After a weekend of easy riding and some practice at jumping in the ring, on Monday she declared him ready for the trail along the creek up to her secret cave. As usual, that morning he had talked privately with her father, then questioned several ranch hands before telling her he was ready for their ride. If he was saddle sore, he didn’t complain, but rode with the stoic nature she had learned to expect from him.
She sighed. Those first moments of meeting, the attraction that had nearly ended in a compassionate kiss between them, might never have been. He kept his distance. She felt thwarted and discouraged on all fronts.
Turning her thoughts to the task at hand, she led the way through the stand of oaks and around the alders that lined the small, rushing creek. Instead of soothing her as a ride usually did, she became nostalgic.
“My twin and I hid out here overnight one time. Dad was going to belt us for riding a half-broke stallion that Dallas said we were too chicken to ride. But Cruz said it was safe, so we did it.”
“You trusted him?”
She twisted around in the saddle to face him. “Yes. I told you he would never harm us.”
“Your unfailing feminine intuition, I assume?”
“Yes.” She stared him straight in the eye, willing him to acknowledge the feelings between them.
He gazed at her without blinking.
She turned toward the trail, annoyed with him. “You won’t always deny it.”
“Yes, I will. Because there’s nothing there.”
“How do you know what I’m talking about if there’s nothing there?”
“Don’t try your psychobabble on me.”
She kicked the gelding into a canter. This part of the trail sloped gradually upward in a series of rolling dips and rises. The gray jumped each low place easily. She knew the roan would follow their lead. She didn’t pull up until the path ended at the rocky ledge leading sharply upward.
Finally she stopped in a small hammock surrounded by wild pecan trees and shrub oak. She and Victoria had sprayed the poison oak out each year so that the area was safe for them to play. Dismounting, she dropped the reins to the ground, leaving the horse ground-hitched.
Dev did the same.
“We walk from here.”
“Which way?”
“Up.”
He took the lead now, his gaze intent on the ground. He bent and studied the nearly overgrown trail and every twig and blade of grass. When they arrived at the overhang of limestone that formed the secret hideaway, he heaved a disappointed breath.
“Nothing,” he said. “No one’s been up here since the last rain. That was four weeks ago.”
“After the kidnapping.”
“Yeah. I thought the kidnapper might have holed up close by, maybe left a clue. But no such luck.”
He searched the cave, looking over the tin tea set she and Victoria had brought up years ago. There was a tripod for cooking over a fire, an iron kettle, a skillet and a trivet.
“Who used this?” he asked.
“Victoria and I, mostly. My brothers did, too, before they discovered girls and dating.”
Dev walked out from under the overhang and stood looking down the three-story drop into the ravine, where the creek ran swift and cold over the limestone boulders.
“A long ways to go for water,” he remarked.
“Not really. Come on, I’ll show you.”
She walked around the ledge that narrowed as it curved past the shallow cavern. Up the trail a few feet was a water seep. She removed a pan hanging on a nail pounded into a pine and placed it so it would catch the drip from the trickle of water. The drops made a friendly patter against the aluminum until the water was deep enough to cover the bottom of the pan.
“All the comforts of home,” she pointed out. “Are you ready for lunch?”
He nodded, his eyes searching the area above the trail.
She returned to the horses and removed food from the saddlebag on her mount. She handed Dev the chilled container of lemonade when he joined her. Back in front of the cave, she divided the food she had prepared for their picnic when he had requested the ride up the ridge.
“How many times have you done this?” he asked.
She weighed the question. “Jealous?”
A flush lit his lean cheeks. “Hardly.”
“You are,” she said softly, wishing he would admit it.
He snorted. She laughed when one of the horses did the same as if mimicking him.
They ate the sandwiches made from roast beef, sliced homemade pickles and spicy mustard, then sipped the lemonade from tin cups taken from a rocky shelf in hers and Victoria’s childhood pantry.
Dev was aware of the quiet that surrounded them. They were alone for all practical purposes, and it bothered the hell out of him. He should have insisted that Cruz Perez or one of the hands show him around the ranch. Being with the daughter was too disturbing for his comfort.
Her gaze stirred something inside him—a place where hope lingered, foolishly believing the promises that life dangled in front of a person. But he knew about promises, knew that, like dreams, they were never fulfilled. He had no desire to be around to see the glow die when life slapped her down one time too many. Then she would know, too.
He concentrated on the details of the case. He had a good idea where everyone had been located and who they’d been with at the moment of the kidnapping. He knew which people correctly remembered events and those who had been mistaken…or had lied. There were loose ends, of course. Not everyone was accounted for by someone else.
Maria Cassidy, for one. However, Vanessa had seen her in the courtyard at the probable time of the kidnapping.
Lily Cassidy, Maria’s mother and the fiancée of Ryan Fortune, said she had spoken to Rosita Perez about serving the champagne for the toast, but Rosita thought that was before the christening, not afterward.
Cruz Perez was also unaccounted for.
The horse trainer had said he’d gone to the stable to check on a mare having difficulty foaling. Clint Lockhart, brother-in-law to Ryan Fortune through the rancher’s first wife, Janine, insisted he’d been outside at the time and hadn’t seen Perez at the stable.
Lockhart had a cowboy who could vouch for him, but the man had finished his temporary job the day before the christening and had been at the bunkhouse only an hour or so to pack up his belongings the day of the kidnapping. Lockhart didn’t know where the cowhand was now. Perez said he hadn’t seen Lockhart when he’d crossed the road to the stable.
One of them was lying, Dev was sure. Or their timing was off. The local cops hadn’t been able to locate the missing cowhand to verify Lockhart’s story.
He was at a stalemate.
“Have you found any clues?”
Dev shook his head, then went back to staring out over the land. In the vast pastures that spread beyond the creek at the foot of the ledge to the horizon, he could see hundreds of cattle grazing peacefully.
Fifty thousand head. Five thousand horses. Anywhere from fifty to a hundred cowboys, according to the season. But most of them were scattered around the half-million acre ranch, too far away to have been involved in the family’s affairs.
When she laid a hand on his thigh, he nearly jumped out of his skin as lightning sizzled through his veins.