Season of Fear (14 page)

"Sounds a little bit like sour grapes to me. Can't stand the idea of a better looker than you running around the ranch? The green-eyed monster, they call it. Well, no matter what you say, any man would fall for a woman like that. I wouldn't mind the chance. Even with the age difference, she'd be worth it. She makes you look like a kid."

He was being deliberately cruel, and Robin could imagine the flush in Sara's young face, the tears in her eyes. She had set quite a store by the young ranch hand.

"I remember the last time she was here, years ago. She doesn't look a day older, and she still has that come-on look in her eyes." He snorted with an ugly laugh. "Kinda reminds me of your mother. Duke always goes for women like that, just like me."

Sara was crying now. Robin could hear her uneven breathing. She didn't know what to do. She wanted to leave and remove herself from the conversation that she knew she should not be hearing, yet she wanted to stay nearby for Sara, whom she knew would be extremely upset. The voices went on before she had a chance to make up her mind.

"I don't, don't want to hear you talk that way about my mother. I don't want to hear any more about Deborah." The girl was making a valiant attempt to regain her composure and Robin felt uncommonly proud of her.

"I don't particularly care what you want to hear. I couldn't care less, as a matter of fact. All it takes is a good look at a woman like that to make a guy realize how he's been wasting his time with a spoiled schoolgirl So let's just call it quits, okay?"

"No question about that," said Sara, the spunk returning to her voice. "I wouldn't spend another five minutes with you if my life depended on it. All I can say is I sure did a bad job of judging your character. You deserve the Deborahs of this world, if, that is, they'd ever want the likes of you!"

There was a pregnant silence after her angry words, then the sound of heavy footsteps as Mac flung himself out of the tackroom and made his way toward the door. He ran directly into Robin and seemed to barely notice her as he barreled by. She turned and watched him go, his back straight and angry as he walked about ten paces before slowly turning to look back in her direction.

He gave Robin an angry look that she found hard to interpret.

But hadn't he the right to be upset with an eavesdropper? Robin asked herself, ashamed that she had stood and listened to the exchange so unabashedly.

But then she remembered his harsh words to Sara, a young, emotional girl still in her teens whose only error had been an infatuation with such a cad, and she shrugged off his glance.

She stepped quickly toward the tackroom to find Sara.

Robin found her leaning against the rough wooden wall of the tackroom, one arm clutching a well-used bridle hanging from its sturdy peg. Her eyes were large and filled with tears, but her chin was set and firm.

"Sara, are you all right?"

"Robin," she said. "I didn't see you there. I was just standing here..."

"It's okay, Sara. I must confess I heard a bit of your conversation when I came in to find Devil. It's all right to be a bit hurt and disappointed, if you ask me. You don't have to pretend."

The young girl sank down into a fresh pile of hay, her ankle still encased in its heavy cast, and looked up at Robin.

"It doesn't feel good to discover that I've been making a fool out of myself. I... I don't quite know what to do."

"Just be yourself, Sara. Time will help. I know you cared for Mac."

"I sure did. Or at least I thought I did. But somehow I wasn't seeing him clearly. I must have been pretending that he was all the things I wanted him to be, and that he felt about me the way I wanted him to feel."

Such wisdom from a seventeen-year-old! Could she, Robin, with her extra years of experience see herself as clearly as Sara at this moment?

"I was going for a ride. Sure wish you could come along," Robin said.

"Only a little longer until my foot is free of this thing." Sara tapped her cast. "Then you won't be able to hold me back. Meanwhile, I could do with a nice long bath and a nap. Well, thanks, Robin, for talking. And have a great ride. Will you be back for dinner?"

Robin thought for a minute of Deborah's catlike eyes, her searing tongue, the calflike look on Jacob's face, her dismay at Deborah's familiar and overly friendly attitude toward Alex. She had completed her duties for the day. Cook was efficiently in charge of the dinner. There was no reason that she couldn't skip the meal.

"I'm going to take my time riding, Sara. Would you give my regrets to everyone for me. I think I'll skip the formal dinner and just make a sandwich later. I could use a little free time to think."

Sara smiled, and even with her sad eyes, Robin noticed the natural beauty of the young girl. Sara may have had her ego bruised by the thoughtless Mac, but she would have her share of admirers!

"Sure, Robin. I don't blame you a bit. Just remember to be in by dark. When that sun starts to sink in the evening, it goes down like a dive bomber, and Dad doesn't like anyone out on the range in the dark. You never know what might happen..." Her voice dropped off.

"Thanks for the warning, Sara. I'll be careful. And remember, I'll be on Devil. A person couldn't ask for better transportation than that."

The young girl's eyes lit up at the thought of her proud stallion.

"Give him a good workout, Robin, and tell him he'd better be in great shape when it's time for me to return to the saddle!"

Sara took off for the house and Robin saddled the tall black horse with his dancing eyes and led him out of the stable.

She held the reins in as they first took off, getting used to her seat high above the ground, giving the horse a chance to stretch his well-developed muscles before breaking into a faster pace.

She moved past a bunkhouse at a trot, noticing its main door standing widely open, aware of the two similar-looking men standing in its frame.

She picked up words from their seemingly angry conversation, though most of their comments were drowned out by the distance and by Devil's hoofs on the hard ground.

"You can't talk to me like that." This was from Mac, Robin thought, but she couldn't be sure. Duke's reply escaped her, and also Mac's next remark. Then Duke scowled and threw off his hat angrily, hurtling it to the ground. "You're some kind of a darned fool,"' he yelled. Robin just had time to catch the few words, and to observe the ferocious look on Duke's dark and handsome face as her horse moved by.

Then she was galloping away.

Chapter 13

The scenery flew by. Devil's long legs hit the sun-soaked ground beneath them, his long galloping strides covering great expanses of prairie. The sun was lower on the western horizon. The afternoon was well underway, but still promised several hours of welcome light. Robin rode to the south, away from the ranch, away from the direction of town, across the huge prairie that stretched out before her.

Her long blond hair was hanging freely, blowing out behind her as she rode on and on. After a while, her pace slowed, and a feeling of thoughtfulness came over Robin. Here, miles away from the problems that hovered like a spider's web over the ranch, it seemed easier to sort out her feelings, her ideas, her doubts.

It was hard to believe that such a short time ago, encased in a kind of personal vacuum that included only her saddening thoughts at the passing of her dear father, she had arrived to begin this new phase of her life. She had had no prior knowledge of these people that she had come to care about.

To love?
She pushed
the thoughts away
.
She had been no real part of their lives, nor they of hers. And yet, after her weeks of involvement, even with the fears and dangers and problems that she could not begin to understand, it was hard for her to remember the days before she had stepped off the bus in Hamilton to take her place here.

Her past seemed like a shadowy mist of distant memories. And her future? She had no idea. Sometimes it was almost as if a large closed door stood before her, a door behind which she would find the next phase of her life. The very thought of opening that door was enough to set her heart to thumping. Robin pushed the thought from her mind.

She focused on the present.

Her stomach began to knot. It was a horrible thought that someone could be planning to destroy you. But it had to be true. She had dived right in with her opinions about the murder and the need to clear up the anxieties on the ranch. Wasn't that the obvious motive? Someone had been benefitting from the lack of information that had come to light for five long years. Someone resented her arrival and involvement.

Alex? Somehow, even beyond the feelings that she had for him personally, she had trouble accepting him in the role of murderer. He hadn't fought the accident verdict, to be sure, but Robin instinctively felt that that was because he was worried about the information an investigation would bring to light.

Who would it incriminate? Butterflies again began to dance in her stomach. Mrs. Manchester had stated that she felt that Laura had been involved with someone in the time prior to her death. A lovers' quarrel? With someone from the ranch? From town? A friend? Even Herman? The thought seemed ludicrous. Still, he had been present at the time, and stranger things had happened in life, she supposed.

The twins had been fairly young at the time, but they were wild and headstrong children, practically born in the saddle. Could one of them have followed her onto the prairie that day, in anger and frustration with the family problems at the ranch? And would Alex go to any length, even to allow idle gossip to almost ruin all he had, just to protect them from the exposure? The thought was an unbelievable one, and she brushed it aside. Besides, Sara had been adamant about the so-called accident, telling Robin about the helmet, her doubts. It just couldn't have been the twins.

But who had wanted Laura out of the way? Deborah had been at the ranch, and now she openly admitted that she had plans for Alex Ridley. Had removing his wife been a part of the original plan? Here was an hypothesis that Robin could find easier to accept, she knew, but that held no more merit than the ones before it. Deborah had been Laura's long-time friend. And Deborah hadn't been at the ranch for Robin's first few "accidents" and couldn't even have known of her presence at the ranch, let alone have plotted the recent treacheries.

Or could she have? Robin remembered Cook's comment about Deborah's arrival two weeks ago. She had been seen in town as far back as that... and yet had not come to the ranch.

Had she heard somehow of what was going on at the Ridley house, and come to see for herself? If so, how did Deborah find out, and what did it mean to her?

The thought suddenly struck Robin that the events of the recent past might not be directly tied to Laura Ridley's death five years ago.

What if someone had a personal objection to her own presence at the ranch, someone not even connected to Laura's death?

Had Deborah heard of Robin's arrival and decided that she might be a threat to her scheming plans to snare Alex? Or had Herman more serious reasons, as her next of kin, for not informing her of her unexpected, large inheritance? He had arranged for her trip to Montana, for her job, far away from the legal advisers that had been trying to contact her. But he had not been here during her first attacks. Or had he?

She had tried to call him at the resort long before his arrival with Lisa, and had been unable to locate him. Had he, like Deborah, been in the vicinity for longer than he cared to have people know? It seemed unlikely.

As her thoughts went deeper and scattered in different uncomfortable directions, the peace that she had felt on the range slipped away from her.

Someone was guilty out here, of the recent almost deadly pranks, and also of Laura's death five years before. Someone who had taken and hidden that almost-forgotten English riding helmet that Sara had been sure her mother had been wearing. Robin was going to do her best to find that someone, and to finally clear the air so that the other innocent people who had been involved in the painful web of doubt and suspicions would be able to go on with their lives.

She had been lost in her thoughts for some time, the open vista passing by as she and Devil moved across its expanse at a comfortable pace. Suddenly she became aware of the time that had passed, of the sun sinking quickly in the western sky, casting its red and orange hues in a glorious pattern as far as the eye could see.