That last thought steeled his will.
He took another look at the sign. He’d have to come up with some cock-and-bull story for the Realtor, assuming one would even come out this late. He had no clear idea how far away Mystery was. But he knew he had to try.
He took his cell phone out of his briefcase and tapped in the number on the sign.
Chapter 2
Once her Jeep started climbing out of the verdant valley, winding higher on Old Mill Road, Constance felt Beth Ann’s “Eighth House” nonsense lift from her like a weight.
It was a gloriously fine day, much more like early May than late January. White tufts of cloud drifted across a sky blue as a deep lagoon. Even this late in the afternoon the sun had weight as well as warmth. It felt good through her wool skirt and blazer.
Below her, in Mystery Valley, Hazel McCallum’s cattle clustered around feed stations in pastures that once again soon would be rich with sweet grass, timothy and clover. Hazel’s next wheat crop would be heading up, too. If this weather held, planting season would come very early this year.
Seeing the cattle queen’s realm spread out below like a panoramic painting made her decide to call Hazel. After all, this was the first nibble on that old cabin, which had been sitting vacant ever since old Ron Hupenbecker passed away back in the ’80s. Hazel didn’t really need the money, of course. Even the low prices for beef lately hadn’t hurt her valley empire much.
But Mystery’s matriarch seemed eager to know someone was living there again. “An empty house on my land,” she once confided to Constance, “makes me feel like I’ve broken a promise.”
She fished the cell phone out of her purse and tried Hazel’s number.
“Hello?” Hazel answered immediately in a youthful voice that belied her seventy-five years.
“Hazel, hi, it’s Connie.”
“What’s cookin’, good-lookin’? Haven’t heard from you in days. I was hoping maybe you’d run off to have a fling with one of my cowboys.”
Constance laughed. “You’d love it if I did, wouldn’t you?”
“So might you, so go right ahead. Tell you what…whoever you pick, I won’t even dock his wages.”
“Hazel, my God! I’m not even half your age, yet I end up doing all the blushing.”
“Hon, I grew up on a ranch. Nothing makes me blush. Oh, I know you like smart men who read books and talk about great painters. A girl with your looks, going all the way overseas to spend her vacations alone at stuffy museums with idiotic names like Santa’s Soap.”
“It’s Santa Sophia,” Constance corrected her, laughing, “and it’s a magnificent cathedral in Istanbul. Besides, I’m not always alone—I’ve met some very fascinating men at museums. Believe it or not, cowgirl, there’s life outside the rodeo.”
“Oh, stuff those highbrow types. Cowboys have their good points, too.”
“Sorry, Hazel. I just can’t warm up to men who treat their boots better than their women.”
Both women enjoyed a good laugh, for the joke had a nubbin of truth to it. Despite the ease and affection of their banter, however, Constance knew that Hazel was dead serious about that fling offer—and even better if it led to something more permanent.
Constance had gradually taken on the status of one of Mystery’s most glaring marriage holdouts. Two of her younger siblings were married, a third engaged. When Hazel pressed her about it, she usually demurred with the excuse that she hadn’t found “the one” yet. But that was only a partial truth, and Hazel knew it as well as she.
And even now the wily old cattle queen must have sensed the tenor of her thoughts.
“The burnt child fears the fire,” Hazel said gently. “But, dear, does one bad burn mean you must remain in the cold forever?”
Constance slowed down for a rough section of road, trying to ignore the sudden tightness in her throat. She loved Hazel; in fact, she considered the town matriarch her closest friend. But the candid old gal sometimes forced her to confront facts Constance would rather ignore.
In the cold. Aptly put, she decided. Career-wise she was content and becoming more so. She loved her family, and she loved Mystery. Overall, she considered herself blessed and felt humble enough to admit it. But Hazel was right. Romantically speaking, she was trapped out in the cold—in a sort of lovers’ Purgatory, that lonely and hopeless dwelling of those neither loved nor loving.
“Doug Huntington was your one permissible youthful indiscretion,” Hazel assured her. “He fooled me, too, Connie, and you know very few folks ever pull the wool over this gal’s eyes.”
No, Connie thought, trusting was no crime. But because of trust, she had nearly married a career criminal. Only weeks before she was to marry Doug, he had suddenly left the state. But being jilted was only the beginning. About the same time he left for parts unknown, she had started receiving the first of many massive credit-card bills. Thousands of dollars in purchases she never made—and none of the cards had been stolen. He had copied the ID numbers and gone on a telephone and Internet spending spree with them.
Bad enough that she had to pay all the bills, since the cards were not reported missing. Adding final insult to grievous injury, many of the bills were for women’s fine lingerie and jewelry; she had paid the bills for Doug’s little sex kittens.
Her only emotional salvation from the mess was to bury it like a squirrel buries acorns. To go to the police would mean reports and maybe a trial, and she couldn’t relive it again and again; it would break her. So she never reported him and never heard from him again. No one saw it outwardly in her bearing, but that trauma of the heart had orphaned all her hopes for romance. Since then, her confidence had been badly shattered when it came to judging men and their character. She doubted if she could ever pick up all the pieces again.
“Well, anyway, I didn’t call you to rake up the past,” she told her friend. “Possible good news. I’m on my way to show the old Hupenbecker place to a potential buyer.”
“See?” Hazel perked up in triumph, never one to be sidetracked from an unpleasant topic. “You feared no one would ever call. It just needed a little time, was all. Just like you. Give it a little time, and grass will push over a stone.”
“Time,” Constance told her wryly, “is a rare commodity when you’re trying to build up your own real-estate company.”
“There’s always time for love,” Hazel insisted. “But you have to allow it an appointment now and then, busy lady.”
“Maybe I will,” Constance said with little inward conviction. “When business slows down a little. Right now it’s booming, and I’m lucky if I have time to heat a microwave meal, much less meet my significant other. Speaking of business—wish me luck. Five minutes, and I’ll be showing the cabin.”
Before she hung up, Hazel asked, “To a man or a woman?”
“Man. One who seems used to ‘politely but firmly’ getting his way, too.”
“Hmm,” was all Hazel said to that, yet her oo-la-la tone suggested plenty. She added quickly, “Make sure to show him that lovely creek out back. Jake McCallum himself built the stone bridge over it. The State Historical Society wants to put a plaque on it, the silly featherheads. The oldest stone bridge in Montana.”
“I will,” Constance promised before she thumbed her phone off and put it away.
The road was almost all sand by now, and she shifted to a lower gear, the plucky little Jeep surging