Boots and Bullets. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ unsure. He half expected her to vanish before his eyes.

      “Can I help you?” she asked, frowning, as she walked toward him. Was it possible she recognized him? Or was she just surprised, thinking she was alone in the building?

      As she drew closer, he saw that either his memory was in error or this wasn’t the woman. But she looked enough like the murder victim to be her sister. Her hair was more copper than auburn, her eyes emerald rather than aquamarine and she was shorter than the murdered woman, although about the same age.

      She had a small wooden nightstand in one hand and a slat-back wooden chair in the other and she wore blue denim overalls over a white T-shirt, sneakers on her feet. The logo on the overalls read Second Hand Kate.

      “Are you all right?” she asked as she plucked out the earbuds.

      He knew he must have lost all color. While he’d been getting stronger every day, the shock of seeing her had left him feeling weak and shaky.

      He realized how bad he must look when she asked, “You know the hospital moved, right? Do you need someone to drive you up to the new one?”

      He could hear the murmur of the music coming from the iPod in her overalls pocket. He shook his head and finally found his voice. “Sorry, I called out as I came in … “

      She smiled. It seemed to light up the old building and the sweet innocence in the gesture tugged at his heart. This wasn’t the woman he’d seen murdered in the nursery, but she had to be a relative. Wasn’t it possible she’d seen him at the hospital?

      “Do you know me?” he asked.

      She looked at him as if he might be joking. “Should I?”

      He shoved back his Stetson and smiled sheepishly. “You look familiar. I thought … You don’t happen to have a sister, do you?”

      “Sorry.” She was smiling again as if she thought this was a bad pick-up line.

      She was definitely not the woman he’d seen. This woman, while the spitting image of the murder victim, lacked the darkness he’d felt in the dead woman. This woman was all sunshine and rainbows.

      “Is this for the secondhand shop?” he asked, motioning to the furniture and then to the logo on her overalls, desperately needing to say something that didn’t come out stupid.

      She nodded, clearly pleased with the items. “They don’t make furniture like this anymore. I can’t wait to refinish some of these pieces,” she said, her enthusiasm bubbling out.

      “So you must be Kate.” Not a nurse. Or even a nurse’s aide here at the hospital.

      “The Kate in Second Hand Kate’s.” She set down the chair and wiped her free hand on her overalls and held it out to him. “You aren’t interested in used furniture, are you?”

      “I might be,” he said, realizing he was flirting with her. He held out his hand. “Cyrus Winchester.”

      “Winchester? You’re not related to—”

      “The sheriff is my cousin and Pepper is my grandmother.”

      “Oh.” She chuckled. “I see.”

      “You know them?” he asked.

      She shook her head. “I just moved here, but I’ve heard stories. Your grandmother is pretty famous around here. I’ve always wanted to meet her.”

      “Infamous, you mean.” The Winchesters had always provided fodder for good gossip. His grandmother had been a recluse for the past twenty-seven years, his grandfather had ridden off on a horse one day forty years ago and never been seen again—until recently—and one of his uncles had only turned up after a gully washer had washed up his remains.

      She turned her smile on him again. “Kate Landon.”

      Cyrus felt a gentle shock run through him at her warm, strong touch.

      “So you just happened to stop by the hospital to … “

      “Return to the scene of the crime.” She laughed and he added quickly, “So to speak. I was brought in a few months ago by ambulance and spent a night here. I

      don’t remember much about it. They tell me I was in a coma.”

      She instantly sobered. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

      “I’m fine now.” Sure you are. You thought this woman had been murdered just down the hall in the nursery. Or at least her sister had. Except she doesn’t have a sister. “I’m just going to take a look around, if that’s okay.”

      “Sure. Just do me a favor, if you don’t mind. This is my last load. Close the doors when you leave? There’s a chain with a padlock on the outside that loops through the door handles.”

      He’d forgotten how trusting people were in small towns. “I’d be happy to lock it on my way out.”

      “Thanks.” She seemed to hesitate, her green eyes darkening. “Take care of yourself.”

      Cyrus knew he was being paranoid, but her words seemed to echo in the still, empty hallway like an omen.

      KATE CARRIED the end table and chair out to the truck, put it in the back with the last of the furniture, pushed in the ramp and slammed the rear doors, smiling to herself.

      It had been a while since a man had openly flirted with her—let alone a very handsome cowboy. At the memory of the man she’d met inside, her gaze felt pulled back to the old hospital. The interior was deep in shadow, but she thought for a moment she saw movement in the darkness behind the open double doors.

      Her friend Jasmine, a Whitehorse native, had kidded her about watching out for ghosts at the hospital. “Seriously, the nurses used to tell stories of feeling something in that old hospital when they worked the night shift and this one nurse swore she saw the ghost of this woman coming down the hall toward her.”

      Kate had laughed, figuring Jasmine was just fooling with her. She’d felt a little creepy in the old building alone earlier, but had just turned up her music. Now though, she would have sworn she saw a figure just beyond the doorway.

      But when she’d turned to look down the long side of the building, she’d seen a set of white metal blinds flash open at a window in a far room.

      Cyrus Winchester peered out for a moment, then closed the blinds again.

      She felt a chill, remembering the feeling that someone had been watching her from just inside the hospital doors. It couldn’t have been Cyrus. Had someone else been in there?

      “It’s the ghost of that woman,” Jasmine would have said.

      Fortunately Jasmine wasn’t with her.

      You’re just imagining things. But she decided she would swing by later and make sure no one had gotten locked inside the old building.

      As she climbed behind the wheel of her truck, she forgot all about ghosts. It was Cyrus Winchester she couldn’t get off her mind. He had СКАЧАТЬ