh had recently married in a triple wedding with his twin brothers, Jud and Dalton.

Kate certainly hadn’t seen that coming, but she couldn’t have been happier to see the daughter she’d never known so happy. She and Maddie had some things to work out still, but they had time, Kate told herself.

Jud was the youngest, but only by a few minutes of his fraternal twin, Dalton. Jud had been working as a stuntman in Hollywood but had fallen in love with Faith Bailey while shooting a film in Montana. The two had started a stunt-riding school on her family ranch not far from Trails West Ranch.

Dalton had fallen for the owner of the local knit shop, Georgia Michaels. That one Kate had seen coming and she and Grayson couldn’t be more pleased.

Even though the three sons had married, they and their wives were living on the ranch until their houses could be completed. It was wonderful having such a full table and Juanita, the cook Grayson had talked into making the move to Montana, loved it. She’d outdone herself each meal, wanting to make the new brides feel at home here.

Marriage, surprisingly, was what had brought Grayson’s sons to Montana. For years after his wife, Rebecca, had died, leaving him with five young sons to raise, Grayson hadn’t been able to go through Rebecca’s things. Nor did anyone expect him to remarry.

Kate and Rebecca had been best friends, growing up together on the Trails West Ranch in Montana until Kate’s father grew ill and died, the ranch lost.

Kate also lost track of her friend who’d married Grayson Corbett and moved to Texas. It wasn’t until Kate found some old photographs of Rebecca that she decided to pay Grayson a visit.

There had been a spark between them from the moment they’d met. In a whirlwind romance, they’d married and Grayson had surprised her by buying Trails West Ranch for her and moving lock, stock and barrel to Montana as a wedding present.

That was when Grayson finally went through Rebecca’s things and found some old letters she had written before she died.

In a letter to Grayson, Rebecca had explained that she’d written five letters, one for each son, to be read on his wedding day. Her dying wish was that her sons would marry before thirty-five—and that the bride be a Montana cowgirl.

While Kate had heard that the brothers drew straws to see who would fulfill their mother’s wishes first, she’d known the brothers well enough to know they would try to get out of the pact. But amazingly, she’d seen Rebecca’s wishes coming true with all but two of her sons.

Although Lantry had no intention of ever marrying, he hadn’t left the ranch. What had made them stay, Kate felt, was family.

As for Russell, well, she believed he’d never met a woman who interested him enough to pursue her.

Kate and Grayson had had a few rough spots since their marriage, but everything had finally settled down.

That’s why seeing this change in Russell intrigued her.

“How was your day?” she asked Russell now, curious.

He’d been smiling to himself all through the meal. Normally he ate quickly and went back to work, excusing himself by saying he had too much to do to just sit around.

Tonight, though, he seemed lost in thought, unusually distracted, especially since his father and the rest of the ranchers and farmers were worried sick about the lack of moisture this spring.

“Fine.” He looked bashful suddenly. Like his father and brothers he was a very good-looking man, with Grayson’s dark hair and his mother’s intense blue eyes.

“Nothing unusual happened?” Kate probed.

Russell realized that everyone was staring at him, waiting.

“Nothing happened. I just almost killed some city girl today.”

“What?” Kate exclaimed.

“Don’t worry, she was unscathed.” At everyone’s urging, he told them about coming over a rise in the combine, not expecting anyone to be on the road since no one had lived in the old Beaumont place for years and the road dead-ended a mile up.

“She was sitting in her fancy rental car, right in the middle of the road on her cell phone,” he said, getting the appropriate chuckles and head shakes. Kate could tell he was embarrassed, not used to being the center of attention in this family.

“Where was she from?” Grayson asked.

“Midwest, from her accent, but definitely big city. You should have seen the shoes she was wearing.” Russell shook his head. “And when she tried to open the gate…”

“Open the gate to where?” Shane wanted to know.

“The old Beaumont place, isn’t that what it’s called?”

“Why would she go in there?” his father wanted to know.

“Beats me. It’s what she wanted so I opened the gate for her. I warned her it was private property. She didn’t seem to care. I think she thought I was joking when I told her about the rattlesnakes.”

“Oh, I hope she was all right,” Kate said, worried. “You just left her there?”

Russell laughed, seeming to relax, maybe even enjoy himself. “She wasn’t like a stray dog I was going to bring home.”

“Still, if she was that inept, she could get herself into trouble.”

Russell nodded. “I’m sure she will, but believe me, she didn’t want my help—or my advice.”

No, Kate thought, she was sure the woman hadn’t, but city girl or not, she’d certainly made an impression on Russell—something not easy to do.

DULCIE SHUDDERED. Laura Beaumont’s young daughter had found her body? That poor child. That poor, poor child.

The horrible dread Dulcie had felt earlier at the farmhouse swept over again.

I wasn’t that little girl.

Where had that come from? Of course she wasn’t Laura Beaumont’s daughter. Why had she even thought such a thing?

Just because of her earlier reaction to yellow curtains and the groaning weather vane? Just because she couldn’t shake the sense of dread and fear?

Or because of the obvious? She’d inherited the property from a woman she’d never heard of and a woman her parents had never mentioned to her.

Dulcie recalled Renada’s reaction when she’d told her. She cleared her throat. “How old did you say this child was?”

“Four or five, I think. I’m not sure anyone knew for sure.”

Four or five would make the child about twenty-eight or twenty-nine now. Dulcie had just turned twenty-eight.

“What was the daughter’s name?”

“Angel.”

Angel. Dulcie felt a surge of relief that lasted only an instant. Of course the girl’s name would have been changed if she was adopted.

Dulcie couldn’t believe what she was thinking, but the kids at school and even their parents used to ask her if she was adopted because her parents were so much older than the other parents.

But if she’d been adopted, her parents would have told her. They wouldn’t have kept something like that from her.

Like the way they kept the property in Montana from her?

Her heart began to pound as she thought of her elderly parents, her mother’s years of trying to conceive without any luck, her mother finally getting Dulcie so late in life. Miracle? Or lie?

Everything could be a lie, including her real name.

“What happened to the daughter?” Dulcie had to ask.

Arlene sighed. “She was found drowned a couple weeks after her mother’s murder.”

The shock reverberated through her.

“They found her under some brush in the creek. She’s buried at the cemetery at Old Town Whitehorse next to her mother.”

Dulcie was so stunned it took her a moment to speak. “She’s dead?” She couldn’t be Angel Beaumont. She thought of the little girl and felt horrible for the moment of relief she’d experienced.

Arlene nodded solemnly. “It was a horrible tragedy, both mother and daughter.”

“Do they think the killer—”

“No,” Arlene said quickly. “The sheriff said she had fallen and hit her head and drowned. The creek wasn’t very deep that spring. It had been very hot and dry.”

Dulcie felt shaken. The mother murdered, the daughter killed in a freak accident. It still didn’t explain how Dulcie had inherited the property. Or why she’d reacted the way she had when she’d seen the yellow curtains in that second-floor window and heard the tortured sound of the weather vane.

She downed the cold drink in her hand, suddenly exhausted. “Thank you for the lemonade. It was delicious.”

“So will you buy the property?” Arlene asked as Dulcie rose to leave.

She could see that the woman was curious about Dulcie’s real reason for asking about Laura Beaumont and her daughter. Maybe even more curious why she’d want the property.

“I hope I haven’t dissuaded you.”

“Not at all,” Dulcie said. “I’m going to sleep on it. I couldn’t make any kind of a decision as tired as I am.”

She left Arlene and drove back to Whitehorse. It had gotten dark, the sky deepening from dove gray to an inky black devoid of moon or stars, as if the heat had melted them. She tried not to think as she let the car’s air-conditioning blow on her, but her mind raced anyway.

She wasn’t Angel Beaumont. But it gave her no peace. Laura murdered, her daughter, Angel, drowned in the creek, the property left to Dulcie—a little girl herself at the time. Something was wrong with all this, she could feel it.

As she passed through town, the temperature sign on the bank read eighty-four degrees. It was going to be another miserably hot night.

She chose the first motel she came to on the edge of town. Once inside her room, she showered, turned up the air conditioner and lay down on the bed.

She thought about calling Renada, but didn’t feel up to it even though there was a message from her friend. Tomorrow, when she didn’t feel so exhausted, so depressed. If she called her now, Renada would hear how discouraged she was and insist on coming out to Montana. Anyway, it was too late to call with the time difference between here and Chicago.

Dulcie expected to fall into a deep sleep almost instantly, as tired as she was. But when she closed her eyes, she saw the yellow curtains move in the upstairs bedroom and heard the groan of the weather vane on the barn in the hot, dry wind.

All she could think about was that little girl. That poor little girl.

JOLENE WOKE TO DARKNESS and sat up, startled, to find she’d fallen asleep in her living-room chair.

The pages from the short stories fluttered to the floor at her feet as she reached for the lamp next to her chair and checked the time.

Well after midnight. She must have been more tired than she’d thought. She blamed the relentless heat, which had zapped her energy and left her feeling like a wrung-out dishrag.

Even this late, the air in the small house was hot and close. She felt clammy and yearned for a breath of cool air as she turned up the fan in the window. All it did was blow in warm air, but even warm air was better than nothing.

As she leaned down to retrieve the stories, she caught sight of the murder story.

Her fingers slowed as she reached for it, remembering with a start what she’d learned at the newspaper. Widow Laura Beaumont had been murdered twenty-four years ago and she, like the woman in the supposedly fictional murder story, had a young daughter.

A daughter who’d been found drowned in the creek.

The short story had to be about the same woman and her child, didn’t it?

She put the critiqued story installments into her backpack, although she wouldn’t be returning them until the entire story had been finished, turned in and graded.

She didn’t want to stifle their creativity with her comments on the earlier assignments, although her comments were very complimentary of their endeavors. The idea was to encourage her students to write freely. She understood the fear some people had about putting words to paper.

As she zipped up the backpack, she looked down at the murder story on the table where she’d left it. She would hide it in the house for now. She didn’t want to take the chance that someone would find it in the schoolhouse and read it.

The story was becoming more and more like her dark secret and that should have made her even more uneasy than it did, she thought.

As she headed to bed, Jolene realized that the author of the murder story had gotten to her. Not only couldn’t she wait for the next part, but she now felt personally involved in solving the mystery.

Reading Monday’s and Tuesday’s assignments in order, she had looked for some clue as to the writer. Was the writer just someone with an active imagination? Or a local gossip who thought she knew what had happened that summer, if indeed the story was about Laura Beaumont and her daughter, Angel?