Finally Hoyt had come up with the idea of a live-in housekeeper. Emma was sure that Mrs. Crowley wasn’t what he’d had in mind. But after all the rumors and suspicions that were flying around, it was next to impossible to get anyone to work at the ranch.
Fortunately, Mrs. Crowley had been glad to come. She said she liked that Chisholm Cattle Company was so isolated.
“People stare,” she’d said simply when Emma had asked her if she thought she could be happy living this far away from civilization.
She was an abrupt woman who had little to say. Emma knew she should be thankful, but sometimes it would be nice to have someone who would just sit and visit with her. That definitely wasn’t Mrs. Crowley, but Emma kept trying.
“I see you’ve made coffee,” Emma said now. “May I pour you a cup? We could sit at the table for a few minutes before Hoyt comes down.”
“No, thank you. I’m cleaning the guest rooms today.”
Emma could have argued that the guest rooms could wait. Actually, they probably didn’t need cleaning. It had been a while since they’d had a guest. But Mrs. Crowley didn’t give her a chance. The woman was already off down the hallway to that wing of the house.
As Emma watched her go, she noticed how the woman dragged her right leg. That’s what gave her that peculiar gait, she thought distractedly. Then she heard Hoyt coming downstairs and poured them both a cup of coffee.
It wasn’t until she took the mugs over to the table that she realized Mrs. Crowley always made herself scarce when Hoyt was around. Maybe she just wanted to give them privacy, Emma told herself. “Strange woman,” she said under her breath.
A moment later Hoyt came into the kitchen, checked to make sure they were alone and put his arms around her. “Good morning. Want to sneak out to the barn with me, Mrs. Chisholm? Zane and Marshall have gone to Wolf Point. Dawson, Tanner and Logan are all mending fences and Colton has gone into town for feed.”
She laughed, leaning into his hug. It had been a while since they’d made love in the hayloft.
CYNTHIA CROWLEY WATCHED Emma and Hoyt from one of the guest room windows. They had their arms around each other’s waists. Emma had her face turned up to Hoyt, idolization in her eyes. She was laughing at something he’d said.
Cynthia could only imagine.
She let the curtain fall back into place as Hoyt pushed open the barn door and they disappeared inside. As she turned to look around the guest room, she mumbled a curse under her breath. The decor was Western, from the oak bed frame to the cowboy-print comforter. Emma’s doing, the housekeeper thought as she moved to look at an old photograph on the wall.
It was of the original house before Hoyt had added onto it. The first Chisholm main house was a two-story shotgun. It was barely recognizable as the house in which Cynthia now stood. Hoyt had done well for himself, buying up more land as his cattle business had improved.
On another wall was a photograph of his six adopted sons, three towheaded with bright blue eyes, three dark-eyed with straight black hair and Native American features. In the photo, all six sat along the top rail of the corral. The triplets must have been about eight when the picture was taken, which made the other three from seven to ten or so.
They looked all boy. There was a shadow on the ground in the bottom part of the photograph. Hoyt must have been the photographer, since she was sure the shadow was his.
Now the boys were all raised—not that Emma didn’t get them back here every evening she could. All but Zane were engaged or getting married so the house was also full of their fiancées. Emma apparently loved it and always insisted on helping with the cooking.
Not that Cynthia Crowley minded the help—or the time spent with the new Mrs. Hoyt Chisholm. Emma fascinated her in the most macabre of ways.
The new Mrs. Chisholm had definitely been a surprise. A man as powerful and wealthy as Hoyt Chisholm could have had a trophy wife. Instead he’d chosen a plump fifty-something redhead.
“There is no accounting for tastes,” the housekeeper said to the empty room as she went to work dusting. Before she’d been hired on, she’d been told about Hoyt’s other three wives—and their fates.
“Do you think he killed them?” she’d asked the director of the employment agency where she’d gone to get the job.
“Oh, good heavens, no,” the woman had cried, then dropped her voice. “I certainly wouldn’t send a housekeeper up there if I thought for a moment …”
Cynthia had smiled. “I’m not afraid of Hoyt Chisholm. Or his wife. I’m sorry, what did you say her name was?”
“Emma. And I’ve heard she is delightful.”
“Yes, delightful,” Cynthia grumbled to herself now. At the sound of laughter, she went to the window. Through the sheer curtains she saw Emma and Hoyt coming out of the barn. They were both smiling—and holding hands.
Cynthia Crowley made a rude noise under her breath. “The two of them act like teenagers.”
A loud snap filled the air, startling her. It wasn’t until she felt the pain that she looked down. She hadn’t been aware that she’d been holding anything in her hands until she saw the broken bud vase, and the blood oozing from her hand from where she’d broken the vase’s fragile, slim neck.
ONCE THEY HAD THE HORSES loaded at a ranch north of Wolf Point, Marshall suggested they grab lunch. Zane wasn’t hungry, wasn’t sure he ever would be again. He was anxious to call Courtney and find out what had happened last night.
Stepping outside the café to call her, he realized that he didn’t have her number. Nor was she listed under Courtney Baxter. He tried the couple of Baxters in the Whitehorse area, but neither knew a Courtney.
With no choice left, he called Arlene Evans Monroe at the woman’s rural internet dating service that had allegedly put them together in the first place.
“Did you set me up with a woman named Courtney Baxter?” he asked Arlene, trying not to sound accusing. Arlene used to be known as the county gossip. In the old days he wouldn’t have put anything past her. But he’d heard she’d changed since meeting her husband Hank Monroe.
“Yes,” she said, sounding wary. “Is there a problem?”
“Only that Courtney showed up at my door last night saying I had a date with her through your agency and I didn’t have a clue who she was.”
“Are you telling me you didn’t make a date with this woman?”
“I never even signed up for your dating service. I thought maybe someone had done it as a joke.”
“Zane, I have your check right here.”
How was that possible? He knew he was still feeling the effects of the hangover; his aching head was finding it hard to understand any of this. But all morning he’d been worried about what had happened last night. He had a very bad feeling and needed to talk to Courtney.
“When does it show that I signed up?” he asked Arlene.
“Two weeks ago.”
Two weeks ago? A thought struck him. About two weeks ago he’d come home to find someone had been in his house. Like most people who lived in and around Whitehorse he never locked his doors, so the intruder hadn’t had to break in. Nor had the person taken anything that he could see—not even his laptop computer. But enough things had been moved that he’d known someone had been there.
He swore now, realizing that must have been when the person had gone online and signed him up for the dating service—and taken at least one of his checks. He hadn’t even noticed any were missing.
“What is the number