The Hopechest Bride. Kasey Michaels

chair and put her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “You do know, Emily, that you’re doing again what you said you did about your hair. You’re assuming that Dr. Wilkes believes you’re guilty. I doubt she’s as harsh a jury as you’ve been to yourself. Because I see it another way, sis. I see a young woman running scared from a murderer, running for her life, and yet trying to hang on to as much of her former life as she can. I see a young woman who knew Toby Atkins was falling in love with her, and was too honest to lead him on, make him her protector, put him in danger. You nearly died that night, Emily, and Toby Atkins saved your life. He’s a hero, Em. Don’t demean his sacrifice. Don’t make him into a victim, into your victim. He deserves better than that.”

      Emily looked up at her sister, then buried her head against Sophie’s side, sobbing.

      Josh Atkins felt like a stalker. Probably because that was what he was doing—stalking Emily Blair Colton. His every free hour was spent with his horse tied to a tree as he crouched behind scrub and looked down on the Hacienda de Alegria. He watched the comings and goings at the ranch, waited for Emily Blair Colton to put up her head, sniff the wind and then leave the safety of her well-guarded sanctuary.

      Go somewhere where he could get at her, get to her, remind her that he was here, that he wasn’t going away.

      He’d picked up the Rollins Ranch mare two days ago, and hung around the Hacienda de Alegria until his presence began drawing questioning looks, then had to leave before Emily showed up at the stables. Since then, there’d been no reason, no good excuse, to bring him back to the Colton ranch.

      So he’d propped himself against a lamp post on Prosperino’s main street, hoping to see Emily Colton come to town to go shopping, to have her hair done, to eat lunch with some friends. That hadn’t worked, either. Prosperino wasn’t that small a town, but the Coltons were pretty obvious by their absence. Not a single Colton had walked or driven down Prosperino’s main street, and Josh could be sure of that, as he had memorized the photographs he’d cut out of newspapers covering the story about Patsy Portman.

      Which had brought him back to this hill, this well-concealed vantage point. Another couple of weeks at this, and he’d earn his Stalker merit badge, while losing what was left of his mind.

      He might have had no luck in meeting up with Emily, but he had learned a lot about the Coltons, starting with everything he’d read in the newspapers, and added to during his research at the Prosperino Public Library. He might be a cowboy, but he was a community-college-educated cowboy, and he knew how to use the microfiche machine, knew how to go through old newspaper files and find what he wanted.

      The Coltons were a good family. He didn’t want to admit that, even to himself, but by all accounts they were a good, fine, upstanding family, from Joseph Colton right down to the youngest member.

      Hopechest Ranch thrived because of the early interest shown by the Coltons, and all of the family was still heavily involved in the financing of the haven for troubled children, some of them even in the day-today running of the facility.

      The Coltons had raised their own children even as they’d taken on any number of foster children, even adopted some of them, like Emily Blair Colton. It was one thing for a wealthy, successful man to throw money at a charity, but it was another thing entirely for that man to become so involved, so much a part of the solution.

      And it wasn’t as if the Coltons always had it easy, been born with silver spoons in their mouths and immune from trouble. Joe Colton had served in the armed forces, then built his empire with his own hands. He’d served his country again as a United States Senator. Joe and Meredith Colton had lost a son to a traffic accident. One of their daughters had almost been killed by a mugger in San Francisco. Joe Colton himself had nearly been murdered by a disgruntled employee.

      Not to mention the entire family being duped for ten long years by Meredith Colton’s mentally unbalanced twin sister. That had to be the topper.

      So maybe the Colton life wasn’t a fairy tale complete with the rich and benevolent king and queen and populated by happy, carefree princes and princesses.

      But did that excuse Emily Colton from guilt in the death of his only brother? Josh didn’t think so. Emily Colton could have run to a dozen different places, put herself under the protection of one of her brothers, or even turned to Joe Colton, who would have surrounded her with armed guards.

      Instead, she had run away. She’d run straight to Keyhole, Wyoming, and to Josh’s brother, who was just the kind of guy who saw himself as a knight in shining armor, out to put a smile back on the face of the pretty young princess who’d somehow come into his orbit.

      “I should have known,” Josh muttered under his breath as he watched the lights coming on inside the sprawling ranch house. “I should have read Toby’s letters more carefully, realized he was getting in over his head. I should have left the circuit and gone to Keyhole, checked Emma Logan out for myself.”

      And he would have, except he’d been chasing another gold buckle, following the rodeo circuit from town to town in Oklahoma and Texas and even New Mexico. Everywhere but Keyhole, Wyoming. Chasing the points, chasing the dream, chasing the buckle of a champion. A grown man acting like a kid, while a kid was wearing the uniform of a sheriff and laying down his life in the line of duty.

      Who was the younger Atkins? By age, Toby had been. But by deed, Josh knew himself to be the child, the little boy who’d yet to grow up, take his share of responsibility—that share he’d gratefully dropped after almost single-handedly raising Toby.

      It had been his turn, or so he’d told himself. He’d been a man when he was supposed to be a boy, and he’d spent the last ten years trying to capture some of the blessed freedom from responsibility most children experienced in their growing-up years.

      At least that was his excuse, the one he told himself when he looked at yet another gold buckle, at the prize money he’d spend at least half of as fast as he’d earned it on the back of a bucking bronco.

      A few more years, a few more seasons, and he’d settle down, buy himself a small spread with the savings he did have, raise horses and cattle and break broncos to saddle for those who would ride, but not take a chance on breaking their necks to tame a mount.

      He would have bought that spread, too, and Toby would have left his sheriff’s job in Keyhole and come with him. Josh had planned it all, vaguely, but now that plan seemed as solid as the rock walls of the Grand Canyon, as if he’d only been months away from leaving the circuit. Months away from removing Toby from Keyhole.

      Josh took off his Stetson and raked his gloved fingers through his hair. That was how it would have been, if Emily Colton hadn’t come into Toby’s life. It was.

      Josh had to believe that. He had no other choice. Otherwise, the guilt was all his….