B.J. Daniels - Wrangled

“You say she doesn’t have any friends,” Zane said as he watched the countryside roll by and tried to get a clear picture of what Courtney Baxter was really like. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he hadn’t been out with the “real” Courtney last night. “No one you’ve seen her with, no phone calls?”

Dakota shook her head.

“When I woke up and Courtney was gone, I just assumed she’d left on her own,” he said. “But what if there’d been someone else with her at my house last night after I passed out?”

He felt her studying him again, stealing glances at him as she drove. “Dakota, you know me. I wouldn’t have hurt her.”

She let out a breath. “I know.”

“Thank you for believing in me. I suspect whatever this is, Courtney isn’t in it alone and I have a bad feeling your sister doesn’t realize how dangerous the person she got involved with really is.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I get the feeling Courtney can take care of herself.”

Dakota drove past the large old, white, single-story ranch house to the small matching guesthouse out back. Zane remembered when they were kids and Dakota had told him that her father had built a house on the ranch for her to stay in when she reached sixteen. He recalled her excitement because she was like him. She never wanted to leave the ranch; she just didn’t want to live at home.

But something had changed for her to end up in New Mexico, engaged to a guy involved in investment managing.

Zane saw as they climbed out of the pickup that Courtney’s compact car was nowhere in sight.

Dakota knocked at the front door. “Courtney?”

He held his breath, praying she would open the door. Dakota knocked again, then pulled out a key and opened the door.

As the door swung in, Zane caught the scent of perfume, the familiarity of it making him a little sick to his stomach and increasing his dread. What had happened last night? The harder he tried to remember, the worse he felt.

The guesthouse was small, one bedroom, one bath with a kitchenette and living area. The bedroom door was ajar. Dakota stepped over to it, carefully pushing the door all the way open to expose an empty, unmade bed.

“It doesn’t look like she’s been back,” Dakota said as he headed over to the closet and eased the door open.

Only a handful of clothes hung there. He frowned and moved to the chest of drawers. The top drawer held a few undergarments. The next drawer had even less, only a couple of tank tops and pajama bottoms. The third drawer had two pairs of jeans, and the bottom drawer was empty.

He closed the last drawer and turned to look at Dakota. “What woman has so few clothes?”

She shrugged. “Maybe this is all she owns.”

“Or maybe she left most of her belongings somewhere else. Does she have a job?”

“She said she’s been looking locally.”

He smiled at that. “Not looking very hard, right?”

Dakota sighed. “I got the feeling she was waiting for me to offer her half the ranch.”

If Courtney Baxter really was Clay Lansing’s love child, then she could probably legally force Dakota to split the ranch and the rough stock business with her. He swore under his breath. How could Clay have done this to Dakota? Worse, he’d kept her sister from her—and let Dakota learn about her after he was gone. Didn’t he realize the repercussions of his actions?

Zane moved to the bed. A clock radio sat on one of the bedside tables, nothing else. He bent down to look under the bed and was hit again with the smell of Courtney’s perfume. For a moment he thought he would be sick. He stilled his stomach and squinted into the darkness under the bed.

Something glinted. Reaching in, he felt the cool, weathered vinyl surface, found the handle and pulled the old suitcase from under the bed.

He glanced at Dakota.

“Maybe you’d better make sure it isn’t ticking before you open it,” she said.

He popped the latches on each side. The suitcase fell open.

EMMA CHISHOLM GLANCED OUT the window, surprised to see Mrs. Crowley silhouetted against the fading twilight.

Instinctively, Emma stepped back, afraid the woman might have seen her. She was relieved when she stole another glance and saw that Mrs. Crowley had her back to the house.

What was she doing out there? The woman never went outside. At least not that Emma had ever noticed.

Peering around the edge of the curtain, it took her a moment to realize the housekeeper was on a cell phone. Emma had never seen her make or take a call. No cell phone had ever rung while Mrs. Crowley was working. Emma was actually surprised that the housekeeper even owned one.

She couldn’t help but wonder who the woman was talking to. Mrs. Crowley made it clear she had no one who would interfere with her ability to stay at the ranch and work every day except one each week.

When pinned down, the housekeeper had said she was widowed, no children. She’d quickly made it clear she thought Emma had stepped over some invisible line by even asking.

“It could be a friend,” Emma muttered to herself. But even as she said it, she had her doubts. “Maybe a friend from before the accident.”

That was something else that Mrs. Crowley made clear she wasn’t going to talk about.

“People don’t just stare at me,” she said, her voice sharp with bitterness and anger. “They want to know what happened. Like vultures, they would love to hear every horrible detail.” Mrs. Crowley’s one good eye glinted like granite. “Well, they won’t be hearing it from me and neither will you.”

With that, she’d turned and limped off.

Emma watched now from the edge of the curtain as Mrs. Crowley finished her phone call and stood for a long moment as if admiring what little remained of the sunset.

As she turned to come back to the house, her gaze rose to the second floor as though she sensed Emma watching her.

Emma jerked back, heart hammering. The last thing she wanted Mrs. Crowley to think was that she was spying on her, true or not.

After a moment, Emma dared to take another peek. Mrs. Crowley was still standing in the same spot. The harsh glow of the sunset fell across the woman’s disfigured face. She was smiling her crooked half smile, her gaze mocking as she looked up at the second-floor window, making sure that Emma knew she’d been caught spying on her.

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