Red Velvet Revenge (26 page)

She turned the corner around the side of the van and smacked into the solid form of a man. He instantly reached
out to grab her and steady her, but one look into his familiar brown eyes and Mel felt herself get dizzy as all the blood rushed out of her head.

“Hey there, Cupcake,” he said. Then he took a bite of the treat in his hand and said, “Or should I start calling you Cake Pop?”

Twenty-nine

“Joe!” she cried as she hugged him close. “What are you doing here?”

He finished his cake pop and planted a solid kiss on her. “I heard you were experimenting with the cupcakes, and I had to drive all the way up here to give them a taste test.”

“And?” she asked. Given that Joe had a sweet tooth of mythic proportions, she valued his opinion above all others.

“I think I’m going to need another to be absolutely sure,” he said.

She looked at the two sticks in his hand.

“Nice try. You’ve already had two,” she said. “Now, what’s the verdict?”

“I think I’m in love,” he said. “Can I have one more? Pleeeease.”

“Which ones haven’t you tried?” she asked.

“The lemon and the vanilla,” he said.

“Fine,” she said. “Wait here.”

She climbed into the back of the truck and saw Tate and Angie working the window together. She caught Angie giving Tate a wide smile, which left the poor man blinking and bewildered.

Mel gave her a chastising look, and she could tell that Angie was pretending not to see her.

She climbed out of the van with a shake of her head. Joe helped her jump to the ground, and she sat beside him on the bumper while he ate the two cake pops she offered.

“You’re going to make yourself sick,” she said.

He took one bite of the lemon and said, “It’s worth it.”

Mel waited until he took another bite and then she asked, “So, now that I’ve bribed you with sweets, you have to tell me the truth: Did my uncle Stan send you?”

Joe sputtered around his cake. “What makes you ask that?”

“Just a suspicion,” she said. “Am I right?”

“He loves you, you know,” Joe said.

“I know. I love him, too,” she said. “I just hope he didn’t convince you to come up here because he thinks I’m getting into trouble.”

“Are you?” Joe asked. He gave her a look that said he suspected she was.

“No.”

“Mel, it’s me.”

“Okay, maybe some odd things have happened,” she said. “But I wouldn’t call it trouble, not really.”

“Oz calmed a bull by feeding it cupcakes,” he said. “That’s more than odd.”

“Unusual, I’ll give you that,” she said.

“Angie found a bloody pitchfork.”

“Again, a little out of the ordinary, I can admit that.”

“Mel, I really think you should pack up the cupcake van and come home,” he said.

Mel frowned at him. Was this Joe putting his foot down? Joe never did that. As the middle brother of the seven DeLaura boys, he was the negotiator, the peacemaker, the reasonable DeLaura.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. She wasn’t sure what to say. Wait. Yes, she was.

“I don’t think I can do that,” she said. “I mean, business has been booming, and Angie and I are thinking of making cake pops a permanent thing at the bakery. Oz has made real innovations in the organic cupcake possibilities, and Marty might even have a new girlfriend. We can’t just ditch. Besides, I don’t think the sheriff would look too kindly upon us if we just bagged it and skedaddled.”

“Did you just use the word
skedaddle
?” he asked.

“Yep,” she said, making it a two-syllable word.

A slow smile crept over his face. “I didn’t think you’d go for it, but it was worth a try.”

Mel sagged against him with relief. She’d been hoping he wouldn’t insist.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Are you just agreeing with me because you know the sheriff wouldn’t like it?”

“Busted.” He raised both hands, which now held empty cake pop sticks.

“Joseph DeLaura,” she said. “What would you have done if I’d agreed with you and decided to leave?”

“I’d have hurried over to the sheriff’s office and negotiated
to get you out of here. I’d have convinced him that if he really needed any of you, I’d be able to get you back up here pronto.”

“Do you think that would work?” Mel asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It helps that your uncle is PD and I’m a DA, but it really depends on where this case is going for the sheriff.”

“There were a lot of people who didn’t like Ty Stokes,” she said. “Me, for one.”

“Well, do me a favor and don’t announce that too loudly to the world at large.”

“So, do you want to take a quick tour?” she asked. “We could get you outfitted like Tate and have you in boots and a hat in no time.”

Joe looked down at his khaki shorts and Margaritaville T-shirt. “What? This isn’t cowboy enough?”

“Well, it is a nice departure from the suits,” she said. She always thought casual Joe had a lot of appeal.

“Come on,” she said. She took his hand and pulled him off the back of the van. Angie and Tate appeared to have things under control, and Mel wanted to spend some time with Joe before her next shift in the truck.

They poked around the vendors’ tent. Joe had Mel in stitches as he tried on hats and strutted around like a cowboy. They ran into Slim and Tammy, and Mel introduced them to Joe.

“You’ve got a fine young lady, there,” Slim said. He gave Joe a once-over that made him stand up a little straighter, and their handshake looked to be a test of character.

Tammy rolled her eyes, but as the men stepped back,
they were grinning at each other. They each must have passed the other’s test.

“How’s your arm, Slim?” Mel asked.

“As good as a twenty-year-old pitcher on opening day,” he said. He leaned closer and whispered, “I’m just wearing the sling for the sympathy it gets me from the wife.”

“I heard that,” Tammy said. She tried to sound severe, but it was belied by her smile. “The doctor says you have to wear it for at least another week, and then you start therapy.”

Slim looked grumpy, but he refrained from saying anything.

“Stop by the cupcake van,” Mel said. “Sympathy will get you a free cake pop.”

Slim cheered up immediately. He and Tammy said their good-byes, and Joe turned to Mel and said, “I like him.”

“He’s a good man,” she said.

“I hear a
but
in there,” he said.

Mel looped her arm through his, and they headed out to the bull pasture. She didn’t want to talk badly of the Hazards, but there was definitely something that wasn’t adding up.

She told Joe what Uncle Stan had found out about Slim’s sister dying in childbirth and there being no record of what happened to the baby.

“Now, if that was your beloved sister,” she said, “wouldn’t you want to keep tabs on her baby?”

“That would not happen to my sister,” he said.

Mel looked at him. He had that look on his face, the one that all of the DeLaura brothers wore when it came to Angie.
It was called denial. As far as they were concerned, Angie would be forever twelve years old, and they treated her accordingly. The fact that she was in her thirties and dating a rock star was not discussed.

“Okay,” Mel said. “Let me rephrase that.”

“Please,” he said.

“In a normal family,” she said, “don’t you think the family would know?”

Joe was silent for a moment. “Maybe they do.”

Mel smacked her forehead with her hand. “Oh my God. Why didn’t I see that? You’re right. Slim probably does know what happened. He’s probably been keeping tabs on the baby for years.”

“It’s possible,” Joe said.

They were nearing the barn where the bulls were housed. Mel led Joe to the pen where Oz’s new friend resided.

“Come on, you have to come and meet Buttercup,” she said.

“Buttercup?” Joe asked.

“His real name is Thunderbolt, but Oz felt he would do better with a kinder and gentler moniker.”

“I’m surprised the other bulls haven’t beaten him up and stolen his lunch money,” Joe said.

They stopped beside the bull’s pen. He gave them an uninterested glance.

“Probably we should have brought him some cupcakes,” Mel said.

Joe leaned on the top rail and gave a low whistle. “He is massive. You all could have been stomped to death.”

“Angie and I were kept out of harm’s way,” Mel said. “Jake Morgan is Slim’s right-hand man. He wouldn’t let us
near the bull. When I think about how close Oz was, I get a little weak in the knees.”

“So do I,” Joe said. He gave her a wobbly smile, and she grinned.

“For a while, it looked pretty grim for the bull,” Mel said. “They were sure he had gored Ty Stokes, but then Angie found the pitchfork…”

Her voice trailed off and Joe looked at her. “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing, except…”

“Yes?”

“I just had a crazy thought. Do you think Ty Stokes could be Hannah’s baby?”

“What?”

“Well, let’s think about this,” Mel said. “Lily told me that Ty came to Slim when he was a teenager. His grandparents had died and, well, Slim had some involvement with his father’s death. I don’t know what happened to his mother, but obviously she wasn’t in the picture. But if it was Hannah Hazard, it would make sense that Slim would take in Ty. It would also be logical that he had issues with Caleb. After all, his beloved little sister had died giving birth to Caleb’s son.”

“But why wouldn’t he claim Ty as his nephew?” Joe asked.

“Maybe Ty didn’t know,” she said, warming up to her idea.

“That’s reaching,” he said. “How could he not know?”

“The girls don’t even know Hannah had a baby,” Mel countered. “What if Ty didn’t know he was Hannah’s son until later? He would be furious at being denied his rightful inheritance.”

“Didn’t you say that Shelby and Ty had a fling?” Joe asked.

“Yeah,” Mel said. They exchanged a look that said, “Ew.” “And Slim was furious about it.”

“Well, that would make sense if he knew that Ty was a blood relative.”

They were quiet for a moment, each thinking over what they’d learned and what it meant.

“Joe, did I mention to you that Lily is a sharpshooter?”

“No,” he said. “But since Ty was killed with a pitchfork, I don’t see how it’s relevant.”

“Someone shot Slim,” she said.

“You don’t think it was Lily, do you? I mean, I thought she was the sister you liked,” he said.

The bull passed by them with a snort, and Mel instinctively stepped back, not having the warm fuzzies for his intimidating girth like Oz did.

“She is, but this ranch is her life,” Mel said. “If she found out that Ty had a claim to it, she might have felt utterly betrayed, angry enough with her father to shoot him and scared enough to stop Ty from trying to take what she sees as hers.”

“I don’t know, Mel,” he said. “That’s a lot of blood for one pair of hands.”

“I know. Of the two, Shelby seems to be the one angry enough to shoot her father,” she said. “But if Ty is her cousin and they were reacquainting themselves, as it were, it could very well be Slim who killed Ty.”

“Except you said Slim was in the arena watching Lily compete,” he said.

“He was,” she agreed. “Still, do you think we should go and tell the sheriff what we’re thinking?”

“It’s all pretty circumstantial,” he said.

“But worth following up on?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, Mel, but I can’t let you do that,” a voice said from behind them.

Mel spun around in surprise. “You!”

Thirty

“I’m sorry, Mel. I really am,” Jake said. Then he pulled a gun from the holster at his hip and gestured for them to move away from the bull pen.

“Suddenly, I feel underdressed,” Joe said.

“Jake, what are you doing?” Mel asked.

“No talking,” he said. “Not here.”

He pointed with the gun toward the door. Mel felt her stomach plummet to her feet. She glanced around the barn and realized that she and Joe were alone with Jake. Maybe if they walked slowly enough, someone would come.

A loud cheer from the arena seemed to mock her. Of course no one was going to come, not with the bronco busting event happening, which was to be followed by the closing ceremonies. How were they supposed to draw attention
away from thousands of people watching a horse trying to buck a rider?