The heat hit her like a fist and for a moment, she had trouble catching her breath. The weather this spring was too much like the short story, she thought, as she climbed on her bike and rode down the hill to her small house.
Once inside, she turned on all the lights, feeling foolish. What was there to be frightened of in this nearly deserted town in the middle of nowhere? The murder in the story had just been someone’s vivid imagination at work. vivid, gruesome imagination at work.
She made herself a sandwich and sat down with the rest of the stories. They were all pretty much what she’d expected from each of her students and she’d easily recognized each student’s work.
Just as she’d suspected—none of them had written the brutal murder story. But one of them had to have turned it in. Why?
The answer seemed obvious.
Someone wanted her to read it.
Chapter Two
Dulcie Hughes brought the rented car to a stop in front of a boarded-up old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.
This was it? The mysterious Montana property? She couldn’t help her disappointment. She hadn’t known what to expect when she’d flown into Great Falls and driven across what was called the Hi-Line to White-horse.
The small Western town hadn’t been much of a surprise, either, after driving through one small Western town after another.
She had driven under the train tracks into White-horse, telling herself she understood why her parents had never brought her here. There wasn’t much to see unless you liked cowboys and pickup trucks. That seemed to be the only thing along the main street.
A few bars, churches, cafés and a couple of clothing stores later, she had to backtrack to find a real-estate office for directions to her property.
A cute blonde named April had drawn her a map and told her she couldn’t miss it. Of course that wasn’t true given that the land and all the old farmhouses looked alike. Fortunately she had the GPS coordinates.
The difference also was that her farmhouse had apparently been boarded up for years. Weeds had grown tall behind the barbed-wire fence. Nothing about the house looked in the least bit inviting.
“How do you feel about bats?” April had asked.
“Bats?”
“Whitehorse is the northernmost range for migrating little brown bats. They hibernate down in the Little Rockies and Memorial Day they show up in White-horse and don’t leave till after Labor Day. They come for the mosquitoes. I hope someone warned you about the mosquitoes. And the wind.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t be staying long. I’ve just come to see the property for myself before I put it on the market.”
“So you don’t think you’ll be falling in love with it up here and never want to leave?” April joked.
Dulcie wondered all the way across the top of the state why anyone in their right mind lived here.
“I thought there would be mountains and pine trees,” she had said to April.
“The Little Rockies are forty miles to the south. There’s pine trees down there. Ponderosas. Your property isn’t far from there.” She’d grinned. “I guess you missed the single pine tree on the edge of town and the sign somebody put up that reads, Whitehorse County National Forest.”
Funny. But stuff like that was probably all they had to do around here for fun, Dulcie had thought as she had taken the map and thanked April for her help, promising to get back to her about listing the property.
For Dulcie, who lived in Chicago, the pine trees and the mountains had been farther than she thought—about twenty miles away.
She grabbed her cell phone, unable to wait a moment longer to call Renada and give her the news. But as she flipped it open, she heard the roar of an engine and looked into her rearview mirror to find a huge farm machine of some kind barreling down on her.
Fumbling for the key in the ignition, she let out a cry and braced herself for the inevitable crash as her rental car was suddenly shrouded in a cloud of dust.
She must have closed her eyes, waiting for the impact, because when she opened them, she found a pair of very blue, very angry eyes scowling in at her.
Turning the key, she whirred down her window since the cowboy hunkered next to her rental car seemed to be mouthing something.
“Yes?” she inquired, cell phone still in hand in case she needed to call for help. “Is there a problem?”
He quirked a brow. “Other than you parked in the middle of the road just over a rise? Nope, that about covers it.”
“I’m sorry. Let me pull off the road so you can get around.”
“Going to take more than that to get a combine through here on this narrow stretch of road, I’m afraid.”
A combine. How interesting.
“You lost?” he asked, shoving back his battered gray Stetson to glance over the top of her rental toward the farmhouse, then back to her.
He had the most direct blue-eyed stare she’d ever seen.
“No.” Not that it was any of his business. “I think I’ve seen all I need to see here so I’ll just go on up the road.”
“The road dead-ends a mile in the direction you’re headed,” he said. “But if that’s what you want to do. I’m only going another half mile. I can follow you.”
Oh, wouldn’t that be delightful.
“I believe in that case I’ll just pull into this house and let you go by,” she said and started to open her door.
“Want help with the gate?” he asked with a hint of amusement as he stepped back to let her slide from the car.
“I’m sure I can figure it out.” She straightened to her full height of five-nine, counting the two-inch heels of her dress boots, but he still towered over her.
Turning her back to him, she walked to the barbed-wire gate strung across the road into the house. She could feel his gaze appraising her and wished she’d worn something more appropriate.
Renada had joked that she needed to buy herself a pair of cowboy boots. She had worn designer jeans, a blouse and a pair of black dress boots with heels. As one of her heels sank into the soft dirt, she wished she’d taken Renada’s advice.
The gate, she found, had an odd contraption at one end, with a wire from the fence post that looped over the gatepost. Apparently all she had to do to open the gate was slip the wire loop off that post.
The gate, though, hadn’t been opened in a while, judging from how deep the wire had sunk into the old wood. The wire dug into her fingers as she tried to slide it upward.
“You have to hug it,” the cowboy said, brushing against her as he leaned over her to wrap one arm around the gatepost and the other around the fence post and squeezed. As the two posts came together, he easily slid the wire loop up and off.
“Thank you,” she said as she ducked out from under his arms and stood back to watch him drag the gate out of the way. He wasn’t just tall, she realized. His shoulder muscles bunched as he opened the gate, stretching the fabric of his Western shirt across his broad shoulders, and she’d gotten a good look at his backside.
The only cowboys she’d seen in Chicago were the urban types. None of them had this man’s rough-and-tough appearance. Nor had their jeans fit them quite like this cowboy’s did, she couldn’t help noticing.
“I’d be watching out for rattlesnakes if I were you,” he called after her as she turned to head for her car.
He’s