TRENT SHOOK THE sheriff’s hand.
“Thanks, Carl,” he said. “I should have told someone about the gun a long time ago, but believed it didn’t matter that much because my father was dead. I didn’t know someone had been killed in one of those holdups.”
“You were a kid when it happened. Besides, it might not matter. Until we get a ballistics report, we won’t know if Gavin Hawkins had any connection to the murder. This type of thing usually turns out to be a false lead.”
Despite the assurance, Trent was certain Gavin had been involved in the death of a seventy-year-old grandfather protecting his convenience store. There wasn’t any proof yet, but drunk or sober, his father had been mean enough to shoot anybody who got in his way.
It made Trent sick, but in some part of his mind he was glad the truth was coming out. Justice was important; now David Barker and his family would get their share.
Carl had pulled up the reports on the robberies and asked a number of questions, including one about tattoos. Apparently a witness had seen a single-color eagle tattoo on a suspect’s upper right arm...the same as Gavin’s own body art. Tattoos weren’t uncommon, but it was another piece of evidence falling into place.
“I’ll let you know once we learn something,” the sheriff assured him. “But it could take a while. This is an old case.”
Trent got into his truck, trying to imagine how Alaina would react to the truth. He still thought it was possible she wouldn’t believe him. After all, Alaina had grown up hearing fairy tales about her charming, fun-loving father.
He started the engine. In a few hours the family would be gathering at the McGregor ranch for Sunday dinner. It was a tradition that included the extended family, but the initial conversation ought to be with Alaina.
He’d prefer waiting until the ballistics report was back, except rumors might begin flying. Generally gossip raced through Schuyler with the speed of stampeding cattle. In the meantime he should tell Emily what he had learned; the break-in at her house made him more uneasy now that he knew about the murder. After all, there’d been two men confronting David Barker in that convenience store.
As Trent drove toward 320 Meadowlark Lane he spotted a ratty truck down the nearest cross street, tucked between two bushes. His hackles rose. It was Webber’s pickup.
Parking out of sight of the front windows, Trent approached the house. The front door was open but nobody was visible. Emily was from the city, so it was unlikely she’d leave it open for longer than a couple of minutes, particularly after the break-in. Just as much of a concern, her car was sitting in the driveway with the trunk up.
Trent slipped along the side of the house opposite the driveway, forcing his way through the overgrown bushes, getting more than one scratch from a wild rose bramble. A detached part of his brain made a note to have Caveman trim them back; they’d provided cover for the intruder to break the window, and the rose thorns weren’t thick enough to discourage someone who was really determined.
He approached the door on the mud porch; luckily he had a key so he could close up the house when Emily wasn’t there. The lock turned with only a faint click and the door swung silently on the new hinges. Ducking into the kitchen, he could hear Webber’s voice.
“My, my,” the louse was saying. “If I’d known how nice this joint could be, I would have fixed it up for myself.”
“I thought you kept Wild Rose Cottage as a rental,” Emily responded in a guarded tone.
“Sure, for tenants who couldn’t afford something nicer. It seemed the right thing to do.”
Ha.
Webber was trying to make it sound as if renting Wild Rose Cottage had been a philanthropic enterprise. Trent clenched his fists, remembering his mother’s fear that they’d be thrown out because the rent was late or the property was damaged in one of Gavin’s drunken rages.
“How nice,” Emily said, the irony in her voice probably escaping Webber’s less agile mind.
“Oh, yeah, I got a real soft spot for folks in trouble.”
The man was chatting in his usual genial manner, but Trent wasn’t convinced.
“You’re sure gutting the place,” Webber continued. “Walls moving, floors torn up... You know, I was surprised to hear Trent Hawkins took the lead on the job. The way I hear it, he ain’t bossed a crew for years.”
“Really?” Emily sounded indifferent. “They told me that Big Sky is booked more tightly than usual, so Mr. Hawkins needed to take charge on one of the contracts.”
“But why this place?” The question was sharper, more insistent. “He could have worked a dozen different sites.”
“You’ll have to ask Mr. Hawkins.”
“He ain’t exactly easy to talk to.”
Trent crept closer to the broad opening into the dining room and glanced around, looking for a reflective surface. The shiny front of the microwave showed that Webber was facing away from the kitchen.
Trent moved forward and put a finger to his lips when he saw Emily. Other than her eyes flickering she didn’t react, which she would have done if she’d thought nothing was wrong. A paper bag sat on the floor next to her and Trent suspected Webber had slipped in while she was unloading groceries. She wouldn’t have allowed him inside after the last time he’d shown up.
“So what is Hawkins doing here?” Webber demanded. “He’s got no need to boss the job. I bet he’s giving you a cut and you’re looking for it together. He’s been here the last two nights. I know because I’ve been watching the house.”
“All I know is that it’s time for you to leave,” Emily responded firmly.
Webber turned toward the stairs. “Not until I’ve checked for myself. Trent Hawkins hates this place and me along with it. God, he was an obnoxious kid, always getting in my way. He’d love to spite me.”
“If Trent got in your way, then you were headed the wrong direction.”
Trent swallowed an urge to laugh. Emily’s cool wit was wasted on the clod.
“That’s none of yer business.”
Fear shot through Trent as Webber’s beefy shoulders tensed. While the guy must have gained at least sixty pounds in the past twenty-odd years, he was still dangerous, maybe even unhinged, and he was standing only a few feet from Emily.
“You’re absolutely right,” she said, sounding perfectly calm. “But I still want you to leave my house. Now.”
If Webber went for anyone, Trent wanted it to be him. He crept closer, but something must have alerted Webber because he swung around.
“Working on a Sunday?” he asked, obviously making an effort to control himself.
Trent took another step forward, plastering a false smile on his face. “With the flu running around, I’ve got some catching up to do.”
As much as he’d enjoy punching the guy senseless, for Emily’s safety, it was better for Webber to leave quietly. After that, the authorities could deal with the creep whatever way they liked.
Webber’s piggy eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“That’s what happens when you’re in charge...no days off when a contract is on the line.”
“There wouldn’t be any other reason?”
“No.”
“Frigging liar. I should have figured it out a long time ago. You kept trying to buy this place, offering more than the dump was worth. Who’d have guessed that a snotty kid knew about the loot and gun? I’ve waited long enough. It belongs to me.”
“You’re too late,” Trent said. “The sheriff has the gun. I gave it to him this morning. As for any loot? It probably went where every dime my father ever had went, to booze and gambling.”
“No,” Webber yelled. “Gavin was holding it while things cooled off, ’cause nobody’d suspect a family guy like him. Then he went and got hisself killed. I searched this place top to bottom a hundred times and couldn’t find the stuff. Never thought it could be in the walls until you started tearing them down.”
“If you thought my father wouldn’t spend the money, you obviously didn’t know him that well.”
“I don’t believe you,” Webber snarled. “That dough belongs to me and I’ve waited long enough for it.”
He inched closer to Emily, sending Trent’s blood pressure rocketing. The best option was provoking Webber into attacking him.
“The sheriff will be delighted when I reveal the identity of my father’s accomplice,” he taunted.
A switchblade suddenly appeared in Webber’s fist and he lunged forward.
“Emily, run,” Trent shouted.
Feinting to the left, he grabbed the other man’s wrist and wrestled for control. But instead of running, Emily snatched one of her folding chairs and bashed it into Webber’s ribs with a resounding thud. He screamed and fell to the floor.
Trent kicked the knife from his hand and got him in a choke hold. Emily threw the chair aside and nabbed the switchblade.
Trent grinned.
It was wonderful how efficient Emily George could be.
* * *
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Emily asked, seeing a streak of red on Trent’s cheek. Her stomach rolled.
“Just a few scratches from the roses. You?”
“Fine.” She hit the button to retract the blade and handed him the knife.
“Bitch,” Webber moaned. “You broke my ribs.”
“Watch your mouth,” Trent warned.
“Don’t worry about it,” Emily said. “From some people, name calling is a compliment. Do you think I actually broke his ribs?”
“Probably.”
“Good. I’ll call the sheriff,” she added.
Webber tried to twist away from Trent, who tightened his hold.
“Give me an excuse,” Trent said softly, “and I’ll give you what I promised when I was nine and caught you trying to feel up my mother. You broke my arm that day, but I’m not a kid any longer.”
Webber instantly froze.
Emily dialed Carl Stanfield. The comment about Trent’s mother was yet another piece of the puzzle. He’d dealt with so much garbage growing up; no wonder he’d developed a thorny personality.
After filling Carl in on the details, she disconnected and locked gazes with Trent. “He’ll be here right away.”
Within minutes a siren wailed down Meadowlark Lane. The sound panicked Webber and he scrambled upward again, hampered by both his girth and his injury. Emily snatched the chair once more while Trent kicked his legs out from under him; Webber tumbled back, cursing and clutching his side.
Carl charged through the open door, gun drawn, relaxing when he saw his suspect subdued on the floor.
“Robert Webber, I’m arresting you for the murder of David Barker,” he announced, taking out his handcuffs. “I also want to thank you for being stupid. If you hadn’t pulled this stunt, we might have never known you were involved. Unless your fingerprints are on the weapon, of course.”
While the sheriff informed Webber of his rights and Webber moaned that he needed a doctor, Emily stared at Trent. “Murder?” she whispered.
“I didn’t know until Carl told me this morning, but a store owner was shot and killed a few towns over during one of the robberies.”
“It wasn’t me,” Webber yelled as Carl and his deputy pulled him toward the door. “Gavin did it. I said to leave the guy alone and Gavin threatened me, too.”
“Tell your story to the jury,” Carl told him.
“I’m glad you didn’t say a jury of his peers,” Emily said wryly. “You couldn’t find twelve people that sleazy.”
Carl chuckled. “This is a good day for Schuyler. We get to close several cold cases, plus we got a perp on breaking and entering and assault with a deadly weapon. Can you both come down to the office and make a statement?”
“Sure,” they said in chorus.
Emily went to the door, Trent close behind, and they watched as Webber was loaded into the backseat of the cruiser.
She heaved a sigh and Trent put an arm around her waist.
“Are you really okay?” he asked.
Emily shrugged. “I’m glad I didn’t know murder was involved when it was happening. Webber had a flimsy excuse for slipping into the house uninvited, but he must be dimwitted if he thought I’d believe him.”
Trent drew her closer and Emily leaned into his warm, muscled strength. But she only allowed herself a minute before pulling away.
“We’d better go make those statements and get it out of the way as fast as possible,” she said brightly.
“Sure. We can take my truck.”
“What’s the matter, do you think my car will die on the road?”
He groaned, though his eyes had a wry glint in them. “Couldn’t resist, could you?”
“Wouldn’t you do the same in my shoes?”
“You aren’t wearing any.”
Emily blinked and looked down at her feet. He was right; she’d kicked them off after depositing her first bag of groceries in the kitchen. It was when she’d returned with the second bag that she’d found Bob Webber in the living room.
She slipped into her sandals while Trent relocked the door on the mud porch.
“It’s lucky you had a key,” she told him.
Trent seemed ready to hug her again, so Emily backed away a few inches. They’d just gone through a dramatic event, so it wasn’t strange that he would react that way. She wouldn’t let herself think it meant anything.
Two hours later they signed their statements about what had happened and Emily hopped back into Trent’s truck.
“Sorry,” she said. “I should have driven my own car so you wouldn’t need to take me home.”
“I’m headed your direction anyhow,” Trent assured her. “I’ll drop you off. I’m...going out to my folks’ place to tell them everything.” He released a heavy breath and Emily wanted to offer reassurance, but didn’t know what to say.
“Bob Webber basically confirmed what you suspected about your father and the gun,” she observed quietly.
“That’s right. Now they’ll have to hear every rotten detail.”
Emily wished she could be there to offer support, but it wasn’t her place. They might have shared a couple of nights together, but that didn’t mean anything had changed. Trent’s reputation was well-known in Schuyler—he was a loner who didn’t get into permanent relationships. And if he ever changed his mind, he wouldn’t choose a less-than-gorgeous oddball.
“I’m sure that Sarah and Parker’s first thought will be concern for you and Alaina,” she told him. “They love you both.”
Trent didn’t respond and his face was grim.
At Wild Rose Cottage Emily slid out, shut the truck door and leaned inside the open window. “Good luck.”
“Do you want me to check the house?”
She shook her head. “Carl says the judge is tough on violent crime, so Webber will probably be denied bail. Besides, I wasn’t kidding about those self-defense classes. I was always a top student.”
“You’re good with chairs, too. I assume you’re going out to see Stella Luna later...?”
“Of course. She’s a terrific listener and I want to tell her everything that happened, though not in a way that’ll scare her.”
Emily stepped away from the truck and headed up the front walk, refusing to look back. Inside the house she blinked tears away. From now on she expected to see less and less of Trent.
Lord, had it only been forty-eight hours since the barbecue fund-raiser? Webber must have been getting desperate, and with half the town at the park, including her, it would have seemed an ideal opportunity to break into Wild Rose Cottage. He’d found nothing, but by his own admission had kept watch on the house, getting even more suspicious when Trent spent the next two nights with her.
He was such a slimy crook, it plainly hadn’t occurred to him that they might be doing something besides searching for his ill-gotten booty.
Still, everything had worked out, and she hoped Trent’s life would take a turn for the better now.
Emily changed her clothes and drove to the Crazy Horse Ranch. One of the ranch hands waved.
“She’s in the corral getting some fresh air,” he called.
Emily waved back and circled the barn to the grassy paddock. Stella Luna greeted her with an excited whinny.
“Hey, girl.” Emily climbed onto the high fence. “You’re so beautiful,” she murmured. The finer points of a horse’s breeding were unimportant to her, though the affectionate Appaloosa was undeniably lovely—a silvery gray with white spots over her rump.
She stroked Stella Luna’s neck, her thoughts inevitably circling back to Trent. It was a curious reality to think that if Bob Webber hadn’t broken into Wild Rose Cottage, she would have slept alone the past two nights.
Emily made a face.
Sleeping alone would have been wiser, but it was still hard to regret it.
Stella Luna was nosing her pocket, distracting Emily, and she took out a bag of sugar cubes. “Carrot first,” she said, holding one between her fingers.
The Appaloosa obligingly crunched it down before getting a sugar cube. All at once she sidestepped a foot or two, and Emily realized the ranch foreman had walked up to them.
“Hi, Greg,” she said, rubbing Stella Luna’s nose to reassure her.
“Say, you aren’t doing badly for a city gal,” he teased.
“I’m sure Kayla and DeeDee have proven that city gals are a force to be reckoned with,” she retorted, referring to his boss’s second wife and stepdaughter. Kayla’s knockout looks still tweaked Emily’s insecurities, but she was a nice person.
“They do all right.”
Emily rubbed Stella Luna’s nose again. “Trent Hawkins says I’m buying her affection with sugar and stuff,” she murmured, glancing at the foreman. “He claims good horsemanship is someone who understands the barter system between humans and animals.”
Greg gave her a kind smile. “Don’t pay Trent any mind. Trent is Trent, and most of us give him a wide berth when possible. That mare loves you and it’s got nothing to do with sugar cubes.” He glanced at his watch. “I gotta go pick up my kids. Don’t worry about Stella Luna being outdoors. We’ll get her stabled before dark.”
“Thanks,” Emily called after him, fighting an instinctive urge to defend Trent from a reputation he’d probably cultivated with grim determination. Besides, it wasn’t totally inaccurate, and that was the problem.
She sighed.
“You know what?” she whispered to Stella Luna. “I’ve been back and forth about whether I love Trent. I’m pretty sure that loving him is guaranteed heartbreak because he doesn’t trust people. Besides, I don’t think he likes the real me.”
Hopping down, Emily took the mare’s halter rope to lead her around the large paddock. She had to stop thinking about Trent...because if she didn’t, insecurity and sadness were going to drag her under.
Maybe she should move away from Schuyler, but moving was much more complicated now that she owned a horse. Besides, leaving town would be running away from her problems instead of dealing with them. In a way, that’s exactly what she’d done after ending her engagement to Dennis—gone for a winter vacation in Montana of all places. Where was she supposed to go next? After all, a city girl couldn’t go much farther than Schuyler, Montana, unless she bought a plane ticket for Tibet.
The Appaloosa’s trusting eyes didn’t hold any answers and Emily hugged her neck. She might be a dope of major proportions, along with being unrealistic and stupid on the romantic end of life, but she wasn’t a sniveling coward.
So they were staying.