High Desert Detective, A Fiona Marlowe Mystery (Fiona Marlowe Mysteries) (21 page)

“I understand.” She hesitated then said, “It could be more than
that.” She wasn’t sure why she said that. It was out of her mouth before she
realized what she was saying.

Jake looked at her sideways. “Are you interested in homemaking?”

She shrugged. “It’s what I do. I try to make houses, homes.”

“I didn’t grow up in a home, so I wouldn’t know. We were always moving
from one ramshackle place to the next. I appreciate Opal sharing her home with
me.” He turned and looked at her full on. “Are you saying you want to make a
home here with me?” A windswept strand of hair fell across her cheek, and he
brushed it away. “What is it that you’re saying?”

“I don’t know,” she said in a small voice, not returning his
gaze. He could do the smallest thing like that, and she could feel the
electricity arc between them. “I don’t know what I want right now. I do know
that I want to help Opal.”

He lifted her chin with a finger so she had to look into his
eyes.

“What about me? You have a home here. You could stay on in the
house with me. No commitment asked.”

He had deep, dark, inviting eyes. The intensity of his gaze
mesmerized her. He looked down at her lips. Then his arms encircled her back, and
he pulled her to him. Without any further thought her arms went around his neck,
and they sank into a long, deep, bottomless kiss.

She pulled back to catch her breath. “Jake, Jake, Jake,” she said
in a whisper then looked into his eyes again. “I don’t know what to do about
you. I need to think about that offer.”

That’s all the hope she could give him. She couldn’t deny the
chemistry between them. Her body wanted to sink to the floor with him, and let
nature take its course. But her emotions were a wild horse stampede, galloping
from one extreme to the other. She could go to bed with Jake. It could be a
casual affair. But Jake was not a one night stand, and she knew it. He wasn’t
that kind of man. She knew Jake would be a lifetime, if she said yes to his
offer.

He smiled like he could see the galloping horse stampede. “No
rush. I’m going to be right here for the rest of my life, if the ranch deal
goes through, and the relatives don’t fight it. I wish she hadn’t told them
today, but she has her reasons. She’s looking death in the face, and it has her
rattled.” He rubbed her arms softly then sighed. “I need to get back to work.
There’s this ranch to run, you know.”

 
He seemed reluctant to let
go of her. He stroked her cheek. “You are so beautiful. You are something else,
Fiona Marlowe. This will be continued.”

She knew that was a promise.

He let her go and stepped back. “Do you know any details about
Opal’s health you’d like to share with me?”

Fiona smiled. His concern for Opal touched her. She really did care
for this man, and she was afraid she was beginning to care too much.

“She starts chemotherapy Wednesday. She asked me to drive her
back and forth to town. I said I’d be glad to. That’s why I bought the truck.”

He nodded like that made perfect sense. “Tillie will be real
happy with that arrangement.”

“I feel an obligation to Opal. She’s been good to me. She made
good on the deed for my knoll. I might rebuild and make it a bed and breakfast.
Would you mind a bunch of strangers going back and forth on your ranch roads?”

“You mean, have a bunch of city people gawking at us buckaroos?”

Fiona smiled and nodded.

He shrugged. “I guess not. If it means you’ll stay here, and I
get to see you, that’s all the better. But they aren’t my ranch roads yet.”

Two huge beasts came trotting through the open door, stopped and
sniffed.

“Here, big guys. Come here.” Jake patted his leg.

The two Great Pyrenees walked resolutely up to Jake, and he scratched
them under the chin. “Let me introduce you to the hardest working buckaroos on
the ranch. This is Lester and Earl.”

They came almost to Fiona’s waist they were so huge. They had
great black eyes and sloppy, friendly grins. “How do you tell them apart? They
look like solid white twins. They remind me of polar bears except they have those
huge heads.”

“After a while you know. Lester is more the philosopher. Earl is
more the bloodhound, trotting from one smell to another.”

Fiona laughed and patted each one on the back. They panted, pink
tongues lolling and grinning at the same time. They stood as if waiting for
orders.

Jake ran his fingers through Earl’s long hair. “Their hair is
matted and full of brush from being out with the goats. Well have to see to a
good brushing and trim later.
 
They’re
great guard dogs. We’ll let them wander around the house at nights for a few
weeks. I have to make sure the small pasture where we have the goats is secure.
Goats can jump and eat their way through just about anything.”

“How is guard duty going to work?”

“We start tonight. You and I take the 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM shift
and then we rotate nights.
Off three, on one.
I
appreciate your offering to help. You cheered me up. I was in a mean mood when
I left the kitchen.”

“Anything I can do for the boss.”

“Anything?”

“We’ll see about that,” she said with a smile. “I’ll see what’s
happening in the house. I was headed for the kitchen when I heard the ruckus.
Can I get you a cup of coffee?

“No, it doesn’t go good with beer. I can’t guarantee what will
happen in the kitchen. Do you want me to go with you?”

She shook her head. “No, you have a ranch to run, remember? If
I’m going to stay on, I’ll have to get to know all the relations. I might as
well start now. I’ll put on my big girl pants.”

He laughed and said, “Good luck.”

Fiona walked slowly to the kitchen door. Tillie and Opal had gone
back inside or at least they weren’t on the back patio any longer. A light
breeze ruffled the blue jean skirt she had donned that morning. She pulled open
the screen door and went inside. No one was in the kitchen, but she had not
heard the truck leave. The coffee pot was empty, and she went about fixing a
new pot. She wondered if Olympia was up and went to find her while she waited
for the coffee to brew.

Jake’s kiss would not leave her mind. The feel of him kept playing
over and over again in her head. He was looking better and better every day. He
sure would be nice to wake up to in the morning. He had the most incredible
build.
Solid.
Arms that could take a
girl to eternity and back.
And he sure fit into a pair of jeans real
nice. Stop it. Stop it. You know when you get like this something is going to
happen, and there won’t be any turning back. The question was did she want to
turn back?

Fiona stopped outside of Olympia’s door, listened then gently
opened the door. She wasn’t in the room, and the bed didn’t look like it had
been slept in.
Bad news.
Where had she spent the night
and who with? Last night Jake said she had spent the day with Sweet. Her car
was in front of the house. Fiona walked down the hall to see if she was in the
guest bathroom.
No one there.
She hoped her friend was
not going to rotate her way through all the buckaroos before she left town.
Maybe it was time for her to leave.

* * * * *

Jake finished work on the motor so he could get a better pump
working at the stock tank in the pasture where they had moved the cows. The one
there kept cutting off. He had meant to have it fixed before they moved the
cows in. But the cattle rustlers made havoc of his schedule. Ranching was like
that. It was always something breaking that had to be fixed. Then there were
more cows to rotate to other pastures and make sure they had water. Then there
were goats to attend to, fences to mend, horse to train, haying to finish,
the
swather that needed maintenance. The list went on and
on. Sometimes he wondered how he had ever got caught up in the ranching
business. He should have stayed with rodeos. But by now he probably would have
a busted back, and no money to show for it. Hard as ranching was, rodeoing was
harder and more dangerous. On the other hand, Opal’s relatives could be more
dangerous than bull riding.

What he really wanted to know was who was stealing cows and
sneaking around the ranch. He stopped and stared out the workshop window. Three
ravens flew a zigzag pattern over gold and brown fields, chased by a four angry
little birds. He wondered what mischief the ravens were up to this time. They
were like cattle rustlers, thieves in the night.

He wondered if the ranch would ever be his. Now he wasn’t so
sure.

* * * * *

Sweet shared what they called the new bunkhouse with Mort Glory
and Tommy Hide. It sported the same weathered look as the rest of the buildings
on the ranch. Fiona’s designer’s eye had imagined them painted at first. But
now she realized that the weathered look reflected ranch life. Her idea of
making everything look new didn’t work here. Rustic was a new shade of color in
her designer book.

She walked toward the new bunkhouse which was a ways from the main
house around behind the horse corrals and the open-sided hay barn. Sweet had
ridden in with the goats, but she hadn’t seen where he had gone. Jake said Glory
and Tommy were haying. She didn’t know one pasture from another, the place was
so big, so endless. She didn’t know how many acres made up Opal’s ranch. Jake
had said it took thousands of acres to pasture cows in the high desert. He’d
said they leased some of the land from the Bureau of Land Management. She felt
the uncertainty in him now about the ranch and was a little upset with Opal. In
all fairness, Opal had more than her share of worries to deal with.

She wasn’t sure if Olympia would be at the bunkhouse, but she had
a sinking feeling that was where she had spent the night since she hadn’t seen
her last evening. While Olympia was a grown woman, her playing fast and loose
wouldn’t help anything while things were in such turmoil. Most of the time, she
could laugh off Olympia’s amoral approach to living, but none of them needed
her complicating things now.

Fiona had never been in the new bunkhouse. She didn’t know
whether to knock or just go in. She didn’t detect any movement inside through
the open blinds. There was a small wooden porch with two chairs sitting to the
side of the entrance. She paused, hands on her hips and looked around. Where
could Olympia be? Fiona had visions of her sleeping off a drunken night in one
of the buckaroo’s beds, or maybe they had had a foursome. She cringed at the
thought.

Working up her nerve, she knocked on the door. No one answered.
She turned the knob. The door wasn’t locked. No one seemed to lock doors in
this valley. She opened it and peeked inside. A messy living room dominated by
a wide screen TV greeted her gaze. Beer cans littered the coffee table. A ratty
looking recliner and sagging couch faced the TV.
 
Four closed doors fronted on the room. She
stepped into the room, feeling like an intruder.

“Olympia?
Yoo
.
Hoo
.
You in here?”

No answer. This was annoying. Where was she? She might be
sleeping one off in any one of the rooms. Fiona hated doing this and was about
to turn and leave when something caught her attention on the couch. She tiptoed
over to get a closer look.

An old revolver lay on the couch. She hesitated then picked up
the rusted old thing to have a closer look. Along the handle was one bright silver
patch that had caught the sun on the day she had found it. How many old rusted
guns could there be on one ranch, and what was the one from her knoll doing here?
Carefully, she replaced the gun on the couch and debated what to do.

No one was going to believe that she had discovered the gun again
unless she took it as evidence. If she took it, then she might be stealing, and
they’d know she was in their house, sneaking around. But she wasn’t really
sneaking around. She was looking for Olympia. If she didn’t take it, and it
disappeared what would that prove? How many old revolvers could there be? If it
were the same gun, why did one of the guys bring it here to the house and leave
it in plain sight?

She reached into her skirt pocket for her smart phone. Looking
around for the best light she aimed and took a photo of the gun lying on the
couch. This time at least she had a photo. She looked at the picture on the
small screen. It showed up fairly well, but she snapped another with a wider
view of the couch in the room to be on the safe side.

She listened.
Still not a sound behind any of
the doors.
 
She hesitated then
decided to be brave. Going to every closed door she quietly opened each one. No
Olympia. Three were bedrooms with unmade single beds. The fourth was
a bathroom surprisingly clean
for a guy bathroom. No sign of
female occupancy.

Puzzled, she left the house, closing the door behind her. She
hadn’t found Olympia, but she had found something more interesting. This time
she would show Jake the photo so that someone would believe her. She wondered
if the gun had any significance at all. Maybe one of the guys took it after she
saw it. Maybe they had lost it up on the knoll and had gone back to retrieve
it. Maybe she was making too big a deal out of this.

Outside she walked back to the house by the opposite route,
looking around hoping to run into Olympia. Where could her crazy friend be? She
walked by the workshop. Jake wasn’t there. Where was everyone? Remembering the
fresh pot of coffee she had made, she returned to the kitchen to find Olympia
sitting at the table with a mug of coffee before her.

“Where have you been?” asked Fiona, “I’ve been looking all over
for you.”