The Cowboy's Shadow Part 15

"No," Kyla said. "I'm not anxious at all. Do you think Dr. Chase might be right, that a woman's too emotional to be a good doctor?"

"Exactly the opposite. No human being should be so callused that a dead body isn't a shock. If death, any death, ceases to be awful...Well, that's how we get ma.s.s murders and wars."

Odd thoughts, mismatched pieces of a puzzle, came together and separated in Whit's head. He drove slowly, knowing he should keep his mind on his driving, but irresistibly drawn to the mystery. Would Ky interpret his silence as moodiness? He felt an unaccountable desire to prove that he was neither moody nor eccentric. He stopped at the wide spot below the ridge.

"Ready for a little walk?" he asked, making an effort to smile. To his surprise, as he moved the muscles in his face, he felt better.

"To the top of kissing ridge?"

"I guess that's the destination. But today we'll talk. You've got to help me sort something out."

He waited until they scaled the rocky place, delayed until they admired the stunning view, which never lost its impact, no matter how many times he saw it.

He embraced her and let the deep kiss drag on and on. Easier today, for they had learned a great deal about each other since last Wednesday.

"What's your problem?" Ky asked, running a fingernail up and down the zipper of his jeans.

"Chase knew that Moira had propositioned me. Stop it, I can't think logically when you do that." She stepped back and saluted, but that did nothing to relieve the pressure, because the military gesture reminded him of the Stars and Stripes Forever. He had a vision of all future Fourth of July parades, him standing on the curb with a hard on when the high school band marched past.

"Moira didn't accept every man who approached her," he said.

"How do you know?"

"A fellow at Whiskey Dan's said she only went with men who had money. This brochure in the map, I'd say someone gave Rod the scoop on Hole-in-Rock weeks ago, before the news ever went public. Colored brochures don't get printed over night in this country. The job has to be sent to Carson City, or Reno. Which means, the brochure was designed before the county even gave tentative approval to the project."

"So, whoever's developing the place, he knew Rod had cash, and gave him word about Hole-in-Rock before anyone else knew. How much money does...did Rod have?"

"A lot more than I do. Rod and Judith divided something over eight million dollars."

"Eight million!" He nodded, and used the moment of her distraction to bring her back into his arms. She frowned, concentrating. "Moira Chase has Las Vegas connections," she said thoughtfully. "Maybe she knows the people who're behind the resort, and they told her to round up more investors. She went after Rod, using her most formidable talent."

"Makes sense so far."

"Rod dies, Moira's frustrated, then plants the fake will in his room to get the money for herself."

"Or at least part of it. Probably she planned to bring the will to probate court, Judith would offer half a mil to buy her off, get the thing settled and save legal fees."

"At the same time Moira goes after the other big money in the county. You."

"No big bucks here. My money's tied up in the ranch. Remind me to show you -- "

"Moira doesn't know your bank balance. But she's heard the story of you winning on a slot machine. The story's probably been told at least once a week in Whiskey Dan's, which seems to be the center of gossip in Argentia. The amount you won grows with each retelling, so you're considered a multimillionaire. Now, the question is, does Dr. Chase know Moira was raising cash with extracurricular affairs? Who exactly is behind Hole-in-Rock Resort?"

"I don't know. I've never tried to find out, because the project will never get off the ground. Fellows Canyon has no big snow basin above it. Nothing at all like the one that feeds Dead Man Creek. This time of year my stream's running full, but Fellows has dwindled to a trickle."

"But there's a ranch out there," Kyla protested. "It's listed in the land catalog. Fellows Canyon Ranch."

"But you notice that Rod didn't check it as a possibility, because he knew it's not really a ranch. There's eighty acres, an old mining claim, half of it running straight up the mountain. A great place to harvest rocks." Kyla sighed, and Whit felt like doing the same. "Has anything we've said made sense?"

Ky's shrug turned into a shudder and she leaned against him. "Glenda's certain Moira's been kidnapped. Maybe she needed Rod's money to pay off a shady debt."

"Wild speculation," he said, tightening the embrace. Ky's idea might be worth considering, but he dismissed it because he hated to see her frightened. "It's none of our business. Let's forget it."

"Forget it," she whispered. She stood on tiptoes. "I can't forget this morning."

"You like musical accompaniment?"

"Whit, for the first time you came to me smiling and jolly, not serious and woebegone. You whooped and sang -- "

"I couldn't remember the words. I was silly."

"You were not silly. You were loads of fun."

"Probably was the coffee. Kona-Colombian blend."

"We'll patent it as an aphrodisiac, and grow fantastically rich." Her kiss came without warning, sparks biting before their lips touched. All the long minutes she held on, Whit had the troubled feeling that their conversations merely skimmed the surface, disguising what happened on a deeper, mystical level. Her feelings and thoughts intruded on his, converting singularity into duality. Whit and Ky, no longer two separate people, but something new, a blending -- She ended the kiss, gasping, but he kept her very close, and cleared his throat.

"I don't know what's come over me, and I don't know where all this is leading."

"Wild pa.s.sion has come over you, not unexpected after years of celibacy. It doesn't have to lead anywhere, so quit worrying. We make good love, and that's an end in itself."

"At the hotel in Gold Hill I asked you -- "

"In a moment of insanity. I don't believe sob stories from street beggars, kids'

explanations as to how the Tiffany lamp got broken, and proposals made in the heat of pa.s.sion."

"Good of you. Fortunately I don't own a Tiffany lamp -- "

"Wouldn't go with the house," she said. "By the way, neither does that Queen Anne mahogany table. It crowds the kitchen. But, it would be even worse in the family room, beneath that wagon wheel light fixture. We'll look at something in pine, or natural maple."

Whit tightened his throat to cut off the cry of protest, then realized that every other muscle in his body had tensed.

"What did I say wrong?" Ky whispered.

"Nothing," he lied. "It's just I hadn't gone so far as to think about anything but a couch and coffee table." Disbelief shadowed her blue eyes, and took away what breath remained in his lungs.

"The chandelier?" she asked, her eyes piercing like needles. "The table? Ah! The table. It's a family piece?"

Whit shook his head. Ky read him so easily, she would drag the truth out sooner or later. "Jenny saw it at a roadside shop on...the last trip..."

She slipped from his numb arms and facing the snow-capped peaks. "I'm sorry, Whit, but I didn't know. You must correct me when I make these gaffes. Don't feel shy about putting things, places, topics off limits. Love sanctifies."

"Love sanctifies," he muttered. But love did more, when it fell upon a living, breathing woman. The revelation stunned him. He considered throwing his arms about Ky, declaring his love. He loved her because she respected his six-year obsession. He'd grown so tired of the women and men who offered themselves as therapists.It's time you put Jenny's death behind you. You must progress through the stages of grief.

But he had coped with the world only by clinging to that grief. As a man thrown from a s.h.i.+p clutches a life preserver. Grief supported him, until a week ago today he fell into blue eyes, and wondered at the complexities of the woman behind them.

Did Ky feel the love settling around them? A substance as wispy as fog, but its fragility eternal. If Ky mentioned it, he would admit he felt it, too. He would step into the future, stripped of Jenny's comforting presence.

"Shall we go furniture hunting?" she asked. "Or would you rather go back to the ranch, and I'll get my car from behind your equipment shed and leave?"

She offered him a choice, and his love for her expanded. The fog turned pinkish- lavender. Plum Sky. She waited for him to decide, absorbed by the mountain-view.

He touched her shoulder.

Jenny, I'm sorry, but you're dead, and Ky's alive.

She took his hand with a wan smile. "It's not forever, Whit, although you warbled rather dramatically this morning. Can we go one step at a time, and when the trail gets too steep for either of us, we reserve the right to say stop?"

"One step at a time," he whispered into her hair. This step had been a giant one. Love, his love for her, had kept him from tumbling backwards.

I'm alive, he thought as they walked back to the truck. Ky's alive. He decided to hold the words in reserve. He must not pressure her. Until one night in his arms, Ky admitted she loved him, too.

He drove slowly over the pa.s.s, down the winding road into the heat of the valley, contemplating love at first sight, love that did not die, two loves coexisting. He had always thought that impossible, but -- "Jenny wanted to replace that wagon wheel fixture."

"That was BBR," Kyla said, and she grinned with delight at confusing him. "If you're going to hang around with a med student, you'll have to get used to acronyms. Before Bronco Rider. He's a bronze tyrant."

"I wonder if Rod knew he'd be disrupting my life by leaving that statue to me?

Be just like him. He's hovering up in those clouds, chortling and slapping his legs at the trouble he's causing."

Whit pulled into the parking lot behind the bank and backed the truck into a s.p.a.ce near the furniture store, just in case they found something worth loading.

"Whit!" Ed Harnell dashed from the automatic teller machine, stuffing bills in his pocket. "What's this I hear going on over your way?" He skidded to a stop before he was out of the traffic lane, just as Ky emerged. "So it's true! You did abscond with the doctor's wife!"

Forty miles and a state line between Argentia and Bishop, and the news had preceded him.

"No, I didn't abscond with the doctor's wife," he said, wis.h.i.+ng he could say it even more firmly. "This lady is a doctor herself, helping me track down hantavirus, with the help of the Center for Disease Control in Georgia." Ky's eyes opened wide, alarmed at the deception. How did he know she was alarmed?

Because he loved her, and love communicated without words.

"Kyla Rogers, from University of California, San Francisco. This is Ed Harnell, who ranches on the border."

"Hantavirus?" Ed said. "You got a case?"

"A suspected case," Ky said. "Maybe two."

"Perhaps you'd bring Dr. Rogers out to my place for supper some evening," Ed said, removing his hat, a great sacrifice because they stood in full sun. "She might look about the ranch, tell me things I should do...those d.a.m.ned mice congregate everywhere."

"Dr. Rogers would be pleased," Whit said. Kyla hissed from the corner of her mouth.

"Don't let me keep you standing here in the sun, away from your business," Ed said hastily. "The machine's a fast way to bank, but it's cooler inside."

"We aren't banking today, we're redecorating." Ed's eyes narrowed. "Miss Rogers learned the principles of interior decorating from her aunt, and I'm mining all her talents while she's here." Ed grinned, then changed to a frown in stages. He slammed his hat on his head.

"You conniving buzzard! You'd think by now I'd be able to guess when you're pulling my leg. Ma'am, I suggest you get back to your good husband ASAP, and let Argentia and Bishop return to their normal run of dull gossip."

"No, Ed, really -- " But Ed heaved into his truck, started the motor, and rolled out of the parking lot.

"I'm afraid we told ourselves lies up on the mountain," Ky said sadly.

"I didn't lie," Whit said. He not only hadn't lied, he had barely skimmed the surface of the truth.

"About dismissing the Moira affair, I mean. Moira's being thrust upon you, and she becomes your business."

"I don't want to think even a stray thought about Moira," he said.

"But I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that Sheriff Neligh turns up on your doorstep this evening."

Whit mulled over that possibility. "If they haven't found Moira, Neligh'll be there." More positively. "But by evening she'll call in. And right now we're furnis.h.i.+ng my family room. Oh my G.o.d! The family room. We've got to hurry. I left the fountain on, with only one pitcher of water in the tank. When the water evaporates, which is what it's supposed to do, the pump will overheat -- "

"Inside," Ky said. She grabbed his arm, turned him toward the door of the furniture store, the way a woman steers a man she knows very, very well. A man she has claim over.

"d.a.m.n, I'm hungry," Whit said, adding a little groan in an effort to garner sympathy. Past mid-afternoon, and they had not dared stop for lunch because of the blasted humidifier. And he was not sure there was a thing in the refrigerator -- "The sheriff's beat us," Ky said, leaning forward, trying to see the house through the dust. "I can see his truck." Neligh had parked the high four-wheel-drive as close to the front door as possible, and still stay in a spot of shade. No way to unload the furniture with the sheriff's car there. Whit rolled down the window the moment he braked, and the sheriff ambled slowly toward them, his mouth scrunched, moving his wad of chewing gum, looking anything but pleased.

"So, you finally decided to bring her home. Where you had Moira stashed?" He leaned in the window, and his carefully cultivated lawman's frown collapsed.

"You're not Moira Chase!"

"Guilty as charged," Ky said. Her giggles expanded into gales of laughter that came close to being insulting.

"Sheriff Neligh, Kyla Rogers, Glenda Fetterman's sister, who's visiting town, acting as consultant on my interior decorating project." The sheriff's anger affected the angle of his shoulders.

"Interior decorating?" He stared at the back of the truck suspiciously, then lifted the corner of the blue tarp covering the couch.

"Move your car so I can back to the door. Give me a hand carrying the stuff, then we'll fix something to eat and share our thoughts on the Moira Chase affair," Whit said. The sheriff shrugged and headed for his truck. He spun the wheels pulling away, raising a cloud of dust as a symbol of his irritation.

"Police arrogance," Ky exclaimed. "No different here than in the cities."

"Different, because Sheriff Neligh has to run for reelection next year, and he'll go out of his way to please the voters. He's just frustrated."

"He's fiddling with his radio," Ky reported while he had his head turned, backing.

"If you were missing, you'd want him to be fiddling with his radio."

"I guess you're right. Absolutely you're right. Since we didn't stop at the market, what's in the house for lunch, dinner, supper, whatever I'm putting on the table."

"You don't have to -- "

"I'd rather you did the talking to Neligh. I'll cook. It gives me an excuse to hang in the background."

"Right now, run in the house and pour a pitcher of water in the tank."

"How could I forget!" she cried. She flung open the front door, on the way through hit the doorbell. Whit nearly cursed 'The Stars and Stripes Forever,'