Rustled

When the former insurance investigator had disappeared a few weeks ago, Emma had been so certain Aggie was trying to make it appear that Hoyt had done something to her. But when Emma had recently come home from town and smelled the woman’s perfume in the main house at the ranch, she’d known Aggie was alive.

She had wondered how Aggie had known that everyone was out of the house. That’s when she’d found the listening devices Aggie had apparently installed in the house and she’d known that with Hoyt in jail and his six boys busy working on the ranch, it was only a matter of time before Aggie would come for her.

Emma remembered sitting in the kitchen after Hoyt was arrested, waiting to see what Aggie had planned next. She’d been sure that the woman’s plan had been to frame Hoyt for the murder of his third wife—and then take advantage of Emma being alone at the ranch to what? Kill her?

Emma hadn’t known, but she’d been armed and thought she was ready when Aggie suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway.

Everything after that was still fuzzy. She drank more of the coffee, feeling a little better, unwrapped the sandwich—a ham and cheese—and took a bite before moving back over to the window and peering out a small hole the size of a fist between the boards.

Where was she? In some abandoned farmhouse near Whitehorse, Emma was fairly sure. The landscape looked familiar and she didn’t think Aggie had driven far after she’d drugged her.

So what did Aggie have planned for her?

She thought about the first time she’d met the former insurance investigator at the bar at Sleeping Buffalo Resort north of town. She’d been surprised that Aggie was about her own age, early fifties, a tall, slim woman with an aura of intelligence and energy. Emma remembered thinking she was the kind of woman she could have been friends with—under other circumstances.

Aggie had told her that night about her suspicions that Hoyt Chisholm had killed his other three wives. Emma hadn’t believed it. Still didn’t, even though evidence had been found along with his third wife’s remains that linked him to her murder.

She’d been all the more convinced of her husband’s innocence when she’d realized that Aggie had faked her own disappearance to make Hoyt look guilty of yet another murder.

At a sound on the other side of the only door, Emma turned and braced herself. She didn’t think Aggie planned to kill her—at least not yet. Otherwise, why bother to bring her here?

A dead bolt scraped in the lock, the knob turned and, as the door swung inward, Emma saw Aggie Wells framed in the doorway. She was holding a handgun in a way that made it clear she knew how to use it.

She laughed, because even if the woman had been unarmed, Emma wasn’t up to launching any kind of attack.

“You’re in a good mood,” Aggie said. “But then you are annoyingly cheerful most of the time, aren’t you? It is one of the things I hate about you.”

“You mean there are other things you hate about me?” Emma said, pretending to be crushed.

“I hate that you’re married to Hoyt Chisholm.”

Now they were getting somewhere, Emma thought as she watched the woman come into the room. For some time, she had suspected that the reason Aggie was so obsessed about Hoyt’s case was that she’d fallen in love with the man. Emma could understand how that might have happened. Look how quickly Emma herself had fallen for him.

“You should eat,” Aggie said, sliding the tray toward her.

Emma sat down, reached for the thermos and started to pour herself another cup of coffee but stopped, the cup and thermos held in midair.

Aggie chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’s not drugged.”

She finished pouring the rest of the coffee into the plastic cup, thinking it was too late anyway if the coffee was drugged. She returned the stopper to the thermos and sat back against the wall as she took a drink. The coffee made her feel a little better and she needed to start thinking straight.

The only way she could get herself out of this was if she was very careful with this crazy woman, who she suspected was also a killer.

Aggie had caught her off guard at the main house at the ranch this morning. It had been just this morning, hadn’t it? She thought so. She’d been expecting her. She’d even gotten a small pistol out of Hoyt’s gun safe.

But then Aggie had appeared in the kitchen doorway and said, “I think it’s time I told you the truth.”

Emma had held the gun on her as Aggie had sat down across the table from her. “You framed my husband.”

“I did much worse than that.” Aggie had looked at Emma’s coffee cup sitting on the table next to a small plate with cake crumbs on it. “I’ll tell you everything, Emma. You deserve to know the truth. Is there any coffee?”

Emma thought she’d been watching Aggie the entire time she went to get another cup and the rest of the coffee in the pot. But that must have been when Aggie put the drug into her half-empty coffee cup.

Aggie had begun talking. Emma had listened, getting more drowsy by the moment and having a hard time making sense of what the woman was saying. It wasn’t until she’d dropped her coffee cup that she realized she’d been drugged. She’d grabbed for the gun, but her movements had been too slow by then and Aggie had been much quicker.

She remembered Aggie walking her out to an old pickup and buckling her in. Emma couldn’t be sure how far they had gone when Aggie got her out and up the stairs into the old farmhouse. That’s the last she remembered until waking up thinking it was morning.

“What now?” Emma asked as she picked up the sandwich and took a bite.

“We wait,” Aggie said.

“What for?”

Aggie merely smiled and turned to leave.

“You realize my family will be looking for me,” Emma said.

“I wouldn’t count on that. You left a note that said you couldn’t deal with all of this.”

“Hoyt won’t believe it,” she said with more confidence than she felt.

“Oh, I think he will. Along with the note, everything you brought into the marriage is gone from the house. If they bothered to check, which I don’t think they will, they’d find that you bought a used pickup the day after Hoyt was arrested. The title is in the name of Emma Chisholm.”

ZANE HAD NO IDEA HOW to find Emma. He started his search in Denver because that was where his father had met her. He flew into the mile-high city on the last flight out of Billings.

The cattleman’s meeting had been held at one of the large hotels downtown. He had booked a room, feeling as if he was searching for a needle in a haystack. Armed with a photo of Emma taken at the ranch, he began with employees at the hotel.

“You a cop or a bill collector?” one of the clerks behind the main desk asked him.

“She’s my stepmother,” he said truthfully. “She’s gone missing.”

“And you think she’s hiding out here at the hotel?”

“No, but I think she stayed here the beginning of May.” Zane leaned closer and dropped his voice. “I didn’t want to get into this, but … she met my father here, they eloped days later to Vegas and now she’s disappeared and I haven’t a clue how to find her.”

“What about your father? He doesn’t know how to find her either?”

“Seems they saw no reason to share their pasts or much else.”

The clerk didn’t look as if he believed a word of it.

“I just need to make sure she’s all right,” he said. “My father is worried about her.” He laid a fifty-dollar bill on the counter, his hand covering all but the important parts of it. “Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.”

“I didn’t work here then, but I could take a look and see if she was registered back in May,” the clerk said, smoothly cupping the fifty in his palm as Zane removed his hand. He tapped on the computer keyboard.

“It would have been under Emma McDougal.”

The clerk skimmed the computer screen. “Nope. Sorry. No Emma McDougal registered as a guest here in the month of May. Or April, for that matter.”

Now all Zane had to go on was what little had been on the marriage license he’d found in his father’s safe. Apparently Emma had been born in Caliente Junction, California, fifty-three years ago. He’d looked on the internet. Caliente Junction was now nothing more than a wide spot in the road. Even if someone still lived there, which looked doubtful from what he’d seen, what were the chances anyone there would even remember her or her family?

Zane went to his room and called home to tell his brothers where he was headed in the morning.

“Where the hell is Caliente Junction?” Marshall asked.

“Apparently out in the desert near the Salton Sea. I don’t think there is a town there—if there ever was—from what I can tell. Just a few buildings on a two-lane road. What’s going on there?”

“Just working. Dawson is still up in the mountains,” his brother said. “You know him, he heads for high ground the moment there’s trouble at the ranch. Nothing new there. Let us know what you find out about Emma. Dad keeps harping on us to find her.”

Zane hung up and booked a flight into Palm Springs, California, for the next morning as he considered Caliente Junction on his laptop screen. He had a bad feeling his father wasn’t going to like what he found out about his new bride.

JINX CLARKE RODE ALONG just feet from Dawson Chisholm, frantically trying to decide what to do. Her options were limited given that her hands were tied behind her and he was holding her horse’s reins. One false move and, as he said, she’d be hitting the dirt again. Her left shoulder hurt as it was from her recent fall, thanks to him. She wasn’t looking forward to being thrown to the ground again.

But she knew that at any moment Rafe could come riding out of the trees with all but a couple of his men with him. If he noticed she wasn’t with them, he would hightail it back for her. More than likely, though, he wouldn’t know they’d lost her until they got the cattle down to the first corral.

Which meant it would be some time before anyone would realize she was missing. But Rafe would come back. Even if he came alone, Dawson Chisholm was a dead man.

Jinx studied him as he led her across the wide meadow, trying to decide how much to tell him. The cattleman had coal-black hair and the darkest eyes she’d ever seen. She guessed he had some Native American in him. He was also handsome as sin—not that she would admit to noticing.

What worried her was why he’d shown up when he had. Either his timing was just his bad luck or it was no coincidence. It had been her idea to hit the Chisholm Cattle Company, because she’d thought it was big enough that they wouldn’t be coming across anyone. But now she wondered if Rafe hadn’t gone along with it too easily.

“So what’s your real name?” Dawson asked, glancing back at her again. “I like to know who I’m dealing with.”

“Jinx is all you get, Chisholm,” she said.

He shook his head as if she was the most contrary woman he’d ever known. Clearly he hadn’t known many women, if that was the case. “The sheriff will get your name out of you.”

Jinx groaned. If he thought he could scare her with threats of the sheriff, he was sadly mistaken. She was far more worried about the killers she’d been riding with—and the dark-haired cattleman who had her tied and bound.

“I didn’t check to see if you had some sort of identification on you,” he was saying. “We might be able to settle this a whole lot quicker than waiting for the sheriff.”

“Do you really think I’m stupid enough to carry identification on me?” she snapped.

“Do you really think I’m stupid enough to believe anything you say? At this point, you don’t have a lot of credibility with me.”

Neither did he with her. “How is it you just happened to show up when we were about to rustle your cattle, Chisholm?”

“Just luck, I guess,” he said without turning to look at her.

She saw that they had reached the other side of the meadow and he was now leading her horse through the trees and up the mountainside to an outcropping of rocks. Did he think he could hold off seven men from there?

“These men I’m riding with are dangerous. When they come back for me—”

“What makes you so sure they’ll be back for you?” he asked. “I’m surprised they even let a woman ride with them to begin with. A woman would be a liability. Especially one named Jinx.”

Her temper flared from the insult. “I can ride with the best of men.”

He chuckled. “I noticed. But I would imagine it took more than that to get into a group of men like this one.”

She knew what he was insinuating and wished she could kick him where it would hurt the most. It hadn’t been easy getting in with the rustling ring. She’d had to lie, cheat and steal. Fortunately that was as far as she’d had to go once she caught Rafe’s attention at a bar down in Big Timber.

Rafe wasn’t the ringleader. He got his orders from someone else. But he was the one the others listened to. He’d put up a fight for her. The other rustlers riding with him hadn’t wanted a woman along, so she’d had to prove herself in their eyes. It wasn’t enough that she could ride a horse and shoot. She had to have something they needed—information. She’d given them Chisholm Cattle Company.

Jinx grimaced at the realization that she was the one who was responsible if Dawson Chisholm got killed—and the way things were going there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Unless there was a chance Dawson was working with Rafe. That would explain why he was here. She wouldn’t let herself worry about that right now. She had to keep her eye on her goal. Nothing could stop her. Not Rafe and all his men or this good-looking cattleman. When she got what she’d wanted, it would have all been worth it.

But as she stared at the determined set of Chisholm’s broad shoulders, she wondered how high the price was going to get before this was over.

Chapter Three

Emma finished the sandwich. Her mind had been racing since Aggie left her alone in the small room of the abandoned old farmhouse. She’d listened, wondering if the woman was also staying here in this house. Where else could she be staying with every law enforcement officer in the state looking for her?

Glancing toward the window, Emma considered using the tray the next time Aggie left it to try to pry off the boards. It would be no easy task, since someone—probably Aggie—had nailed them on with large nails that would be hard to remove even with a claw hammer.

Not to mention what Emma would do after that. It was a two-story house. Was she going to throw out the mattress, then throw herself after it?

Thinking of ways to escape was better than considering why Aggie had left her alive. What was she waiting for?

Emma’s first guess would have been Hoyt making bail. Once he was out, if Emma ended up dead, that would pretty much seal his fate. Somehow Aggie would plant evidence, as she had with Hoyt’s third wife’s body, to make him look guilty of her death, as well.

But Hoyt hadn’t been able to make bail. Did Aggie have something planned to get him out?

And what was her motive for any of this? If Aggie had fallen in love with Hoyt, as Emma speculated, then why send him to prison for murder? It didn’t make any sense unless … With a start, she realized why. What if they weren’t dealing with a sane woman? Stalking Hoyt to the point where she’d lost her job certainly made Aggie look more than a little crazy.

From what Emma had been able to find out, Aggie had become obsessed with the insurance investigation into the death of Laura Chisholm, Hoyt’s first wife. It had been ruled an accidental drowning, but since the body was never found …

When Hoyt’s second wife had died, that must have been enough to make Aggie reopen the first wife’s case.

So was that the problem? She was dealing with an insane woman bent on proving Hoyt was a killer—no matter the cost?

Her head still ached from the drugs and she was glad Aggie hadn’t seen fit to drug her again. Which meant there were no other houses nearby, no chance of anyone just happening by, no one to hear her calling for help. So she would save her breath. Not that she was a screamer anyway.

Emma had learned early in life to accept things the way they were, good or bad. Wasn’t that why she hadn’t wanted to know Hoyt’s past—because she hadn’t wanted to tell him about her own?

THE CAVE WAS ON THE SIDE of the mountain, but few if any people knew about it. Dawson had found it on one of his trips up to the summer range when he was a boy. He’d been following a buck deer that had disappeared near the entrance. He’d almost missed seeing the opening for the overgrown brush. He’d put some of the brush back after he’d explored the cave, wanting to keep it a secret even from his brothers.

As he led the horses up into a stand of pines below the hidden cave entrance, he kept his eyes and ears alert for any sign of the rustlers. The sun had dipped behind the trees, forming deep shadows beneath them. The air had turned colder, as it did up here in the mountains.

“This is a mistake,” Jinx said as he hauled her off the horse.

“You’re the one who made the mistake when you decided to rustle my cattle.”

She sighed deeply. “If you let me go, I will lead them away from you. I can tell them my horse stepped into a hole and I got thrown.” She cocked her head at him. “I look like I got thrown to the ground, don’t I?”

He glanced at her dusty clothing. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek, her hat was crooked from where she’d hastily put it back on her head and her short curly blond hair had a twig in it. He removed the twig and tossed it over his shoulder.

“They’ll come for me tonight. You can’t hold off seven of them.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Isn’t your life worth more than cattle?” she demanded.

“This isn’t about money. Or even cattle. It’s about defending what is yours.”

She raised an eyebrow and glanced at his left hand. “Who was she?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The woman you lost to someone else.”

Dawson turned his back to her as he ground tied the horses.

“It must have been serious. High school sweetheart? Fiancée? Wife?” She let out a low laugh. “You didn’t fight for her and you’ve regretted it ever since. So now you’re damned sure going to fight for your cattle because of it. Is that it?”

He turned to face her. “You make a better rustler than a psychotherapist. Come on,” he said, picking up his saddlebags. “I’m hungry and want to get something to eat before your friends come back. If they come back for you. Either way, I’m going after my cattle in the morning at first light.”

JINX STARED AT HIS BACKSIDE as he started up the hill. Damn this cocky rancher. He acted as if he’d completely forgotten about her, but she wasn’t fooled. This long, tall cowboy was aware of her every move, she thought as she started after him. She had no choice right now.

He could deny it all he wanted, but she was sure he’d lost some woman, a woman who’d hurt him badly. Because of it, he’d be happy to tackle her to the ground again. In fact, he’d take some pleasure in it.

She knew better than to try to make a run for it with her hands tied behind her and it getting dark. She’d be lucky if she didn’t run into a tree and kill herself.

No, she had to wait, bide her time. Chisholm would make a mistake and she would get away. She had to. She’d come too far to let anyone stop her now. There had to be a way to get around this cocky cowboy—after all, he was a man.

And, oh, what a man, she thought as she studied him. Broad shoulders, slim hips, long denim-clad legs. Not to mention his face. Chiseled strong features, those dark, bottomless eyes and the way his lips quirked up on one side when he looked at her.

She wondered about the woman who’d broken his heart and made him the way he was. She must have been a beauty, probably some city girl who would have eventually left him anyway.

Jinx hated her stab of resentment at the thought of the kind of woman a man like Dawson Chisholm would have fallen for. She swore under her breath. How different she and that woman would have been.

She turned her thoughts to how to get away from him. She’d do whatever she had to because she couldn’t let this man stop her. One way or another, she was going to get what she’d promised her father on the day she buried him.

Telling Chisholm the truth was out of the question. She couldn’t chance it. It bothered her that he didn’t seem worried about fighting off seven rustlers, and made her suspicious that he knew he wouldn’t have to because he was in on this and was now waiting, like her, for Rafe to return.

The only thing that Jinx did believe about Chisholm was that he was angry about a woman riding with the rustlers. If he was in cahoots with Rafe, she had a feeling he planned to have it out with the rustler.

Either way, she was in trouble. Rafe liked to think of himself as the leader of the rustlers, but she knew better. And Chisholm must, too. If he demanded Rafe get rid of her, then Rafe would buckle like a bad saddle under the weight.

A sudden shiver of fear quaked through her as she had another thought. What if somehow they’d found out who she really was? She’d seen how surprised Dawson Chisholm had been when he’d tackled her. He hadn’t expected her to be riding with the others. Or had he?

If he already knew, then that would explain why Chisholm had shown up when he had. He’d come up here to make sure she was stopped.

Unless she could stop Chisholm first.

EMMA CURLED UP on the mattress on the floor and pulled the blankets Aggie had thoughtfully provided over her. She could hear Aggie moving around somewhere in the house. She still felt woozy from the drug she’d been given.

At the sound of footfalls on the stairs, Emma sat up, holding the blankets to her chin as if they would protect her, and waited. The door opened. Aggie stood silhouetted in the doorway.

“You awake?”

“Yes,” Emma said. “Not that the accommodations aren’t delightful.”

Aggie stepped into the room, closed the door and stood against it. Emma could barely see her in the dim light that came through the hole between the boards over the window.

“I like you,” Aggie said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“That’s good.” She figured she knew what was coming next.

“But I can’t let you go back to the house and Hoyt.”

“Why is that?” Emma asked.

Aggie let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve told you. It’s too dangerous.”

“We both know that Hoyt is not a killer.”

To her surprise Aggie said, “You could be right.”

Was the woman merely trying to pacify her?

“Aggie, if you turn yourself in—”

She let out a laugh. “I haven’t done anything.”

Emma would beg to differ. “You abducted me, drugged me and are holding me prisoner.”

“For your own good.”

Now it was her turn to laugh. “And who are you protecting me from, Aggie?” When she didn’t answer, Emma said, “Hoyt didn’t kill anyone.”

She heard Aggie slide down to sit on the floor and thought about trying to overpower her. But she knew that by the time she threw off the blankets and got up and launched herself at the woman, Aggie would be ready for her. Aggie was armed, probably with the same gun she’d been carrying earlier, and Emma wasn’t in the mood for a suicide mission.

Also a part of her hoped that Aggie was finally going to tell her the truth.

“Do you know why I was such a good insurance investigator?” Aggie asked, seemingly out of the blue. She didn’t wait for Emma to answer. “I studied everything about the people involved, and not just the surviving spouse. I wanted to know the deceased as intimately as if that person was alive.”

“You’re saying you got to know Hoyt’s other wives?” Emma said. She had wondered what they had really been like. Nothing like herself, she would bet. They were probably tall, willowy and beautiful, not to mention young.