Cowboy PI (25 page)

“There could be another explanation for Shep Thomas’s death, sheriff.”

“Like?”

“Murder.”

“You got any reason to believe it could have been that?”

“If you’re asking whether I can prove it, no, I can’t. But the circumstances make it a possibility.” Roark filled
the lawman in on what had been happening on the cattle drive and how they were convinced that someone was determined to prevent Samantha from qualifying for her grandfather’s estate.

Sheriff Wilkins looked doubtful when Roark had finished, even a bit resentful that a PI might be telling him how to handle his investigation. “That’s all a lot of conjecture, son, and nothing in it that provides a motive for the murder of your trail boss. But I’ll keep it in mind.”

“He’s not going to seriously consider it, is he?” Samantha said when the sheriff had departed.

Roark shook his head. “Not unless the medical examiner turns up some evidence it wasn’t an accident. The man’s incompetent.”

“I can see where this is headed. You’re not going to ignore the possibility of murder, even if Sheriff Wilkins does.”

“I can’t, Samantha. All right, so Shep might have been in some way to blame for trying to put you out of the running. Maybe he had a partner, and they had a falling-out. I don’t know. What I do know is that I have to make an effort to solve his death.”

“How? What do you have to go on?”

“Nothing at the moment. But I had a word with the police photographer who shot the scene from all angles before Shep’s body was removed. He isn’t supposed to do it, of course, but he agreed to provide me with a set of prints. Maybe if I study them hard enough, I can learn something from those photographs.”

Roark fell silent. She watched his angular features tighten into a tough mask. “What are you thinking?” she asked him.

“That, if the medical examiner does find something, Wilkins will have no choice but to conduct a thorough investigation. And if that happens, the drive will end here and now. We won’t be permitted to go on, not in time to make those stock cars in Alamo Junction, anyway.”

“You look like you want that to happen.”

“Maybe I do,” he said gruffly. “Because if we’re forced to call a halt, our culprit will no longer have any reason to try to stop you. You’ll be safe.”

“No!”
Samantha said, surprising herself with the fierceness of her determination. “I’ve come too far to quit now. It’s all so close. I have to go on, Roark. I have to finish the drive.”

His eyes turned hard. “Even though it puts you at more risk than ever before?”

“It’s my decision,” she said stubbornly. “Anyway, I trust you to protect me. I’ll stick close to you from now on, I promise.”

“Damn right you will. Not just in my sight, Samantha, but joined at the hip. If we’ve got a killer for certain now, and I’m thinking we have, then I’ve got to do whatever is necessary to keep him from getting his hands on you.”

H
E WASN’T EXAGGERATING
. He kept her constantly at his side as the day dragged on, not even permitting her and Dolly to wade a few yards into the herd to check on Irma when she and Roark took their own shift with the cows after lunch.

Samantha was beginning to feel as though she was attached by handcuffs to an uncompromising jailer. And never mind he was a jailer whose backside in a pair of snug jeans was a decidedly appealing sight at close range. It was still a drain on her nerves.

But then she wasn’t the only one under stress. She had noticed how restless the whole outfit was as they waited for the sheriff’s release. They didn’t talk about Shep, but Samantha knew his death had to be on all of their minds. Especially Roark’s. The situation had him so short-tempered that he lost his patience with Dick when they rode in from the herd that afternoon and found the horse wrangler playing poker with Alex and Cappy.

“Remember how you complained when Alex and
Cappy forgot to relieve you?” he said, his deep voice rumbling out of him. “Well, who’s late now, Brewster?”

Alex and Cappy looked sheepish at being caught playing poker after this morning’s tragedy. But, death or not, Dick was irrepressibly good-natured. “Sorry. I was on a winning streak here, so I guess the time got away from me.” He must have realized he had a gloating look on his face as he collected those winnings and got to his feet, because he added quickly, “I’m not keeping the money. I’m going to turn it over to Shep’s widow.”

Samantha had the feeling his intention was an inspiration of the moment. Nor did Cappy trust his sudden generosity, observing sourly, “That ain’t no sacrifice, cowboy. Just about everybody knows you always been partial to her.”

“Shut up, old man.” Jamming his Stetson on his head, Dick ambled off to saddle his horse and head out to the longhorns.

Since the meadows on the other side of the rise offered ample grazing, the drovers had determined that for now only one of them at a time needed to ride vigil with the contented herd. With the exception of Roark, Samantha thought. Like it or not, where he goes I go.

At the moment Roark was going nowhere. He stood there and watched Dick’s departure with a frown on his face. When the horse wrangler was out of sight, he turned that frown in another direction, his gaze sweeping over the area of the camp.

“Where’s Ernie?” he demanded.

Alex and Cappy looked around, puzzled expressions on their faces. “Gee, I don’t know,” Alex said. “We were so busy losing to Dick we didn’t notice. He must be around somewhere.”

“His things aren’t over there where he had them by that tree,” Samantha observed softly to Roark.

“I don’t see his horse, either.” They exchanged mean
ingful looks. Roark spoke again to Alex. “What about Ramona? Where is she?”

“She was here a minute ago asking us if we wanted coffee.”

“Think she must have gone back to the chuck wagon,” Cappy added with his usual lack of concern.

The back end of the cook truck faced them on the other side of the camp, its door wide-open. But there was no sign of Ramona there.

No longer hesitating, Roark strode across the camp and around the rear of the truck to its other side, Samantha close behind him. The ancient vehicle was parked with its nose in the direction of the canyon below the hill. They didn’t see Ramona until they reached the gap where the driver’s door should have been. Ramona had said she preferred the door missing. Open like that, it reminded her of a genuine, old-time chuck wagon.

She was seated behind the wheel of the pickup, an unfamiliar sight in her idleness as she gazed toward the canyon where Shep had lost his life. There was an expression on her face that made Samantha think immediately of her moody son. She paid no attention to their arrival.

“Ernie is missing,” Roark announced. Ramona offered no comment. “He’s gone, hasn’t he? Taken his things and cleared out.”

The woman turned her head then and considered them. “Has he?”

“You know he has. Damn it, Ramona, you should have stopped him.”

“Why?” she said, her voice animated now with anger as she came swiftly to the defense of her son. “So he could hang around and wait to be arrested when that sheriff gets back?”

“No one has accused him of anything. Why should he be charged, unless— Ramona, do you know something you’re not telling us? Maybe something connected with Shep’s death?”

“Don’t say that! I won’t listen to you say it!”

“Then why did Ernie leave?”

“Because when anything goes wrong, he’s everyone’s favorite suspect. That’s how it’s always been. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Go away.”

Roark looked like he wasn’t going to give up, that he intended to question her further. But it was obvious to Samantha that Ramona was hurting and wanted to be alone with her grief. Samantha placed a hand on Roark’s arm, signaling their need to retreat with an insistent squeeze of his hard muscles. Understanding her message, he held his tongue.

They left Ramona in the cook truck. Samantha waited until they were out of earshot before she expressed her concern. “Was she telling us the truth? Did Ernie run away because he was afraid he might end up being blamed for Shep’s death? Or is Ramona unhappy because she knows her son
is
guilty of everything that’s gone wrong on this drive?”

Samantha had a sudden memory of the understanding glances mother and son had shared this morning on the rim of the canyon. It was followed by another memory of a much earlier episode. An unpleasant recollection of that night back at the Morning Star Ranch when Ramona had wandered off in search of an elusive nightjar, leaving Samantha alone in the darkness. An innocent desertion? Or a deliberate action that had left Samantha vulnerable to the enemy?

It was an ugly thought, and she couldn’t bring herself to voice it.

“Speculations,” Roark answered her. “And none of them are worth a damn. But if Shep was innocent, that leaves only Ernie Chacon with a motive. Or at least the only motive we know of. No one else seems to have anything to gain by eliminating you from the race. And if Ramona is unwilling, or unable, to provide us with answers, then maybe…”

Samantha watched him decisively remove the cell phone from his belt. Seconds later she listened to him as he instructed his assistant back in Texas.

“Wendell, I know you’re already working your tail off, but you’ve got to dig deeper. If there’s anything more on Ernie Chacon, I need you to turn it up for me. Concentrate on Purgatory and that Western Museum. I think we’re missing something there. And don’t forget to keep asking around about the others in our outfit. Yeah, as soon as possible.”

“What do you expect Wendell to learn about Ernie that we don’t already know?” Samantha asked after Roark ended the call and restored the phone to its clip.

“Maybe exactly how dangerous he is. Or, for that matter, how dangerous any one of the others might be on this drive. And how desperate. Wendell’s findings wouldn’t be conclusive, but they could be one more piece in the puzzle. And we need those pieces, Samantha. We need to understand just what direction the trouble is coming from and why, because, come hell or high water, I mean to see you safe when I deliver you and those cattle to Alamo Junction.”

There was a steely determination in his voice and direct blue eyes that heartened her. And twisted her insides as, not for the first time, she wished Roark Hawke was anything but a man linked so strongly in her mind with her grandfather and all he had represented…and all she despised.

L
AZY AND PEACEFUL
. That was the climate of the drovers’ camp. Dick was still out with the herd, Cappy and Alex stretched flat and dozing, their hats over their faces to shield them from the sun. Ramona, though tight-lipped and silent, was occupied over at the cook truck with preparations for supper.

Roark knew this image was an illusion, that beneath the
relaxed attitudes was a tension as they waited for an outcome from the sheriff.

He was experiencing a tension of his own as he perched on the enormous trunk of a fallen cottonwood, though he was careful to conceal it with his long legs stretched out casually in front of him, hands idle in his jeans pockets, Stetson shoved to the back of his head. His tension had nothing to do with the sheriff.

Samantha, hair freshly washed and rubbed dry with a towel, was seated a few feet away from him on a camp stool, dragging a brush through the chestnut masses. The sight of her tumbled hair gleaming in the sun brought memories of that night and morning in the canyon with the ruins. Memories of how her hair had spilled loose from her braid, permitting him to sift his fingers through its silky length, to bury his face in its scented thickness.

There was another scent he recalled. A womanly scent that had driven him wild with desire, and taunted him now as the images of that night flooded his mind. His mouth powerfully suckling her breasts while she mewed her pleasure. His finger circling through the nest of hair at the juncture of her parted thighs, then dipping inside her hot, moist center. And his own arousal, bigger and harder than it had ever been before, sinking into her deeply and, with long, frenzied strokes, bringing her to a shattering release.

Suppressing a groan, Roark felt his groin tighten as those memories surged through him. All he could think about, all he wanted was Samantha under him again, her alluring body out of control.

This is no good, Hawke. Your going crazy like this is only going to make things worse.

But how much tougher could they get? He had been suffering every hell since their time in the canyon, knowing that what had happened between them couldn’t happen again. Knowing that when this blasted cattle drive was over, he had to let her go. That there could be no future
for them, not when she hated everything he loved and valued.

After her encounter with Shep yesterday, he had dragged her behind the fir tree beside the path from the canyon and kissed her. Unable to help himself, he had kissed her with a ferocity that had shocked both of them. Whether Samantha knew it or not, that kiss hadn’t been an expression of his anger but of his frustration. The same frustration he was experiencing now and had been experiencing ever since they had ridden away from that other canyon.

God Almighty, how could he go and fall for a woman who wanted no part of ranching?

Fall?

And that was when it struck him like a hard blow in the gut. He had been determined all along to keep her safe. But somewhere on the long drive that resolve had altered, becoming a fierce need to protect her with his life if necessary. Becoming vital because she was so vital to him now. He was in love with Samantha.

And where is that going to get you, Hawke? Because choosing private investigation over ranching just to win her is not fair to either of you. If it’s not an honest choice, then both of you lose in the end.

But it didn’t have to be that way. Did it? Hell, no. There had to be a solution. If she felt anything like what he was feeling, they ought to be able to sort it out. It was time to find out.

Drawing up his legs, he hunched forward with his arms braced on his spread knees. “Samantha, we have to talk.” He’d meant to be gentle about it, yet somehow his voice came out harsh.