The Cowgirl in Question Part 21

"This isn't about keeping an eye on me, is it?"

He pretended to be offended. "Would I be that transparent?"

She knew she shouldn't but in truth, she wanted to go riding with him. She felt herself weaken. "I'll call the cafe and see if they can get by without me for a few hours."

He grinned from ear to ear. "Thanks. I really appreciate this."

WHEN SHE CALLED the Longhorn, Arthur said he and Ellie could handle it. She promised to be in later to help with the dinner rolls and bread. Then she changed into jeans, a snap-b.u.t.ton Western s.h.i.+rt, boots and her jean jacket and cowboy hat.

When she came back into the living room, Rourke looked up, his gaze caressing her as it moved slowly over her body, lighting on her face.

"What?" she asked, feeling embarra.s.sed by his scrutiny. She turned to peer into the hall mirror.

He laughed and shook his head, his smile broadening. "I was just admiring your face. It's a wonderful face. You don't even need makeup."

"Thank you. I think."

"Come on, I can't wait to get back in the saddle," he said, and winked at her.

She walked past him to the pickup and could almost feel him watching her behind. She hid a smile as he hurried to open her door. This felt like a date. She warned herself to be careful.

She hadn't been out to the McCall Ranch in years. She was glad to see that it hadn't changed. Rourke gazed out at the landscape as if he couldn't get enough of it.

"When this is all over," he said, "I think I'm going to help my brothers with the ranch." He glanced over at her. "You don't seem surprised."

"I always knew you would," she said, and looked away from him. "You love the ranch. It's a part of you."

Rourke laughed. "Maybe you know me better than I know myself."

Maybe, she thought.

He parked the pickup and they walked down the hillside to the barn. The same barn where Rourke had kissed her when she was thirteen. She followed him inside, fighting the memories.

The day Rourke had kissed her she'd come out to the ranch with her father to deliver a load of oats to Asa. While they unloaded it, Asa suggested J.T. show her the horses. But Rourke had volunteered.

She had thought her heart might stop. It had been the happiest moment of her life as he'd led her out to the horse barn.

Inside, she had watched him with the horses, heartened to see that he obviously loved horses as much as she did. She'd thought then that she and Rourke were perfect for each other.

"Would you like to ride sometime?" he'd asked just when she thought the day couldn't get any better.

She nodded, unable to trust her voice, and he'd smiled at her in his sweet, tender way, and that's when she'd realized he was going to kiss her.

Her breath had caught in her throat as he'd cupped her cheek and dropped his head. And then his lips were on hers, sealing her fate. That fate being unrequited love.

"You all right?" Rourke asked now.

She blinked, focusing on the present. From the look on his face, he'd been studying her.

"I thought you could use one of my sister's saddles and ride Suns.h.i.+ne," he said still eyeing her closely.

She took the saddle he handed her and nodded, unable to trust her voice just as she had so many years ago. That kiss had started her heart along this path. And the kisses since then had only made her more sure that she'd fallen in love with a man who might never really see her for one reason or another.

She saddled Suns.h.i.+ne, practically hiding behind the horse. Even if he'd forgotten about her kiss, he had to have seen her feelings so clearly on her face.

They led the horses out of the barn, Ca.s.sidy intently aware of Rourke beside her, glad when they'd left the cool darkness of the barn, so full of memory and young-girl hopes, for the warmth and clarity of the morning suns.h.i.+ne.

The air was still cool from the night before as they rode across to the foothills, then climbed up over the mountains to drop into the gulch.

"I didn't realize how much I've missed this," Rourke said, breathing in deeply. He glanced over at her as if she was the one person he knew understood.

The McCall ranch ran over several drainages ending in a stretch of Forest Service land that connected with Wild Horse Gulch. Beyond the gulch was a section of Logan land that Blaze's father owned. The rest was VanHorn land. VanHorn had been buying up everything he could get his hands on ever since he'd discovered there was coal-bed methane.

They stopped on a mountain ridge overlooking the gulch. Rourke carried the brunch basket Martha had made to a cl.u.s.ter of magnificent ponderosa pines and spread out the blanket on the dried pine needles. A breeze whispered softly in the boughs overhead.

They ate, talking about everything under the sun expect for murder and Blaze Logan. He seemed to like listening to her and encouraged her to talk about herself, something she felt awkward doing.

"I never forgot our kiss in the barn," he said after a while. "I'm sorry I never followed up on it."

She felt her face flush as he reached over to brush her hair back from her cheek.

He stared into her face, her lovely face. Her scent mixed with the scents of the land he'd always loved and he felt weak with a need to kiss her again.

Her mouth was wide and generous, her lips full and heart-shaped. And when she smiled- She was smiling at him now, her head c.o.c.ked a little to one side, her eyes bright as sunlight.

He'd known he would kiss her again. It was all he'd thought about since last night. He leaned toward her, brus.h.i.+ng his lips over that wonderful mouth.

He pulled back to look into her eyes. She was beautiful! The thought hit him like a brick. It wasn't just her face or her eyes or her smile. Everything about this woman was like suns.h.i.+ne.

He'd never wanted anything more than to be with her right now. Not even his freedom from prison. He leaned toward her again, cupping her cheek with his palm. With Ca.s.sidy, he felt like he'd really come home.

"Ca.s.sidy." It was as if all of his feelings were wrapped up in that one word.

Her eyes darkened with desire and her lips parted as he dropped his mouth to hers. He pressed her back into the blanket, the scent of pine and her filling his nostrils.

He heard her catch her breath and thought he could hear her heart pounding and realized it was his own. He pulled back. "Ca.s.sidy?"

The look in her eyes was answer enough. He kissed her again, deepening the kiss, burying his hand in her hair.

His pulse was pounding so hard he didn't hear the first shot.

But the horses did. They started, rearing back from where he'd tied them a few yards away, their heads coming up in startled surprise.

The second shot came on the heels of the first, this one closer. Rourke threw himself on top of Ca.s.sidy, rolling them both across the blanket to the cover of the thick trunks of the pines. The shots had come from the gulch. He heard an engine crank up.

"Stay here," he ordered Ca.s.sidy as he scrambled out from the pines and ran to the edge of the ridge. A green Suburban with ADC on the side disappeared in a cloud of dust over a rise and was gone.

But in the sunlight, he spotted one gold spent casing lying in the dust not far from where he'd found Forrest in his pickup.

"It was just another warning," Ca.s.sidy said beside him. "Just like the notes."

"Except Cecil is in jail."

She nodded. "This wasn't Cecil."

"No," he said. "I caught a glimpse of the vehicle as it was racing away. It was one of the green Antelope Development Corporation Suburbans."

"Blaze," Ca.s.sidy said on a breath.

He didn't bother to argue it could have easily been Easton. He dropped down, carefully retrieving the casing from the dust. "Let's get back to town," he said, looking up to see Ca.s.sidy watching him closely. "I'll take you to the cafe where you'll be safe, then I'll drop off the sh.e.l.l with Cash."

AS Ca.s.sIDY WALKED in the back door of the Longhorn Cafe a couple of customers called to her. Les Thurman from the Mello Dee was sitting at the counter. He gave her a nod. Past him, she saw Holt VanHorn. He looked like he was waiting for someone. Ca.s.sidy glimpsed a pickup outside the cafe. There was a person sitting in it. Cecil? Was it possible he'd somehow made bail?

Ca.s.sidy was so angry with Blaze, it was all she could do not to storm over there and accost her. Blaze seemed h.e.l.l-bent on keeping Ca.s.sidy away from Rourke and had since Ca.s.sidy was thirteen.

The worst part was, Blaze's plan was working. Ca.s.sidy wondered if Rourke regretted that they hadn't made love under the pines as much as she did.

He hadn't said much on the way back to town, insisting he follow her from her house to the cafe to make sure she was safe. She wanted desperately to know what he was thinking, then decided it might be best not to.

The phone rang. Ellie picked it up before Ca.s.sidy had a chance and, turning, covered the receiver to say, "It's Yvonne Ames."

Ca.s.sidy couldn't imagine why Yvonne would be calling her. She stepped into her office to take it, leaving the door open. "h.e.l.lo?" Silence. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Ca.s.sidy?" Yvonne sounded upset. "I have to talk to you." She sounded as if she'd been crying. "I heard you were helping Rourke look for Forrest's murderer?"

"Yes. What's wrong, Yvonne?"

"I know I should have come forward eleven years ago, but I couldn't. You have to understand. If my father had found out that I was meeting Forrest-and then after what happened, I couldn't tell anyone."

"You saw Forrest that night up Wild Horse Gulch?" Ca.s.sidy said, and realized her voice had probably carried out into the cafe. She hurriedly closed the office door. "Yvonne, did you see the killer?"

Yvonne was crying, sobbing, her words indistinguishable. Then, "I have to blow my nose." She dropped the phone.

Ca.s.sidy waited impatiently. Was it possible Yvonne really had been the woman Forrest was meeting and not Blaze? And had Yvonne seen something?

"Sorry," Yvonne said, finally picking up the phone again.

"You were there that night?

"I didn't see the killer," she said.

Ca.s.sidy's hopes sank.

"When I got there, Forrest was still alive. The killer had just left. I don't think he saw me. He took off on a horse."

Just as Rourke had suspected.

"Forrest had something in his hand. It was a St. Christopher medal on a chain. It had blood all over it."

"Forrest's?" Ca.s.sidy asked.

"No. The chain was broken. I think Forrest must have reached for his killer and grabbed the chain."

"Yvonne, you've had something of the killer's all these years and you've never said anything?"

"I couldn't." She began to cry again. "I didn't know who killed Forrest. It's just a medal. If I told the police all it would do was let the killer know I was there that night. I didn't see anything, but he wouldn't know that for sure. He'd kill me, too."

The medal might have cleared Rourke, might have helped find the real killer eleven years ago. "Yvonne, why are you telling me this now?"

"I'm afraid. I think he's found out somehow that I was the one there that night."

"Where is this medal?" Ca.s.sidy heard a sound in the background at Yvonne's. "What was that?"

"Someone is at the door again."

Again? "Don't answer it," Ca.s.sidy cried, suddenly afraid.

Yvonne choked back a sob just before she dropped the phone again. Ca.s.sidy heard a voice. It sounded like Blaze's stepbrother Gavin.

"Yvonne? Yvonne?!" Ca.s.sidy fumbled her cell phone out of her purse and dialed 9-1-1, keeping both phones to her ear. She could hear nothing on Yvonne's end.

The dispatcher said Cash was unavailable at the moment.

"Tell him to go to Yvonne Ames's house," Ca.s.sidy said. "I'll meet him there. It's urgent."

"Yvonne? Yvonne?" Ca.s.sidy listened for a few moments, thought she heard a scuffing sound but Yvonne didn't come back on the line. She left the phone off the hook, grabbed her purse and left. What had she done with Rourke's cell phone number? She'd left it on the table by the door at her house.

She couldn't wait for Cash. Maybe the person at the door had been a beauty supply salesman. Ca.s.sidy told herself she was overreacting. But she thought she'd heard Gavin's voice. What if someone had had found out that Yvonne was the woman meeting Forrest up Wild Horse Gulch that night and had kept it to herself all these years? found out that Yvonne was the woman meeting Forrest up Wild Horse Gulch that night and had kept it to herself all these years?

What was Ca.s.sidy thinking? If Blaze knew, then the whole town could know by now-let alone her stepbrother Gavin.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" Easton asked as Blaze came into the office. She looked scared and upset and her clothing was a mess, dusty and dirty.

She seemed surprised to see him, and at the same time, relieved. "I have to tell you something."

He nodded. "And I have something to tell you, too, something I think you already know, or at least suspect. I'm in trouble. I did some creative bookkeeping when I first started this business. Rourke hired a private investigator and now the auditors are coming to go over my books-the real books. I'll probably be going to jail for a while." He waited for her to say something.