Alona looked completely befuddled. “How can you say that? It looks pretty obvious to me that the incidents are connected.”
“Sometimes things are too obvious, Mother. That’s why I plan to do a lot of investigating. To see what’s hidden underneath all that obvious stuff.”
“What is this Ketchum man like?” Alona asked curiously.
Isabella drummed her fingers on the tabletop. She wasn’t about to let her mother know the man had left her trembling, literally. Alona would take the tidbit of information and run with it in all the wrong directions. For years now her mother had wanted her to get married and produce a brood of children.
Shrugging one shoulder, she said, “Oh, he was nothing special. Just a typical cowboy.”
Alona eyed her skeptically. “Is that why you’re all dressed up today? Because you met with this typical cowboy?”
Isabella glanced down at her dress. At least she’d managed to brush away the specks of dirt that had flown up from the hooves of Ross’s horse once she’d gotten back into the car.
“I’m an attorney, Mother,” Isabella said primly. “I have to dress accordingly.”
A wide smile spread across Alona’s face. “Of course you do. And I’m sure that typical cowboy thought you were very beautiful.”
Had he? Isabella wondered. He’d called her beautiful, but he’d probably mouthed those words to dozens of women. Especially when he wanted one to agree to his terms.
“Ross Ketchum doesn’t care what I look like. In fact, I had to do some fast talking just to hold on to this job.” Quickly, before her mother could say any more, Isabella rose to her feet. “I’m going to get my things from the car and change clothes. I thought I might drive over and see Naomi before dark. Want to come along with me?”
“I’d love to.” Rising to her feet, Alona walked over to the sink full of dirty dishes. “I’ll finish up here while you’re getting ready.”
Isabella started out of the kitchen, then paused at the door to look thoughtfully back at her mother. “Do you think we should call and warn her that we’re coming?”
Alona laughed. “Knowing Naomi, she’s already sensed that we’re headed her way.”
Isabella’s godmother considered herself a medicine woman. And at seventy-five, she wasn’t going to hear differently from Isabella. Besides, she loved hearing the older woman’s stories and chants. A godmother was a very important role model to a young Apache girl and Naomi had always been there to give Isabella support and advice. She’d been the primary attendant at Isabella’s Sunrise Ceremony, an arduous four days of prayers, chants and dancing that young Apache girls go through as they enter womanhood. Since then, Naomi had taught her about many things, especially courage and tenacity—two things she fully expected to need when she dealt with Ross Ketchum.
The next afternoon Ross was in the T Bar K study, growling into the phone as he waited for his new attorney to arrive. “Neal, if I had one good excuse to drive into town, I would. Just to kick your ass.”
Laughter came back in Ross’s ear. “You might try it, buddy. But I doubt you’d get it done.”
Ross chuckled as he leaned back in the chair and propped his boots on one corner of the polished oak desk.
“You’d have a hell of a time stopping me,” he told his friend.
“So what are you all revved up about this afternoon?” Neal asked. “You should be out selling cattle instead of sitting inside on the telephone.”
Normally, Ross was never inside the ranch house at this time of day. There were always plenty of things to be done at the barns or out on the range. It was spring and Linc was working overtime breeding the broodmares. His cousin could have used his help this afternoon. Instead, he was here in the study waiting on Isabella Corrales.
“Oh, I don’t expect you have any idea what I’m doing, do you?” he drawled sarcastically. “You’re the one who sicced Ms. Corrales on me yesterday.”
There was a long pause before Neal said, “You told me you were going to get rid of her.”
“Damn it! I tried.”
“Apparently you didn’t try hard enough.”
The smile he heard in Neal’s voice galled Ross to no end. “She insisted that I need her,” Ross muttered. “I need her like I need a new pair of spurs!”
“Running low on spurs, are you?”
Ross lifted his green eyes to the beamed ceiling of the study. “Hell, no! I’ve got at least twenty pairs.”
“About the same amount as you have women,” Neal mused aloud. “Well, one more shouldn’t hurt you.”
Jerking his boots off the desk, Ross shot straight up in the chair. “Don’t clump Ms. Corrales with my women,” he warned.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Neal countered. “She’s much too nice for the likes of you, old buddy.”
Nice? Surely a woman who was that beautiful and sexy couldn’t be nice, too. Could she?
Curiosity suddenly replaced his irritation. “What’s the story on her anyway?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. Is she married? And what is she doing up here in this neck of the woods?”
“Why Ross, you must be slipping,” Neal said dryly. “I assumed you’d already gotten all that information from her yesterday.”
Ross had spent the past twenty-four hours trying to forget yesterday and his meeting with Isabella. But so far he’d not forgotten anything about his new attorney. “Ms. Corrales and I had words. But not that kind.”
“Okay, I’ll take pity on you,” Neal told him. “She’s not married. Never has been. And she’s in the area because she’s going home to the reservation.”
“Which reservation?”
“The Jicarilla.”
Ross frowned with disbelief. “Surely not to practice law.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s nothing there!” Ross exclaimed.
Neal chuckled. “I think you’d better take that debate up with Isabella.”
There were plenty more questions Ross would have liked to ask his friend about Isabella Corrales, but he noticed Marina had suddenly appeared in the doorway of the study.
Placing his hand over the receiver’s mouthpiece, he looked at the woman who’d worked as the Ketchums’ cook, housekeeper and nanny for the past forty years.
“Señorita Corrales is here,” she announced. “In the living room.”
“Show her back here, Marina. And when you’re finished, would you make us a fresh pot of coffee? And bring some cookies or something sweet with it.”
“The señorita might not like coffee.”
Ross’s nostrils flared. “But you know that I like it,” he said with exaggerated patience. “You can ask the señorita—I mean, Ms. Corrales—what she’d like to drink.”
Nodding, the older woman turned and disappeared into the hallway. Ross directed his attention back to Neal, still waiting on the other end of the phone.
“Sorry, Neal. My visitor has arrived. I’ve got to go.”
“Bella