Teddi MacLane reined in her horse as she spotted the old blue pickup parked in front of the ranch house. She’d warned Vance not to come around again. What was it going to take to put that man behind her?
Swinging down from the saddle, she fought the urge to charge straight up to the house and confront him. But the sun had set. It would be dark soon and she wanted to take care of her horse before she saw Vance.
She knew she was just giving herself time to calm down. The last time she’d had a run-in with him was still fresh in her mind. At least this time it wouldn’t be in front of the entire town.
Cursing the man under her breath, she unsaddled her horse, imagining Vance sprawled in her rocker on the porch, his boots resting on the railing and that smirk on his face, the one that said he’d brought trouble with him. As usual. Vance Sheridan was her second worst mistake, one that she had more than lived to regret.
Her horse and tack put away, she walked toward the house, fighting to rope in her temper. She kicked a dirt clod with the toe of her boot as she rounded the corner of the house, shoving back her western hat, ready for a fight.
Vance wasn’t on the porch.
She shot a look toward his pickup; half expecting to find him slumped behind the wheel sleeping off an afternoon at the Roundup Bar.
But the pickup was empty.
She felt her anger simmer to a boil as she mounted the steps and saw that her front door was partially ajar. Vance had gone too far this time. She’d have his sorry behind thrown in jail. Or not, she thought, reminding herself who was sheriff.
No, she would take care of this herself. She’d been running this ranch by herself since her father died. She should be able to get rid of a no-good skunk like Vance Sheridan without any help. Especially since the man didn’t have the sense God gave a goose. Vance hadn’t even turned on a light, which meant he was probably asleep on her couch and had been for some time.
She stormed into the dark living room, fighting mad and caught a boot toe. Before she knew what was happening, she went sprawling face first onto the wood floor.
Stunned, she sat up, suddenly aware that the floor was wet, her hands sticky with something dark. She caught a whiff of a smell she knew and felt her heart take off at a gallop. As she glanced toward the open doorway, she saw what she’d tripped over.
Crab-crawling back to the wall she struggled to her feet, and fumbling, found the light switch. The overhead lights flashed on.
Vance Sheridan lay sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood. Beside him was her .45. And as she gazed down at her hands, she saw that she was now covered with his blood.
But she knew as bad as things looked, they were about to get worse as she staggered to the phone and called Sheriff Jake Rawlins—the last man on earth she wanted to see—especially with her soon-to-be ex-husband dead on her living room floor.
Teddi MacLane was sitting on the porch in the dark when Sheriff Jake Rawlins pulled into the ranch yard. The patrol car’s headlights swept across the front of the ranch house illuminating her huddled form in the rocker.
He parked off to one side of Vance Sheridan’s pickup, got out and, turning on his flashlight, trailed the beam across the yard and up the steps.
In the distance he heard the call of a coyote from the dense pines etched black against the midnight blue sky. Only a sliver of moon and a few stars hovered over the ranch in the chilly silence that followed.
Teddi didn’t glance up as he crossed the porch and stopped in front of her, his flashlight beam pointed at the porch floor. In the diffused light he could see that she was shivering, her hands clenched together around her knees. It wasn’t until she looked up that he saw how pale she was, how scared.
It was so out of character for Teddi that his first instinct was to gather her in his arms.
For just an instant he forgot this was the woman who’d broken his heart. The memory roped in any inclination he had to comfort her. That and the fact that he was the sheriff and from what he could see, Teddi MacLane was his number one suspect.
Their eyes locked. Something flickered in all that blue. Regret? Or was it only fear? He tried not to read anything into it. Just as he tried not to imagine how different things would have been if she hadn’t run off with Vance Sheridan.
Jake had gotten over the shock. But he was still dealing with the hurt and anger. Seeing her now made him realize he needed to keep working on both.
“Took you long enough to get here,” she said, going on the offensive. That was Teddi—always coming out fightin’.
Not that she had the right. If anyone should be angry here it was him—not the other way around. She’d made her choice. And lived with it—for a few months anyway.
Jake had heard that she’d kicked Vance out and filed for divorce, but that didn’t mean she still hadn’t loved the damned fool cowboy. Nor did it mean she hadn’t killed him, Jake thought, hoping with all his heart this didn’t turn out to be a crime of passion.
With Teddi, he’d never known what to expect. It was why he’d fallen in love with her. But it was probably also why he’d let her get away.
“I was on the other side of the county,” he said, trying to hide his irritation as he pulled out his notebook and pen. “Why don’t you tell me what happened here.”
“I have no idea what happened. I came back from a horseback ride to find his pickup in my yard and him dead on my living room floor.”
“You touch anything?”
She gave him a withering look and held up her blood-encrusted hands. “I fell over him. Does that answer your question?”
He gave her a long hard look, then made a few notes before he asked, “You see or hear anyone leave as you were returning?”
She shook her head and he thought he saw tears. She had to know how bad this looked for her given that she’d threatened to kill Vance last week in front of a dozen witnesses—himself included.
“Anything you want to tell me before I take a look at the body?” he asked.
Her defiant gaze came up to meet his. “Why don’t you just ask me straight out, Jake, if I killed him?”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“If Vance came out here to threaten you…” He knew he was offering her a way out while at the same time praying she didn’t take it.
“It wasn’t self defense,” she said irritably. “I didn’t shoot him. I wanted to. But I didn’t.”
He nodded, not convinced. At one time, he’d thought he knew her but he was no longer sure about that. He could feel the distance between them, wide as the Montana wilderness.
“There is one thing you should know,” she said and seemed to hesitate. “Whoever shot him used my gun so there’s a good chance my prints will be on the murder weapon.”
Great. That explained the fear. “Where did you keep the gun?”
“Where it always is. On top of the cabinet by the door.”
“Loaded?”
“Wouldn’t be much good if it wasn’t.”
“What about Vance? Did he know where it was?”
“I’m sure he did,” she said, her gaze locking with his. “I believe I took it down the day I asked Vance to leave.”
“You threatened him with it?” Jake asked with a groan.
“I believe it was more like a promise.”
“Anyone else know about the gun?”
“Everyone knew. Even you as I recall.”
He watched her hug her knees tighter to her chest to hide the fact that she was trembling.
“Stay here,” he said, then softening, he took off his jacket and laid it over her shoulders.
She stiffened at his touch, but drew the jacket around her. “Thanks.”
He nodded and stepped towards the door, his boot soles echoing across the porch. The door was ajar, a sliver of light spilling out onto the worn boards.
With a gloved finger, he pushed the door all the way open. Vance Sheridan lay on his back on the floor, with what appeared to be three distinct bullet holes in his chest.
Past the body, Jake could see where Teddi had fallen and slid through the blood pool. There were tracks to the wall, a smear on the light switch plate and more blood nearby on the phone.
He carefully stepped around the body. The .45 was lying a few feet away where it had apparently been dropped. Too far away to have been a suicide. Not that Vance would have shot himself once let alone three times.
If Teddi had killed Vance, would she have just left the gun lying on the floor next to the body? She would have been upset and anyone who watched TV knew the slugs could be traced back to the gun, so maybe she would have.
Jake turned at a sound behind him. Teddi was standing in the doorway, his coat draped over her shoulders. He should have known she wouldn’t do what he’d told her to. She’d quit listening to him a long time ago.
She still looked pale but her back was steel-rod straight, that angry defiant look on her face. He was glad to see that she wasn’t going to fall apart on him. But then he would have expected nothing less from her.
Behind her, the flashing lights of the coroner’s van appeared on the road along with the lonely wail of the siren.
“You do realize that whoever killed him is hoping I take the fall, don’t you?” she asked.
It definitely looked that way. That is, if you believed that Teddi hadn’t killed her almost ex-husband, which was exactly what Jake wanted to believe.
But if someone was framing her, she’d certainly done a good job of making it easy for them after threatening to kill Vance in front of a bunch of witnesses. He kept this thought to himself, though.
He didn’t need to tell Teddi that she was in a world of trouble. Unless he could find a person with a better motive and opportunity than hers, she could be facing murder charges.
“Was Vance living here?” he asked.
She mugged a face at him. “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear that I’d thrown him out and filed for divorce.”
“I’m just doing my job. I have to ask.” Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.
“It must have made your day when you heard,” she said, her voice breaking.
“I never wanted to see you unhappy.”
She smiled at that, her gaze challenging. He’d had his chance to marry her but he’d dragged his feet and this is what it had gotten him. Gotten them both.
He looked down at his notebook. “Did you invite Vance out to the ranch, maybe to discuss something?”
“There was nothing to discuss,” she said. “He knew better than to come out here. I’d told him if I caught him out here, I’d shoot him.”
He looked up from his notebook.
“Oh for cryin’ out loud,” she snapped. “It’s just an expression.”
“What was Vance doing here?”
“I have no idea.”
“Any idea who might have wanted him dead?”
“Besides most anyone who knew him?”
He felt himself getting even more irritated with her. He’d thought it would be good for them to date other people, to make sure before their relationship went any further. After all, they’d been dating since they were in high school. She was the one who’d decided to get married out of the blue. And to Vance Sheridan. Like it was his fault it hadn’t worked out.
“What about the door? Was it locked?”
She gave him another impatient look. “Who do you know in this part of Montana who locks his doors? Anyway, if someone needs something I own bad enough, I’d prefer they not break a window to get it.”
“So your front door wasn’t locked?” he repeated, pen poised over his notebook.
“What do you think?”
“Dang it, Teddi. Just answer the darned question.”
“What’s the point? You’re just looking for something that will get me sent to prison. It’s what I deserve, right? I was stupid enough to marry Vance.”
He looked off the end of the porch to the mountains and the tall silky green pines for a moment before turning back to her. The night air was cool, the breeze stirred the loose hair at her temple. She had a smudge of dirt on one cheek and smelled of horse leather. She couldn’t have looked more beautiful.
“I’m trying to find out who killed Vance but I need your help,” he said. “I know you’re not telling me everything.”
She got that stubborn look on her face that he knew too well. “I don’t know who killed him. I didn’t invite him out here.”
He knew she was holding something back. But getting it out of her was another matter. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“Last week. Wednesday.” Her eyes were on him again. “You should recall. You were at the Roundup when I threatened to kill him.”
“That’s the last time you saw him?”
She nodded.
The coroner’s van pulled up in the ranch yard, the whine of the siren dying away into the night.
“I’m going to need you to come down to the office and make a statement,” he said. “We’ll also be checking for any gunpowder residue.”
“Fine. Just get him out of my house.”
“You can’t stay here tonight, Teddi. This is a crime scene.”
“I’m not leaving the ranch and unless you plan to arrest me—”
Jake groaned. “You can stay in the bunkhouse. I’ll have a deputy camp out nearby to protect the crime scene.”
Teddi moved down the porch as the coroner and two assistants got out of his van. Like a lot of coroners in the small towns across Montana, A.J. Hanover was also the local doctor.
He climbed the steps, tipping his hat to her, brows furrowed. She didn’t doubt that word had traveled like wildfire through the county about Vance’s murder. She’d bet the cowboys at the Roundup Bar and Grill were taking bets as to whether or not she killed him.
Anyone who knew Vance knew she had motive.
She stayed out of the way as the sheriff went to his patrol car for his camera. She tried not to watch what was happening inside her house, ignoring the occasional flash as photos were taken. Each time, she was reminded of the scene she’d tripped over. Vance dead. She could believe that someone would want to kill him. It was harder for her to accept her lack of reaction to his death—other than fear that Jake believed she’d killed him.
Standing in the cool darkness of the porch, she looked up at the stars. Dozens had come out. She used to try to count them when she was a girl. A sliver of moon hung just over the mountains. The scene looked surreal as if she hadn’t stood on this very spot and looked out at this landscape all her life.
But she’d never had a dead body lying in her living room before.
“Cause of death appears to be a gunshot to the heart,” she heard the coroner tell the sheriff. “The gunpowder and burns on his shirt would indicate he was shot at close range.”
“You think he knew his killer?” Jake asked quietly.
She didn’t need to hear the answer. She’d seen enough to know how much trouble she was in—especially with Sheriff Jake Rawlins investigating the murder.
What had Vance been doing here? Waiting for her? No, he would know she’d gone for a horseback ride. She was a creature of habit and even Vance knew that much about her. Was it possible he had planned to meet someone at her house, knowing she would be gone?
Another patrol car came up the road. Two deputies she knew got out, tipped their hats to her and went inside. Jake came out but said nothing. She watched him walk down to her barn. Of course he would check out her story. The sheriff no longer trusted her.
A few minutes later, the coroner and deputies brought out the body, clad in a black bag on a stretcher. She saw Jake come back from the barn and studied his expression as he climbed the porch stairs. He’d found her horse and tack. It would still be damp from her long ride earlier. At least this he would believe.
Unfortunately it didn’t give her an alibi. She could have come back earlier than she said and killed Vance, then called the sheriff. She could even have staged falling over him. But what fool would use her own gun and leave it on the floor next to the body?
Someone smart, she thought. Someone much smarter than her.
Jake had brought Teddi back from town after getting her sworn statement and checking her clothing and skin for gunpowder residue. Small amounts had been found, but could be accounted for when she fell over the body.
Teddi hadn’t said anything on the drive out to the ranch or when they’d arrived. She’d gone straight to the bunkhouse, leaving him with the deputy and the crime scene.
He couldn’t do much until tomorrow, but he was too restless to go home. He turned at the sound of a vehicle coming up the ranch road way too fast. With a groan, he recognized the rig.
“Where is she?” Molly Price demanded after coming to a dust-boiling stop in the front yard.
Jake could have reminded her that this was a crime scene but he knew he would be wasting his breath. “She’s staying in the bunkhouse.”
“Don’t even try to stop me from seeing her,” she said as she got out of her pickup.
He wouldn’t dream of it. Especially since he knew Teddi needed her best friend right now.
“If you think she killed Vance you’re even dumber than I thought.”
Jake knew only too well what Molly thought. She wasn’t one to hold back her feelings. She and Teddi had that in common. But he hadn’t needed Molly to tell him what a fool he’d been to let Teddi go.
“The evidence will decide who killed Vance,” he said, hating how pompous he sounded.
Molly snorted and said something under her breath he was glad he didn’t catch as she headed for the bunkhouse.
Teddi was relieved to open the door and find Molly on the steps.
“This stinks,” Molly said and hugged her.
That pretty much covered it, Teddi thought as Molly stepped back from the hug to study her.
“You all right?”
Teddi nodded.
“I heard you found Vance.”
Amazing how quickly news traveled in small-town Montana.
“He was killed with my gun,” Teddi said as they stepped inside to sit down.
Molly groaned. “The one you kept by the door. Everyone knew about that gun, including Vance.”
“But I’m not sure he knew it was loaded,” Teddi said. “When I threatened him with it, he didn’t take it very seriously.”
Molly laughed. “That was Vance. Not real bright.”
“I was the one who wasn’t real bright marrying him. What was I thinking?”
“You were thinking it would make Jake Rawlins come to his senses.”
Teddi looked at her friend. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Isn’t it, though.”
“I’ve made so many mistakes,” Teddi said with a sigh.
“It’s not your fault. It’s that Jake Rawlins. If he was half a man—” Molly stopped abruptly as Teddi burst into laughter. “What’s so funny?”
“That you’re sitting here blaming Jake.”
“He let you marry Vance.”
“As if he could have stopped me.” Teddi shook her head. “I’m the one who hurt Jake, not the other way around.”
“Jake didn’t even put up a decent fight for you,” Molly declared with a snort. “I could kick his backside from here to North Dakota.”
Teddi laughed again. “I’m so glad you’re here. I am a little surprised though that Jake let you through.”
“Like he could stop me, either.”
Jake could have stopped her but he hadn’t. Had he known how much she needed her best friend?
“You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”
Teddi didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. She couldn’t hide her true heart from her friend. “I hurt him.”
“Jake hurt you. He’s the one who should have asked you to marry him. He had his chance. He blew it.”
“He wasn’t ready to get married.” She got up and walked to the window. The lights were on in the house, Jake’s patrol car parked outside alongside the deputy’s. That little voice in her head whispered the words she’d feared, words that made her chest ache so badly she could barely breathe.
Jake hadn’t loved her enough. Not enough to marry her. Not enough to keep her from marrying Vance. Just plain not enough.
The thought pierced her heart like the tip of a blade.
Molly rose and joined her at the window. “Feet of clay,” she muttered as Jake came out of the ranch house. “He hates himself for losing you, you know. That’s what makes him so irascible.”
Teddi smiled, loving her friend for trying to make her feel better. But Teddi knew Jake. His pride would never let him forgive her. She’d destroyed any chance they had. She’d done it as intentionally as whoever had shot Vance three times in the chest at close range.
Vance Sheridan had been staying at a rundown motel on the edge of town since he and Teddi had split up.
As Jake drove out to the motel the next morning, he recalled the day he’d heard about the breakup and impending divorce. Teddi was right, as much as he hated to admit it, he’d been glad. He’d wanted her marriage to fail. He’d wanted her to realize how wrong she’d been to marry Vance. It gave him little satisfaction to know how petty and bitter he’d been. How petty and bitter he could still be.
The owner of the motel was waiting for him in front of unit number eight. “Not much to see,” Carl Brainerd said as he unlocked the room.
Brainerd was right. Vance didn’t have much to show for his twenty-nine years on earth let alone his six-month marriage to Teddi.
All of his belongings apparently fit into two large suitcases. Both were lying open on the floor next to his bed in the corner of the motel room.
Jake looked through both suitcases, checked the bathroom medicine cabinet for anything of interest and then dug through dirty takeout containers and empty beer cans piled on the nightstands.
He found the receipt under the cardboard of an empty six-pack of beer. Apparently Vance had purchased a dozen red roses the morning before he died.
Had Vance thought he could get Teddi back with a dozen roses? Jake scoffed at the idea. For starters, she would have preferred a surprise moonlight horseback ride or an impromptu picnic by the creek. At least the woman Jake thought he’d known would have.
He tried to remember if he’d seen any flowers at the murder scene. But then he hadn’t been looking for any.
He found another receipt in the cluttered motel room. This one was from a jewelry store and also from the morning of Vance Sheridan’s death.
Jake started with the flower shop. Mabel Harper remembered selling Vance the dozen roses.
“He stood over there and wrote something on a card, put it in one of the envelopes then said he’d be taking the flowers with him. And no, I didn’t see what he wrote.”
“How did he pay for the roses?” A dozen roses weren’t cheap and word around town was that Vance was broke, it was one reason he was trying to get Teddi to take him back.
“Credit card,” Mabel said one eyebrow arching up.
“Who’s name was on the card?”
“Vance Sheridan. But I suspected something was wrong even though the card went through so I called Teddi.”
Jake knew what was coming.
“Teddi had no idea Mr. Sheridan had gotten a card using her good credit—and had it billed to her.”
“Let me guess,” Jake said. “Teddi threw a fit.”
Mabel nodded. “I don’t blame her a bit for shooting the man.”
“We don’t know who shot him,” Jake said with an inward groan. “The murder is still under investigation.”
“Still, I think it was in her right to shoot him.”
He figured Mabel wasn’t alone in believing that Teddi killed Vance. As he left, he wondered if Teddi had realized right away that the marriage was a mistake but just hadn’t been able to admit it.
At the jewelry store, he got the same story. Vance had bought a pair of diamond earrings, paid with the same credit card which apparently Teddi hadn’t been able to cancel yet. The clerk had called Teddi with the same results.
It angered him that Vance thought he could get Teddi back with diamond earrings. Didn’t the man know that Teddi would have preferred a new western hat or a pair of fancy boots? Obviously not.
Upon inquiry, Jake learned that Vance had left the jewelry store and gone across the street to the Roundup Bar and Grill. It wasn’t surprising to hear that Vance had been drinking before he was killed.
Jake walked over to the Roundup. Several of the regulars Vance drank with were sitting at the bar.
“Were any of you here yesterday when Vance came in?”
One of the guys, Al Knox, nodded.
“Can you tell me how long he was here?”
Knox shrugged. “He had a few beers then left after the second phone call.”
“Phone call?”
The men exchanged glances.
“Teddi called him. I could hear her yelling. Vance was laughing. Seems he’d used her credit card to buy a few things and she found out.”
Jake could feel the evidence against Teddi piling up like a snowbank in winter. “And the second call?”
“She called back. Couldn’t hear her that time.”
“How do you know the second call was from Teddi?”
Al shrugged again. “Vance said it was her when he hung up. Said she needed to see him. Planned to settle up with him. Vance was pretty happy since he was into Leroy Barrows for quite a lot of money from a poker game the night before.”
Was this what Teddi had been holding back? Or was there even more incriminating evidence he was going to find?
As he drove out toward her ranch, he couldn’t help but be angry with her for not telling him about the credit card and the call to Vance at the Roundup. And where were the roses and diamond earrings Vance had bought her?
Since they weren’t found in Vance’s truck or his motel room, Teddi must still have them. The diamond earrings would incriminate her since Vance had bought them that morning. If Teddi had the earrings, then she had seen Vance yesterday —the day he died.
It would mean she’d lied about that, he thought with a curse. And probably lied about killing Vance as well.
Teddi came out of the bunkhouse as he parked and got out of his rig. She wore jeans, boots and a pale blue western shirt with silver snaps. Her blond hair was pulled up into a ponytail, her western straw hat pulled low to block the sun. Or to hide her expressive blue eyes from him?
“Sheriff,” she said by way of greeting.
“Mrs. Sheridan.”
She bristled, just as he knew she would. “I hope we can keep this short. I have a ranch to run.” Teddi had been single-handedly running the ranch since her father had died and was as independent as any woman he’d ever known.
As much as he’d loved her, he’d never felt as if she’d needed him. Another reason he hadn’t married her when he’d had the chance?
“You won’t have a ranch to worry about much longer if you don’t start telling me the truth,” he said unable to hide his anger. “Why didn’t you tell me Vance used a credit card yesterday morning that was billed to you? Also that you threatened to kill him when you heard?”
“It seemed repetitious since I’ve threatened that so many times, don’t you think?” she asked sarcastically. “Have you come out here to arrest me?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you called Vance at the bar yesterday?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t think it was important.”
“I have a witness who says you invited Vance out to the ranch.”
“That’s not true.”
“You didn’t call him back after the first call and say you would settle with him?”
She laughed. “What do you think?” she asked cocking her head to one side to grin at him. “Like I could have given him a dime. Over his dead body.”
“That’s exactly what worries me. You didn’t get him out here?”
“I just told you I didn’t,” she snapped.
He glanced toward the house where the yellow crime scene tape was still baring the front door. “I need to know what happened to the gifts he gave you.”
When she didn’t answer, he shifted his gaze back to her and saw the high color in her cheeks, the shine of anger and pain in her eyes, and realized what a damned fool he was.
While he’d been taking satisfaction in the fact that he knew Teddi better than her husband, he’d completely missed it.
“He didn’t give you the gifts.” Jake swore under his breath. He wouldn’t have blamed Teddi for killing Vance at that moment. “Do you have any idea who—”
“No,” she said turning away. “I didn’t care. I just didn’t want to be footing the bill for him to romance some other woman.”
Did she really not care? Jake had been a sheriff long enough to know that for a woman to shoot a man three times at close range she cared. She cared way too much.
To make matters worse, it appeared Vance had known his killer well enough to let the person get very close—and with a loaded gun. All the evidence pointed to a woman—and a crime of passion. All the evidence pointed to Teddi.
Teddi had known Jake would find out. Her face flamed with embarrassment as she watched him drive away. It wasn’t bad enough that she’d married a penniless rodeo cowboy but she’d wed a no-account cheating one who was going to get her sent to prison for his murder.
And to think she’d actually thought marrying Vance was the safe thing to do. She’d known he could never break her heart. He could hurt her. He’d proven that. But as for heartbreak, well Vance hadn’t had what it took—unlike Jake.
She grabbed her purse and keys. It was high time she did something to help herself. As it stood, her life was in Jake Rawlins’ hands. The one man who she feared would love to see her go to prison.
“Who was Vance seeing?” Teddi asked a few minutes later as she slid onto a stool at the Roundup Bar.
Molly glanced up from cutting slices of lemon and grimaced. “Honey, you don’t want to do this.”
“No, I don’t. But someone was angry enough at Vance to kill him. I’m putting my money on some woman he wronged.”
Molly nodded solemnly. “I just know what I hear.”
The curse of a bar owner.
Her friend seemed to brace herself as if Teddi wasn’t going to like it. “Lana Morgan.”
Teddi didn’t think she was capable of feeling anything but numb after everything that had happened. But she was wrong. The name hit her like a punch in the stomach. Lana Morgan. “Ouch.”
“You want me to go with you?”
“No,” she said sliding off the bar stool. “My humiliation doesn’t need an audience, but thanks for the offer.”
“With the way Lana feels about you, you might want a backup,” Molly said. “I can still throw a nasty left hook.”
Teddi laughed, remembering how it had always been Teddi and Molly against Lana and her group of popular girls in high school.
“It could get ugly,” Molly said.
Teddi couldn’t imagine things getting any uglier than they already were as she drove out to Lana’s place, an old farmhouse, just down the road from her own.
She parked when she saw Lana’s SUV parked out front. Bracing herself for what she knew wouldn’t be pretty, she got out. She’d known Lana since grade school. They’d competed against each other for grades, rodeo prizes, scholarships and boys. One of those boys had been Jake.
Teddi hadn’t taken a step away from her car when she heard a vehicle pull up and turned as a patrol car roared up. Sheriff Jake Rawlins scowled at her from behind the wheel.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.
“Visiting a sick friend,” she shot back. The woman had to be sick if she thought going after Vance was going to hurt Teddi.
Jake pulled off his hat and raked a hand through his thick hair. “If I was smart, I’d throw you in jail for your own protection.”
“I didn’t know it was against the law to visit my not-quite-ex-husband’s girlfriend,” she said standing her ground.
“This is a murder investigation, Teddi.”
“I’m more than aware of that,” she snapped back.
They both turned at the sound of a door opening. “I wish someone had told me there was going to be a party,” Lana said from the porch. “I would have dressed up.” She wore jeans and an over-sized man’s shirt—one of Vance’s that Teddi had bought him, Teddi noted.
“Teddi was just leaving,” Jake said.
“Sorry,” Teddi said, “But I need to talk to Lana. So unless you plan to arrest me…”
Lana had stepped to the edge of the porch and was watching with obvious amusement. “You two going to fight over me? This ought to be good.”
“You are only hurting your case by being here, don’t you know that?” Jake whispered.
“I’m not sitting back and going to prison for a crime I didn’t commit, Sheriff,” she hissed back. “Arrest me or leave me alone.”
The radio in his patrol car squawked. He cursed under his breath and reached to answer the call. He listened for an instant before turning to Teddi. “I’ll be back. Don’t kill anyone while I’m gone.” With that, he drove off, his tires throwing up a cloud of dust.
“You really have a way with men,” Lana commented. “What do you want?”
Teddi walked over to the porch. “I came about Vance.”
“What about him?” Lana asked with a smirk.
“For starters,” she said as she stepped past the woman onto the porch and through the doorway into the living room, “where are the gifts he gave you?”
“Hey!” Lana hollered behind her. “Get out of my house.”
Teddi sniffed the air, expecting the strong sweet fragrance of a dozen roses. She turned, frowning, to look at Lana who stood in the doorway. “You were so mad at him you didn’t even keep the roses? You must have been furious enough to kill him.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
But Teddi didn’t catch the rest of it. She pushed past, descending the porch steps and making a beeline to the trash container waiting on the curb.
“I’m calling the sheriff!” Lana yelled after her as Teddi lifted the lid.
Blood red rose petals and broken stems were crushed into the trash. Teddi turned to look back at Lana Morgan, who stood on the porch with her cell phone in her hand and a stricken look on her face.
“Don’t bother to call Jake,” Teddi said as she looked up to see a familiar patrol car headed their way again. “Here he comes now.”
“I told you, I don’t know anything about any diamond earrings,” Lana said irritably.
Once Jake had seen the destroyed roses, Teddi had demanded to know what Lana had done with the other gift and with just the mention of diamond earrings, it had become clear from Lana’s angry reaction that she hadn’t been the recipient.
Jake had insisted Teddi leave and he took the now furious Lana inside to question her. “If Vance didn’t give you the other gift and he didn’t give them to Teddi…”
“I could care less what happened to them,” Lana said scowling at him. “Apparently, he gave them to someone else. And no, I wouldn’t know who that would be.”
Jake thought he saw a slight change in her expression. “A name come to mind?”
Lana wet her lips. “I saw him talking to a woman one night outside the Roundup. It was too dark to see who and they were both gone when I drove back past.” She realized she’d given herself away. “I was curious, all right?”
Or she was already starting to get suspicious of Vance. And angry like she was now.
“You ask him about it?” Jake knew she had.
“He said he couldn’t remember, then said it was probably Molly. He said she was giving him a hard time about Teddi.”
Molly? Jake didn’t like the sound of that, especially given how protective Molly was of Teddi.
“Why don’t you tell me about the roses?” he said.
“What’s to tell? Vance said he was going back to his wife—that Teddi was taking him back.”
Jake noticed the discrepancy. Teddi was taking him back? Al Knox had said she was settling with him. “He told you this where?”
“I ran into him as he was leaving the bar.”
Checking up on Vance again, Jake wondered.
“He told me Teddi had called and was taking him back.”
“And the roses?” Jake asked.
“Apparently they were a consolation prize.” She met his gaze. “I never did like taking second place.”
Jake couldn’t have missed her meaning. He’d made the mistake of taking Lana out after Teddi had married Vance. He’d known Teddi would hear about it. When he hadn’t called Lana again, he’d gotten a sample of her anger.
So how mad would she have been if she’d found out that she wasn’t even second, or even maybe third or fourth? And what if she’d known about the earrings? Found out that while she got roses, some other woman was getting diamonds?
Of course there was always the chance that Vance decided to give the earrings to Teddi as a peace offering, only someone killed him and took the diamond earrings before Teddi returned to the ranch house. A long shot at best.
What if Lana had followed Vance?
“You must have been pretty mad at Vance.”
“If you think you can use me to get Teddi off, think again. I wouldn’t have wasted a bullet on Vance. Let alone three.”
“Who told you he’d been shot three times?” Jake asked.
Lana laughed. “Everyone in town knows. They also know who killed him. Teddi MacLane.”
“Where were you yesterday afternoon?” he asked.
“Here. Alone.”
“Did anyone see you? Anyone call who can verify that?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t know I was going to need an alibi.”
He recalled seeing the empty quart container of chocolate mint ice cream in the trash as well several empty boxes of chocolates and dozens of used tissues mixed in with the demolished roses.
He had a pretty good idea of how Lana had spent her afternoon. But had she sat here wallowing in self pity until she was so angry she could kill Vance? Her place was only a short distance from Teddi’s ranch. She could even have gone there by horseback.
“I’d like to see the clothing you were wearing yesterday,” he said.
“Sorry, I threw it in the wash this morning. I didn’t know you’d be interested.”
Right. “I don’t have to tell you not to leave town, do I?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Vance was seeing someone else,” Teddi told Molly as they talked quietly at the end of the bar. The place was pretty quiet this afternoon. Some of the regulars were at the other end of the bar and a young couple was playing pool while a country western song played on the jukebox.
Why did every country western song remind her of Jake?
“I have no idea who else it might have been, seriously,” Molly said. “It was no secret he was seeing Lana. But if there was someone else, he sure didn’t let on, which is strange. He liked to brag to the guys.”
Teddi just bet he did. Vance was as subtle as a bulldozer. So why keep this other woman a secret?
Hap Ryerson’s pickup wasn’t parked outside the Roundup Bar and Grill, something that surprised the sheriff as he drove on down the road to find Hap at home.
Hap Ryerson was a rancher’s son who’d never done much ranching. After his father had turned over the place to him, Hap had sold off most of the land, leased the rest and become a regular at the Roundup Bar—something that hadn’t pleased Hap’s wife, Sarah.
And at the Roundup, Hap was considered Vance Sheridan’s closest drinking buddy.
As Jake parked and went to the door, he thought about two weeks ago when he had to come out here on a domestic disturbance call. Hap had a bad habit of getting drunk and coming home looking for trouble. Unfortunately, his wife Sarah would never press charges.
When Hap opened the door to Jake’s knock, he didn’t look any happier to see him this time than last.
“What brings you out this way, Sheriff?” Hap asked, blocking the doorway.
Jake pulled off his hat. “Mind if I come in, Hap? I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Hap was big and blond. He’d been a lady killer in high school when he’d been a star on the football team. “About what?”
Sarah Ryerson appeared in the hallway behind Hap. She was as dark haired as Hap was blond. The two had been high school sweethearts.
“I need to talk to you about Vance Sheridan’s murder,” Jake said and caught Sarah’s worried expression since Hap still hadn’t moved. “I could come back with a warrant if you like.”
“Can’t imagine how I can help you but come on in,” Hap said with obvious reluctance.
“Hello, Sarah,” Jake said.
“Sheriff. If the two of you will excuse me, I have to see to my baking in the kitchen.” She scurried off, but not before Jake had seen the black eye she’d tried to hide under a ton of makeup.
Hap led him into the living room. Jake caught a whiff of what smelled like brownies baking in the kitchen. He would have loved to have arrested Hap on domestic abuse but Sarah had insisted the single call was a mistake. No way would she have pressed charges. And there hadn’t been another call since. Jake knew if he asked her about her eye, she would lie. He’d seen enough of these kinds of cases to know that wives often covered for their husbands – just as they covered up their injuries.
“When was the last time you saw Vance?” Jake asked, taking out his notebook and pen.
“The day he died,” Hap said. “I was sitting right next to him at the bar when he got the calls. Teddi called yelling at him, then must have calmed down some because she called right back.”
“You’re sure it was Teddi who called the second time?”
“Vance ought to know his own wife’s voice, don’t you think? Why would he lie?”
Probably for the same reason Vance would cheat on Teddi. The man was a fool.
“Tell me what you heard of the phone call.”
Hap shrugged. “I had to go to the john but when I came back Vance was all smiles. Said Teddi had finally come around. She was going to settle up with him and that he was going out to get what he deserved.”
Pretty much what Al Knox had told Jake.
“Were you at the card game the night before?” Jake asked. “I heard Vance lost to Leroy Barrows.”
Hap nodded. “Vance planned to pay Leroy when he settled with Teddi.”
“Vance couldn’t have expected to get much given that he and Teddi were only married six months.”
Hap shrugged. “All I know is that Vance needed that money. He was into Leroy pretty deep.”
Motive. Leroy had to know that he’d never see that money. Jake felt like he’d gotten his first possible break in the case.
Jake found Teddi sitting on the bunkhouse steps, staring up at the clouds.
Without a word he sat down beside her. The afternoon was warm. A faint breeze carried the sweet earthy scent of pine down from the mountains around them.
“I was scared of marriage,” he said.
She glanced over him.
“I realized what a fool I’d been the moment I heard about you and Vance but by then…”
“It was too late,” she finished for him. “I’d run off and married Vance.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” she said quietly next to him and went back to staring up at the clouds.
He studied her. Her face was lit from the sun and an inner light that never seemed to dim. Just the sight of her filled him with so much regret he ached.
He cleared his throat. “If you’re worried about going to prison for Vance’s murder…”
She brushed that off with a wave of her hand. “I know you’d never let me go to prison for a crime I didn’t commit.”
He chuckled at that.
She glanced over at him, her blue eyes large and liquid. “You’re just not that kind of man.”
What kind of man was he that he’d let this woman slip through his fingers? He could hear the crickets chirping in the nearby bushes, feel the sun warm his face, smell the rich scent of freshly cut hay.
He rose to his feet. “I’ll find Vance’s killer.”
She smiled up at him. “I never doubted it.”
He grinned, knowing that was a lie. He left her sitting there. As the sun dipped behind the mountains, an owl hooted from its roost by the barn. It was the loneliest sound he’d ever heard.
Jake got the call as he was heading back to town.
“Thought you’d want to know right away. Your victim had gunpowder burns on his hands.”
“Which would indicate that he shot himself?”
“Or that he struggled with his killer for the gun.”
Jake rubbed a hand over his face and swore under his breath. He’d been under the assumption that Vance was killed by a woman. But Vance was big and strong. It would have taken a man to wrestle the gun away from Vance and pump three shots into him.
Unfortunately, Leroy Barrows, the man Vance owed money to, was a slight man. He couldn’t have put up much of a fight against Vance Sheridan.
“Which means I’ve been going at this all wrong,” Jake said to himself as he hung up.
Vance had used a credit card billed to Teddi to buy diamond earrings. If Teddi hadn’t called him and offered to settle, then Vance would know after the first phone call at the bar that she’d cancelled the card.
He needed money. Was it possible he had planned to give Teddi the diamond earrings as a peace offering but realizing that wasn’t going to work, wouldn’t he try to turn them into cash?
It seemed like a reasonable assumption.
There wasn’t a pawn shop in town, but there were two in shops in the next largest town. Jake stopped by the jewelry store to borrow a pair of earrings comparable to the ones Vance had purchased.
No luck at the first pawn shop and Jake was beginning to question his theory when the owner of the second pawn shop recognized the diamond earrings.
“They weren’t pawned,” the elderly owner informed him. “Sold them outright. You’d think they were blood diamonds the way she wanted to get rid of them,” he said with a chuckle that told Jake the pawn shop owner had gotten a deal on them.
“She?”
“A pretty little thing. Long dark hair, big brown eyes. Cute as she could be. I just assumed she wanted the money so she could leave the guy who gave her the shiner,” the pawnbroker said.
Jake swore under his breath. He could see where the pawn shop owner might jump to that assumption but the sheriff knew that wasn’t the case.
Sarah Ryerson had gotten rid of the diamond earrings to protect her husband.
Teddi was too restless to sit still. Earlier, she’d come home and done chores, feeling frustrated and helpless. She had no idea who else Vance might have been seeing.
But it kept her mind off thinking about Jake and what he’d said when he’d come out to see her.
Grabbing her hat, she headed for the barn. The only thing that would settle her down was a ride.
She had just started to saddle her horse when she heard a vehicle pull in the ranch yard. Had Jake come back?
She put down the saddle and started toward the door of the barn.
But before she could reach it, the doorway filled with the dark silhouette of a man. This man was stockier, thicker at the middle. Not Jake.
She stopped, sensing something wrong.
“Hap?” Teddi said as Hap Ryerson stepped into the light.
She knew the man although she didn’t think they’d spoken more than a dozen words to each other over the years. He’d been two years ahead of her in school, popular, a football star and dated the prettiest, most popular girl—Sarah Collins. Sarah and Lana Morgan had been best friends.
Since then, Teddi knew that Hap had become a regular at the Roundup Bar and even more recently, he’d become Vance’s best buddy.
Molly didn’t have much regard for Hap and from what Teddi had heard through the grapevine, neither did anyone else in town. Pine Creek was a working community and Hap didn’t work.
“Something I can help you with?” she asked, trying to imagine what Hap was doing here. Something in the way he was just standing though put her on guard.
“If this is about Vance…” she said feeling her unease grow as Hap stepped deeper into the barn.
But it wasn’t until Hap moved closer and she saw the expression on his face that her fear spiked and she knew she was in terrible trouble.
Hap Ryerson’s pickup wasn’t at the Roundup Bar. Nor was it parked in front of the house as Jake got out of his patrol car.
All the color drained from Sarah Ryerson’s face as she opened the door to him. Her black eye was now turning yellow at one corner under her makeup.
“Sheriff,” she said but didn’t invite him in.
“We need to talk about Vance Sheridan.”
Sarah Ryerson seemed to shrink before his eyes. He glanced around as if someone might hear. “Come in.”
The house was cool and dim. She dropped in a chair across from him, her head down. “You have the wrong idea.”
“Why don’t you straighten me out then?”
“We weren’t having an affair.”
“But Hap thought you were.”
She nodded miserably. “It’s all my fault. I was flattered by the attention and Hap—“ She waved a hand through the air.
And Hap was at the bar all the time, coming home drunk and mean. Jake got that part.
“Vance gave you diamond earrings.”
“They were just a present. He knew I wasn’t happy and he thought…” She looked up at Jake, tears in her eyes. “He was kind to me. It wasn’t as if he expected anything in return.”
Jake wondered if the woman was really that naïve. “Hap found out?”
“He doesn’t know about the earrings, I got rid of them, but he came home early from the Roundup and saw Vance driving off.”
“That’s when he gave you the black eye.”
She touched the corner of her eye, ducking her head again. “Hap was sorry.”
They always were. Until the next time. “Where is your husband now?”
“He said he was going by the Roundup to have a drink.”
Jake called the Roundup Bar as soon as he reached his car. “Have you seen Hap Ryerson?” he asked when Molly answered.
“He was in earlier, throwing down drinks like there was no tomorrow. I was about to cut him off when he just up and left.”
“Any idea where he went?”
“Nope, but he was upset about something. He left a full beer on the bar. That’s not like Hap,” Molly said.
Jake hung up and called Teddi’s number. The phone rang four times before voice mail picked up. He left a message. “Call me when you get this. It’s important.”
Where was she? And more to the point, where was Hap?
Jake turned his patrol car toward the Last Chance Ranch, hoping to hell he was wrong.
“Hap, what’s going on?” Teddi asked, even though it was pretty clear. She could see the fury in his expression and smell the alcohol on him.
“This mess…” he said, slurring his words.
She backed up, banging into the stall door, her mind racing for a way out of this.
“…it’s all your fault,” Hap said.
Did he think she’d killed Vance?
“If you’d been the kind of wife Vance needed he would have left my Sarah alone.”
Sarah? Teddi could have argued that Vance’s behavior had nothing to do with her, but she could tell that wasn’t what Hap wanted to hear right now.
She considered her chances of trying to get past Hap in the narrow aisle between the stalls and thought better of it.
“Sarah loves you,” she said, grasping at straws. “She wasn’t interested in Vance.” But even as she said it, she knew the kind of charming web that Vance could weave. Any woman could find herself susceptible to Vance—at least for a while.
“If you hadn’t married Vance Sheridan none of this would have happened,” Hap said. “Vance would have gone back on the rodeo circuit. He would have left town.”
He had no idea how much she’d wished she’d done just that. Unfortunately, Vance wouldn’t have left town, though. He had nowhere to go.
“Hap, that’s not true. Vance was washed up in rodeo,” she said. “He’d burned too many bridges.” She’d found this all out, of course, after she’d married him.
“It doesn’t matter,” Hap slurred. “Nothing matters.” He grabbed a shovel from the front of the last stall where she’d been working earlier.
Her pulse jumped as he lifted the shovel and moved clumsily toward her. He had her trapped and even full of alcohol she knew he wasn’t going to miss with something the size of a shovel blade.
“Hap, you don’t want to do this.” She stepped back as he closed the distance between them. “This is crazy.”
The pitchfork she’d used earlier was stuck in a bail of hay behind her and to her right. She edged away from Hap and toward the pitchfork, hoping she could reach it before Hap got within shovel-swinging distance.
“Vance told me you were taking him back, but I knew better,” Hap said as he stumbled toward her, the shovel handle clutched in his meaty fists. “I knew you. You weren’t taking him back. Nor were you settling with him. Vance was lying. Lying to me. His best friend. I knew then that he was going to Sarah.”
Teddi kept backing up, slowly so he wouldn’t realize where she was headed. Just a little farther.
“I’d suspected it. Sarah got all sparkly-eyed around Vance. I knew that look.” Meanness closed over his features like a mask. “I followed him from the bar but he must have spotted me because he turned toward your ranch.”
Vance had known she wouldn’t be home because she always went for a long horseback ride when she was upset. And he had sure as the devil upset her earlier that day and he knew it since she’d called him at the bar, furious.
She stumbled into the hay bail.
Hap was still coming toward her, mumbling about Vance denying everything. She knew Vance would have tried to bluff his way out of it when confronted. He would have gone into the house, pretending he thought she was in there waiting for him.
“It was self-defense,” Teddi said, making Hap stop. He blinked at her as if he’d been lost in memory. “He pulled the gun down and threatened you, right?”
“I took the gun away from him. I was so angry…” His gaze focused on her again. Even Hap as loaded as he was knew that shooting a man three times at point blank range would be a hard self-defense argument before a jury. Especially given Hap’s size.
“Think of Sarah,” Teddi said. “Think what this will do to her.” She said the words more to herself than to Hap. Once she grabbed the pitchfork behind her, there would be no turning back.
“Sarah?” Hap let out a laugh. “She would have left me, run off with him. She’s the one who called Vance that second time at the bar. I could tell by the way he talked to her. I knew.” He raised the shovel, now within striking distance. “I thought once Vance was dead we could go back to the way it was.” He shook his head. “You should have kept your husband at home.”
As Teddi dodged to one side, she reached behind her, grabbed the pitchfork and swung around with all her strength. The shovel deflected her strike. A loud clatter filled the air. Her arms chattered with the vibration.
She slipped to one side as Hap raised the shovel again and swung.
Jake’s heart dropped when he saw Hap’s pickup parked in front of Teddi’s house.
He roared up into the yard, leaping out of the patrol car and running toward the house. But he quickly found out she wasn’t inside.
As he raced back outside, he heard the scream and tore off across the yard toward the barn.
His gun was out of the holster as he burst into the barn. “Drop it, Hap!” he yelled. “Drop it or I’ll shoot.”
Hap froze for just an instant, the scene branded in Jake’s mind forever. Teddi caught in the corner against a stack of hay bales. Hap with a pitchfork stuck in him holding a shovel as if about to take a swing at a slow pitch.
“Drop the shovel and turn around!” Jake ordered. “Don’t make me shoot you.”
Hap didn’t turn. The muscles in his back bunched as he swung through with the shovel. Jake aimed and fired two quick shots, both centered at heart level.
Teddi threw herself to one side as the shovel hit the wall with a clang and Hap Ryerson stumbled forward, driving the tines of the pitchfork the rest of the way through him.
Jake didn’t remember covering the ground to Teddi any more than he recalled grabbing her up into his arms or her burying her face in his neck as he dropped to the floor with her, rocking her and saying all the things that he thought he’d waited too long to say.
Something had happened in that instant when he’d seen Teddi trapped at the back of the barn and Hap Ryerson standing over her with the shovel. Jake had realized how much he needed Teddi in his life, the past be damned. And he realized that Teddi needed him.
For just an instant, Jake Rawlins had seen the future without Teddi MacLane in his life.
“Marry me,” he’d said as he carried her outside into the evening light. A few stars had popped out overhead in the vast clear deepening blue.
She had her arms around his neck, her eyes wide and shimmering. When he looked into those eyes he saw the two of them at their fiftieth anniversary surrounded by their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. “Marry me, Teddi MacLane. I can’t live another day without you.”
He was afraid she’d say no. Their eyes locked for a long moment then she touched her lips to his and mouthed yes against his mouth.
The kiss was pure bliss. He hugged her to him, thanking his lucky stars that he’d been given a second chance.
The End