A Cahill Ranch Novel
He really was handsome, she thought as she studied her brother. A real catch for some woman. The problem was Darby. She got the feeling he was open to a relationship, but that he hadn’t found a woman who interested him.
The cook motioned toward the stove. “Help yourself. But I thought you would have eaten at the festival.”
“Wasn’t hungry,” he said, his back to them as he pocketed his phone and went to the stove to fill a plate.
Both women looked at him in stunned silence, then at each other. Darby was always hungry. He stayed too busy to gain weight, but there was never anything wrong with his appetite.
“You didn’t even have any fry bread?” Lillie asked. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
He shrugged, still not looking at them.
She felt a stab of guilt for making him go to the festival. In truth, she could have covered it. But she thought he ought to start doing it since she didn’t know how long she would be able to. She and Trask were planning to start a family right away.
“That was the only thing I was looking forward to,” he said. “But the line was too long.” He looked away.
Lillie wondered what her brother was leaving out. He never missed a chance to have fry bread. “But otherwise everything went all right?”
“I said a few words. Tossed the T-shirts into the crowd and got out of there before I had to take part in the pit-spitting contest,” he said as he stabbed a bite of enchilada. He mugged a face at her. “Did you know they were going to try to rope me into the pit spitting?”
She laughed. “No, but I would have paid money to see that.” Still as she studied her twin, she got the feeling something had happened to upset her usually unflappable brother. She and Darby had always been close. They’d shared the same womb. But she couldn’t put her finger on what it was about him that made her think he wasn’t telling her everything.
“Did you run into our brothers while you were there?” she asked.
“Didn’t see Hawk or Cyrus, but Flint was walking around looking like a Western lawman,” Darby said.
“He is a Western lawman,” Lillie said of her brother Sheriff Flint Cahill, the black sheep of the family. Flint had always played by the rules, while the rest of them had never minded bending the rules or the law. Now he followed the letter of the law. Needless to say, they often butted heads over it—especially when he arrested their father on those occasions when Ely came out of the mountains and had too much to drink.
“Hawk and Cyrus stopped by earlier,” Billie Dee said as she got up to put her plate in the dishwasher. “They said they were moving cattle today and skipping the festival and all that craziness. I asked if they were going to the dance tonight. No surprise, they weren’t.”
“They are going to stay old crotchety bachelors forever at this rate,” Lillie said, and then she saw that her brother had stopped eating. He was picking at the spicy pinto beans distractedly, frowning as if his mind was miles away. Or maybe just back downtown where the festival was still going strong.
Lillie felt worse about making him take care of their promotion at the Chokecherry Festival. Now something was bothering him that hadn’t been this morning before he’d left.
“Is everything all right?” she asked bringing him out of his trance.
Darby smiled, complimented Billie Dee on the food and dug back into his meal before he said, “Couldn’t be better.”
But she sensed that wasn’t true. Something was definitely different about him.
* * *
SINCE HE AND Lillie had traded shifts today, Darby had the rest of the day off. He almost wished he was working though. At least that would help keep his mind off the woman at the festival.
“Thanks for dinner,” he said to Billie Dee as he put his plate into the dishwasher. “You sure you can handle it tonight without me?” he asked his sister.
“It will be slow with everyone at the festival and street dance,” she said. “I’ll probably close early, but thanks for the offer. What are you going to do the rest of the day?”
He shrugged. “Probably just take it easy.” Retrieving his Stetson and jacket, he headed upstairs, glad his sister hadn’t asked to see what he’d done with her old apartment. As he unlocked the door and looked around, he admitted there wasn’t much to see.
When it had been Lillie’s, the place had such a homey feel. Now it was anything but. He’d bought a bed, taken his chest of drawers from his room at the ranch, complete with the stickers from his youth on the front, and found an old leather recliner at a garage sale.
Other than that, the apartment was pretty sparse. Fortunately, Lillie had left the curtains, the rug on the living room floor and a couple of lamps, along with a television. The place was definitely nicer than the old cabin he’d been living in before, so it was just fine with him. More than fine. He’d never needed much for creature comforts.
As he closed the door behind him, he felt bad though. He’d have to be a complete fool not to know that Lillie was dying to help him “decorate.” He cringed at the thought. She’d fuss and bring in plants he’d forget to water, a bunch of pillows he wouldn’t know what to do with and knickknacks he’d end up breaking. No, she had her big house on the ranch to do her magic on. He wouldn’t bother her. At least that would be his excuse.
He hung up his hat and was about to do the same with his jean jacket when he remembered the bracelet. Taking it out, he turned it in his fingers. It was fancy looking enough. Heavier than it appeared too, the surface buffed to a rich patina. He brushed his fingertip over the round black stone on one side of the wide cuff bracelet. Probably plastic, the whole bracelet no doubt made out of some cheap metal and not worth anything. Otherwise why would the woman have to resort to stealing?
As he started to put it down, he noticed that the clasp was broken. It must have happened when he’d pulled it from her arm. With a start, he remembered the tan line on her wrist, a wide white patch of skin where her bracelet had been as she was hurrying into the crowd. Surprised, he realized this was a piece of jewelry she wore all the time. If it was nothing but cheap costume jewelry, then it must have sentimental value. He frowned, as curious about the bracelet as he was the woman who’d worn it.
His mind whirling, he looked at his phone to check the time. The local jewelry store was still open. If he went the back way and entered the store from the rear, he could avoid the crowds still on the main street.
There was, of course, a temptation to look again for the woman. But he told himself that she wouldn’t have hung around. After what happened, wouldn’t she be worried that he’d alert the sheriff about her?
Now that he thought of it, why hadn’t he? What if she’d been picking pockets all day at the festival? He let out a groan, realizing that he’d been so captivated by her that he hadn’t even thought about reporting her.
He didn’t think she would try to pick anyone else’s pocket after what had happened with him. More than likely, she’d expect him to notify the sheriff. If he was right, there would be no reason to look for her in the crowd because she would have left, thinking the law was looking for her.
Darby knew he was making excuses for not notifying his lawman brother. He’d been embarrassed by the whole incident. And yet he was still curious about the woman who’d worn the bracelet. Still curious and still shaken by the effect she’d had on him for that second when their eyes had met.
The piece looked unusual enough, he told himself. The fact that it must have been a favorite of hers piqued his interest even more. He stuffed the bracelet back into his jacket pocket and, Stetson on his head, headed for the door.
* * *
THE ELDERLY JEWELER put the loupe to his eye and slowly studied the bracelet Darby had handed him. “You say you picked it up at a garage sale?”
He wished now that he’d come up with a better story. “In Billings.”
“Interesting.”
Darby waited as jeweler John T. Marshall went over every square inch of the bracelet. “It’s just costume jewelry, right, John?” No answer. The piece couldn’t be that interesting, he thought.
John finally put the bracelet down along with the loupe. He shook his head, seemingly unable to take his eyes off the piece. “It’s not costume jewelry. It’s fourteen-karat yellow gold.”
That explained why it was so heavy. With a start, Darby realized it could have more than just sentimental value to the woman. “So what can you tell me about it?”
“The gold alone in weight is worth several thousand dollars, but its real worth is that it is a rare piece of vintage Roma jewelry.”
“Roma jewelry?”
The jeweler nodded. “I’ve only read about it. This type of cuff was once made for the whole family including men and children, and was usually worn in pairs, one on each wrist. This bracelet is definitely rare.”
“You’re saying it’s old?”
“In this country, most surviving pieces date from 1900 to 1930.” He picked up the loupe again to look at the round black stone at the center. “The Roma almost always used synthetic stones because of the difficulties of verifying a gemstone’s authenticity, unlike real gold, which cannot be faked easily.”
“So the stone is what? Plastic?”
“In this rare case, a valuable gemstone—onyx. This is an amazing find. I’ve never seen any original Roma jewelry before. It’s quite remarkable.” He picked up the bracelet again and began to point out the designs on it.
“Look at this profiled face of a beautiful woman, possibly a Roma queen.”
“What exactly is Roma?” Darby asked.
“Often called Gypsy jewelry. The word Gypsy is a misnomer though. The Roma were called Gypsies because they were believed to have come from Egypt. But they were actually part of an ethnic group whose ancestors left India a thousand years ago. Many of them still called themselves gypsies, though many Roma consider it a derogatory term.”
Darby thought of the woman he’d seen at the festival. Was she Roma?
The jeweler was still inspecting the bracelet with a kind of awe. “Flowers and stars are common, along with a horseshoe for luck. It is always worn with the horseshoe up so the luck doesn’t spill out.” He traced a finger over one of the designs. “The filigree is so delicate.” He met Darby’s gaze. “I’d say this bracelet is worth from ten to twenty thousand dollars.”
Darby was taken aback. He’d almost thrown the piece away. Worse, he hadn’t picked it up at a garage sale. He’d torn if off a woman’s wrist—admittedly she was trying to pick his pocket at the time, but still...
“And you say you paid fifty cents for it? The person who sold it must not have known its real worth.” John shook his head. “If you’re interested in selling this piece—”
“No,” he said quickly. “If it’s that rare, I think I’d like to keep it. But I do want to get the clasp fixed.”
The jeweler nodded. “I don’t blame you. It will only take a minute.”
Darby stepped to the back of the shop to watch as John worked. He couldn’t believe this. He’d really thought the jeweler would tell him it was nothing but junk. He thought about the woman who’d been wearing it and found himself even more intrigued.
“It’s a shame how much of this jewelry has been lost,” the jeweler was saying as he worked. “Much of it was melted down in the Great Depression, even more recently with the price of gold up like it has been. For the wearer, the jewelry was like a portable bank account.”
So why hadn’t the woman sold it if her situation was dire enough that she had to steal? Or was it possible that, like him, she’d underestimated its value since maybe she’d stolen it herself?
“You are wise to keep this,” John was saying. “According to superstition, Roma jewelry is very good luck to have, but bad luck to sell. You wouldn’t want to sell off your good fortune, now, would you?”
CHAPTER TWO
AFTER A NIGHT of weird dreams, Darby had awakened, his heart racing as if the woman had been in the room with him. He’d half expected the bracelet to be gone—the whole episode at the Chokecherry Festival only a figment of his imagination.
But there sat the bracelet on his bedside table where he’d left it last night—proof that the woman had been real. The sun gleamed off the gold—and the round dark circle of onyx. It gave him a small thrill at the same time it sent a chill up his spine. He felt like a thief. He’d taken the woman’s very expensive bracelet. Worse, last night in his dream she’d confronted him, accusing him of stealing her luck—and, in her fury, had put a curse on him.
Shaking off the dream and the guilt, he reminded himself that she’d been the one trying to steal from him. That rationale didn’t help that much as he stepped into the shower. The warm water chased away the remnants of the dream, leaving him feeling a little better.
He knew why he couldn’t get her off his mind. The woman had been mysterious and exhilarating. He reminded himself that he was talking about a thief. But for too long he’d felt antsy, as if he needed a change, but he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his sister alone to run this place.
He’d thought he needed a change of scenery, but maybe it had been something else entirely. This morning he felt amped up as if he’d been hit with a jolt of electricity that had awakened something deep inside him. He felt...different. And all because of a woman he’d seen in passing. A thief who could have been using one of his credit cards right now if he hadn’t grabbed her to talk to her. He let out a laugh. Talk about luck...
With a sudden chill, he glanced at the bracelet.
What if it was cursed?
That made him laugh at his own foolishness as he dressed and went downstairs. It was hours before the bar opened, but he felt even more restless than usual. Needing fresh air, he raised the windows and even propped open the front door. This was Montana—the only place to be this time of year since the temperature was as perfect as it could be.
He breathed in the mountain air scented with pines and rushing creek water and felt as if he’d been given a shot of vitamin B. Still, at the back of his mind he debated what to do with the bracelet as he busied himself washing bar glasses.
If only it was just costume jewelry. He would toss it in the trash and put the whole episode behind him. And yet, he didn’t want to put it behind him. He wanted to savor that excitement even as he felt it slipping away.
Engrossed in this work and his thoughts, he didn’t hear her. Nor did he pick up the scent of her perfume. Instead, he sensed her and looked up to find the woman standing in the open doorway of his bar like an apparition.
At the sight of her, the soap-slick glass slipped from his hand. Without looking, he caught it with his other hand before the glass shattered in the sink.
“Good hands,” the woman said from the doorway, sunlight spilling around her, making her appear ethereal. But there was nothing angelic about her from her obsidian black hair that was loosely braided over one shoulder to the mystery behind her dark eyes as she stepped in.
His tongue felt rooted to the roof of his mouth for a moment. “Thanks.” He had thought that he’d never see her again. But now he realized how foolish that had been. The bracelet was worth too much money for her to simply walk away from it. But the realization that she’d tracked him down sent a chill up his spine to raise the fine hairs at the back of his neck.
His gaze moved from her face to her wrist and the band of pale skin where the gold cuff had been. She wore jeans, biker boots and a black leather jacket. With a start, he recognized the T-shirt beneath the jacket. Stagecoach Saloon. One he’d thrown to the crowd yesterday?
Seeing his apparent interest in her T-shirt, she opened her jacket wider and smiled. “Nice place you have here,” she said as she sidled up to the bar.
That’s when he noticed the backpack slung over her shoulder. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find out there was a gun inside it. Or that she was about to pull it on him.
“Thanks.” He fought to rein in his pulse as he waited for her to get down to the business of her visit since they both knew what it was. She had come for her bracelet. He didn’t have to wonder too long how she’d found him. He’d hit her with one of the T-shirts promoting the place. Maybe the one she was wearing right now.
He waited for her to ask, though, curious how she was going to explain taking his wallet. “We don’t open until eleven,” he said, finding he had to fill the deathly quiet that had fallen over the bar.
Tantalizing whiffs of her citrusy perfume drifted to him as she set her backpack on a stool and slipped onto the one next to it. She was taller than he remembered, slimmer, but no less striking. As she looked at him, he caught a flash of something at her neck. A gold pendant lay against her glowing olive skin. In its middle was a dark circle of black onyx—just like the one on the bracelet.
As she crossed her long legs and reached into a side pocket of her backpack, he put down the glass in his hand, slowly dried his hands and waited, the baseball bat he kept behind the bar within reach.
“I was hoping you might have a job opening,” she said as she took out a tube of lip gloss and applied it to the deep pink of her full lips.
Darby stared at her for a moment, uncomprehending. “You want a job?”
She gave him an amused look before she glanced around the bar, taking it in with a professional air. “I have experience.”
He just bet she did. Was it possible she didn’t remember him from yesterday? He certainly remembered her. No, he thought, she knows exactly what she’s doing. “Experience? As what? Bartender, waitress, barmaid?”
Her gaze settled on him with an intensity that made his pulse jump. “All three.” She said it with such confidence that he had to call her on it. Most of his patrons ordered a draft beer, a glass of wine or possibly a margarita. Every once in a while, someone would order something more upmarket, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know his cocktails or how to make them.
“Great,” he said. “Step behind the bar and make me a...mojito.”
She laughed, a pleasant tinkling sound that filled the empty room. “You call that a challenge?” she said, slipping off the stool to come around the end of the bar, forcing him to move down a few feet.
He watched as she nimbly picked up a clean glass, spun it in her fingers and reached for the fresh mint he had growing in the window. She adroitly used a pestle to muddle the mint to release its flavors, then added sugar and fresh lime juice, squeezing the lime with one hand as she poured rum with the other.
She didn’t measure the alcohol but he could see that it was dead on. Just like the soda water she added as well as the ice. As she poured the mixture into a shaker and gave it a few hard shakes, her gaze returned to him. Bartenders hated mojitos because they were time consuming, but she’d managed to make it in no time without even one misstep.
He watched her pour the drink into a glass, add the slice of lime garnish as well as another mint leaf, and set it on a bar napkin in front of him.
Her questioning gaze rose to his. “Aren’t you going to try it?”
“I don’t drink.”
She cocked her head at him, surprise in her expression.
At the sound of car doors slamming, they both turned as three twentysomething females came in. “Is it too early to get a drink?” one of them called out.
He started to say they didn’t open for another hour or two, when he felt her touch his arm. She motioned the women in with, “We don’t open for a while, but I could make you something.”
She moved to take their orders, performing the task with such efficiency that he couldn’t help but be impressed. He noticed that she also had a way with the customers. She was a born con artist, he thought, reminding himself how they’d met and what was at stake. She was only here for her bracelet.
The smartest thing he could do was to go upstairs, get her bracelet and send her on her way.
“So do I have the job?” she asked as she came back down the bar to where he stood.
Was that the way they were going to play this? He couldn’t help but be intrigued. His earlier feeling of excitement had reached a fevered pitch. He was having fun and enjoying himself.
She picked up the wet cloth, wrung it out, wiped down the bar and turned to look at him. Those dark eyes were killer. As his blood suddenly ran cold, he reminded himself that this woman could be something more dangerous than a pickpocket.
And yet, he knew he was looking at the most exciting woman he’d ever met. His heart pounded. His skin tingled. His pulse thrummed under his skin. This woman fascinated him and that was no small matter. All he could wonder was how far she would take this.
No way was this one of those stranger-than-fiction coincidences. She’d come here with only one thing in mind. Getting her bracelet back. So why not waltz in here and simply demand it?
Because, he thought as he looked into her eyes, she preferred subterfuge. She was a game player, and this was one game she apparently thought she could win. The woman had grit, he’d give her that.
His every instinct told him not to do it. “You want a job?” he repeated, knowing he’d be a damned fool to hire her. He’d have to watch her all the time to make sure she didn’t carry off the place. Or cut his throat in the middle of the night.
“You won’t be sorry.”
He wouldn’t bet on that. “I can only offer you four days a week, but no promises,” he said, telling himself he was taking one hell of a risk. “Let’s just see how it goes. Swing by tomorrow before noon and you can fill out the paperwork and start the next day.”
“Mariah Ayers,” she said holding out her hand.
“Darby Cahill.” He felt a jolt as he took her warm, silken hand in his. Her grip was strong, self-assured—just like her.
She smiled, her eyes glittering with challenge.
The game had begun. As he let go of her hand, he feared he was a poor opponent compared to her. But at the same time, he felt as if he’d been waiting for this—for her—his whole life. Bring it on, he said to himself as he returned her smile. He felt more alive than he had in years.
* * *
MARIAH’S HEART THUNDERED as she walked out of the bar. She’d done it. There was no doubt that he’d recognized her right away. She’d seen it in his gray eyes—and his reaction. But he’d still hired her. Either the man was a fool or crazy like a fox. Or both.
She kept her back straight, her head high, knowing that he would be watching her from the window. With practiced ease, she swung a leg over her motorcycle, adjusted her backpack and kick-started the engine. It rumbled under her, throaty and loud just the way she liked it. She hit first gear and took off in a cloud of dust and exhaust. She desperately wanted to look back, knowing the cowboy would be there watching her, wondering what she was up to.
Instead, she concentrated on the narrow paved road that curved through the rolling hills toward town. She hadn’t gone far when she saw the for-rent sign. Unfortunately she’d been going too fast to get to a stop in time.
She hit the skids, sliding a little as she got the motorcycle stopped and turned around to go back. The bike throbbed as she slowly pulled in front of the old log cabin—and the for-rent sign. Shutting the engine, she climbed off and peered into one dusty window.
The cabin was what some might call rustic. She called it cheap and quickly dialed the number printed under For Rent. The call was answered on the third ring.
“I’m inquiring about the cabin you have for rent, the one outside of town on the Maiden Canyon road. What are you asking for it?” She listened. “I’d like it. How soon can I move in?” She frowned and stepped to the door. Just as the woman on the other end of the line had said, the key was under a rock by the door. “I’m new to the area but I just took a job at the Stagecoach Saloon.”