Her Cowboy Avenger. Kerry Connor

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СКАЧАТЬ crazy about me, and I—” she swallowed “—was crazy about him.”

      Matt didn’t miss the way her voice faltered before she finished the statement, or how strained it sounded uttering those words. Were they that hard for her to admit? Or was it admitting them to him?

      “I’m sure your father must have been thrilled that you got married so fast,” he said wryly, remembering the man’s reaction to Matt’s involvement with his daughter. Ed Reyes had been so protective of his daughter Matt couldn’t imagine him thinking anyone was good enough for her. Or maybe Bobby Weston’s background had made him a more acceptable prospect than a humble ranch hand.

      “He wasn’t,” she acknowledged with a sardonic smile. “We eloped and didn’t tell anyone about it until it was done, and then I went back to school.

      “We both thought it would only be a few months until he joined me in Austin. Instead, a few months later we found out the truth about Junior. He hadn’t been feeling well, had been going to doctors to get checked out, which is why he needed Bobby’s help, though he assured everyone he was fine. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t just sick, he was dying. He was going fast, and didn’t admit it almost until the end. Then he was gone. He wasn’t married and didn’t have any kids, so Bobby inherited the ranch.

      “At first I assumed he’d sell. But Bobby felt like he owed it to Junior to stay and run the ranch. I understood, and felt like I had to support that. His brother had just died, this was his family spread, and he was the last of the Westons. I couldn’t exactly argue with him. So when I finished school, I came back, too, and we stayed.”

      “And you’re still here,” Matt summarized.

      Elena nodded, more than a hint of resignation in the gesture. “Still here.”

      “Were you happy?”

      She looked at him, her gaze steady. “No,” she said flatly. “Neither of us were. After the first couple years I did begin to argue that Bobby should sell, but he wouldn’t. The thing is, Big Jim was something of a local legend around here, and all his life Bobby heard about how great his father was. And then, after being the second brother, the one who wasn’t expected to take over, he suddenly had pretty big shoes to fill, especially since he was the last Weston. It was a lot of pressure. At least he saw it that way, and it changed him. We had some setbacks over the years, some rough times, and Bobby took every one of them personally, as though he was failing his father and his brother. He became obsessed. The ranch was all he ever thought about. He was constantly coming up with plans and schemes to make things work better around here, none of which ever panned out, which only made things worse.

      “The night he was killed, we’d had an argument. I’d pretty much had enough. Bobby had this idea to build this new irrigation system, claiming it would make things work a lot smoother around here. Of course, it would also require digging up half the spread and spending every last remaining cent we had. It was complete madness and would do nothing to solve any of the actual problems.” She swallowed hard. “I told him if he intended to go through with it, I would have no choice but to leave him. I wasn’t going to stand by and watch him destroy himself and what was left of our lives on his obsession with the ranch. He told me to go, because if I couldn’t understand how important it was to him, then I didn’t really love him anyway.

      “I walked out and went for a drive to clear my head. I just needed to think about things for a while. I didn’t really go anywhere, didn’t think about where I was headed. I just drove until it seemed like I’d gone far enough, turned around and came back. I was gone for about four hours. When I came back, I noticed the door to his study was open and the light was still on. I almost ignored it, just wanting to go to bed and not have another confrontation, but I knew if I did he’d just stay up all night the way he did too much of the time.”

      Elena sucked in a breath. “That’s when I found him. He was lying on his back on the floor. He’d been shot in the chest. I felt for a pulse, but he was already dead. He was still warm though. I don’t know how long he’d been there. Maybe if I’d come home earlier, I could have called someone, could have saved him—”

      “You can’t think like that,” Matt said gently. “If you’d come back earlier, the shooter could have killed you, too.”

      “I know,” she admitted softly. “But I wish I could have done something for him. Instead, all I could do was call the police and tell them he’d been killed. Unfortunately, everyone knew that we’d been arguing, and no one else had a reason to kill him, which makes me the prime suspect. The sheriff has made it clear he thinks I’m guilty. I know he’d love to make an arrest. The only thing keeping him from doing it is a lack of physical evidence. The murder weapon was most likely a pistol that belonged to Bobby. He kept it in his gun cabinet. It’s been missing since the murder. The killer must have taken it, but the sheriff is convinced I hid it somewhere, which is why he and his men have been by pretty much every other day to search the place.

      “In the meantime, the hands quit. We had only a few working for us. I paid them for their work to date, but they knew I couldn’t afford to keep them on. At least one made the point that I was probably going to need every penny I had for my defense.”

      “Sounds like somebody you’re better off not having around,” Matt noted.

      “Most likely,” Elena agreed. “But the result is that I have this ranch to run all by myself with nobody to work it, and a whole town that thinks I murdered my husband.”

      “Surely there have to be others who had issues with your husband, especially if the ranch was having as much trouble as you say it is.”

      “I’ve been over the books numerous times over the past week. We’re low on funds and have plenty of debts, but these are held by banks and certainly wouldn’t be worth killing him over. And while not everybody in town necessarily loved him, I haven’t been able to come up with anyone with serious enough issues to want to do him harm. Believe me, I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of a single possibility.”

      “What about these hands you had working for you? Weren’t any of them around that night? Didn’t any of them see anything?”

      “No. They’d all gone to town. Bobby had given them the day off.”

      “Convenient,” Matt said. “That strike anybody as odd?”

      Elena shrugged. “Not really. Afterward I kind of wondered if he suspected this blowout between us was coming and didn’t want anyone around to overhear. It had been building for some time,” she admitted.

      “Is it possible one of the hands killed him? Maybe they were worried about getting paid?”

      “They were all in town at the bar. They have alibis.”

      Her voice was thick with frustration. He could understand why. The situation certainly didn’t look good. But listening to her, he didn’t have a doubt in the world that she was telling the truth. She was no murderer. Whatever else might have changed about her over the years, that hadn’t. Which meant she needed help. She might not have sent the article to him—he definitely believed her about that, too—but the result was the same.

      Before he could say anything, the sound of an engine reached them, drawing their attention toward the front of the house. Someone was coming up the driveway.

      Matt glanced back at her. “Expecting company?”

      Her heavy frown answered before she did. “No,” СКАЧАТЬ