Chapter Five #2
John turned and smiled. “Come have a seat here next to me. I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.
We normally don’t eat this late.” Tanner put the dishes full of food on the table without looking at her as she made her way to the chair the rancher had indicated as John took his seat at the head of the table.
As she sat down, she heard a door close at the end of the hallway opposite the guest room.
A moment later, a cowboy sauntered into the room.
She knew that walk as if it had been imprinted on her.
All the times he’d come into the convenience store.
The moment she saw him, her breath caught in her throat.
She quickly averted her eyes as he stopped abruptly at the sight of her and then chuckled.
The sound of his boots came closer until he pulled out the chair directly across from her.
Clancy cursed under her breath as she heard Tanner grumbling at being forced to take a chair next to his brother, two across from her. She wished she’d gone to bed hungry as she slowly raised her gaze to the handsome grinning cowboy across the table.
“Clancy, this is my youngest son, Dub. Dub, meet Clancy.”
She felt his gaze slide over her, his grin growing as he met her eyes. “Clancy and I already know each other,” Dub said.
“Oh, really?” His father looked back and forth between them.
“She doesn’t like cowboys. Or maybe it’s just this cowboy she doesn’t like.”
Clancy groaned inwardly. She hadn’t known Dub Crawford’s name, but she’d known the sound of his boots on the convenience store floor.
She also knew the swagger of his walk when he’d approached her each time at the store.
Just as she knew his laugh even before the first time she’d looked up to meet his startling green-eyed gaze.
And oh, did she know that dimpled grin, since it had never failed to make her knees go a little weak and her traitorous heart beat a little faster.
She’d grown up around cowboys and had told herself she was immune to their bluster, their flattery, their smooth talk, or their backsides in their Wranglers.
They were heartbreakers and she wanted nothing to do with any of them.
Every time Dub came into the convenience store and made a point of asking her out, she’d said thanks, but no thanks. “We really need to get to know each other before we get married.”
“Why would I marry you?” she’d asked.
“Because I can make your every dream come true.”
She’d laughed and shaken her head. “You forget, I don’t date cowboys.”
He’d thought that pretty funny and assured her he wasn’t like any cowboy she’d ever met.
She’d laughed and the next time he came in, he’d tried again. “I might surprise you,” he’d told her and had laughed when she’d rolled her eyes.
“Apparently, you made quite the impression on her,” John said and winked at Clancy as he began to pass the food around.
She could feel Dub’s speculative gaze on her as she helped herself to roast beef, mashed potatoes, carrots and gravy.
“I figured I’d grow on her given enough time,” Dub said.
“Afraid now you’ve missed your chance,” his father said. “She’s moving to Billings.”
Dub lifted an eyebrow. “Is that right?”
“You were hitchhiking to Billings in the rain?” Tanner asked, suspicion in his tone. She’d almost forgotten he and his father were in the room. Dub Crawford had a way of taking up all the space as well as the air.
“My car broke down outside of Grass Range,” she said, not looking up from her plate as she pretended to concentrate on her meal. “This is all delicious,” she said, wondering who’d cooked it.
“Wait, I thought you were headed to Billings?” Tanner said. “Seems to me you were hitchhiking in the wrong direction when my father gave you a ride.”
“Let her eat in peace,” John said and struck up a conversation with his sons about the cattle, a load of hay that was to be delivered and the horse trailer he’d bought from another rancher down the road.
Clancy tuned it all out, but couldn’t ignore Dub sitting across from her any more than she could ignore the suspicion coming off Tanner next to him. The couple of times she looked up, she found both Dub and Tanner studying her as if she were a mystery they both were determined to solve.
It’s only for one night, she told herself again as dinner finally ended.
She offered to do the dishes, but John wouldn’t hear of it.
“It’s Dub’s night to do them, and anyway, you look dead on your feet.
My sons will be up early doing chores, but I’ll see you in the morning.
Let me know if there is anything you need”
“Thank you again for the ride, the room and a wonderful dinner,” she said.
“Our pleasure,” the rancher said. Dub and Tanner said nothing, but she got the feeling they were going to have plenty to say to their father once she left the room. Before she could get inside the bedroom and close the door, she could hear the murmur of voices.
She dug through the pile of stuff from her backpack to find her favorite T-shirt, then noticed the ridiculous plastic bag of baubles Esther had probably tried to frame her with on the bed. Tomorrow she would get rid of them.
Taking off her jeans, socks and bra, she pulled on her T-shirt, climbed under the covers, turned out the light and closed her eyes.
All she could think about was getting back to the highway in the morning. She told herself that she should get a ride back to Grass Range, see about her car, talk to the sheriff. But Clancy feared that if she did, she’d never leave—one way or another.
While she’d thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep after everything that had happened, she woke with a start, surprised to realize it was morning.
* * *
MAX GOT THE call from Shady Rest bright and early the next morning.
“Someone broke into Esther’s room last night,” the manager told him without preamble. “One of the residents found the door standing open and screamed, thinking Esther had come back from the dead because of the things everyone had said about her. Upset the entire residency and the staff.”
The sheriff could see how that would scare a person, given the dead woman was Esther Mason. “I’ll be right there. Keep everyone out of the room.”
Once he reached the rest home, he glanced at Alice Chambers’s apartment window where he’d seen someone. The curtains were open, but the sun’s glare on the window made it impossible to see if Alice was watching him again.
He found the same groups of residents hanging around as if not wanting to miss anything.
He went straight to Esther’s room, used the key Vernon gave him and stepped inside.
He could see where the door had been jimmied for the intruder to gain entrance.
There were marks on the woodwork where a screwdriver had been used.
One look at the apartment and it was clear that whoever had broken in had been looking for something—just like the killer had.
That surprised him, because he figured whoever killed Esther would have had time to search.
But maybe they’d been interrupted and had to escape quickly.
He checked the window. Since the room was on the ground floor, anyone could have gone out easily, but the screen was still in place.
Like yesterday, the window was also locked. Whoever had broken in had been inside the locked-down rest home. Vernon, who lived on-site in one of the apartments, assured him that no one had left or come in after hours. The break-in had to have happened later last night.
Max thought of his suspects and wondered what one of them had been looking for. Whatever it was, he got the feeling the person hadn’t found it.
At the sound of a blood-curdling scream, he took off up the hallway. He hadn’t gotten far when he saw a cluster of residents huddled around the doorway to one of the apartments.
Max knew before he pushed his way in that he was going to find another Shady Rest resident murdered.