Stampeded. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ between the two highboys. “I was concerned.” Alexa still worried why he had invited her here, almost pleading with her to come.

      “I didn’t mean to trouble you,” he said, but looking at him she could tell something was wrong and said as much.

      “Like I told you on the phone, it’s the house.”

      “If you don’t want to remodel it for a bed-and-breakfast then—”

      “It’s not that.” He seemed to hesitate, his gaze locking with hers. “You’re the only person I can tell this to who won’t think I’m crazy. The house is trying to hurt me,” he said dropping the words like stones into the room.

      “What?” Alexa said, thinking she must have heard him wrong.

      “You asked about my arm? A cabinet fell on me, but there have been other near misses since we got here.”

      “Landon, do you realize what you’re saying?”

      He nodded. “Do you remember when we were kids and Mother used to ask you if you saw … things that the rest of us couldn’t see?”

      As if she could forget. Alexa got up and moved to the open French doors again. There was no sign of the cowboy she’d seen earlier. “Landon, I’ve told you. I don’t have the sight.”

      “Mother was convinced that you blocked it. That you were simply afraid of it but that if you let yourself—”

      “Mother was wrong,” she said, turning to face him. “This is all her fault,” she continued with a wave of her hand that encompassed the house. “If not for her beliefs, then you would never be thinking that because of some isolated accidents …” The rest of her words died in her mouth as she saw her brother’s crestfallen face. “This is why you got me here? To tell you whether or not this house is haunted?”

      Her brother suddenly looked so young, so vulnerable, her heart nearly broke for him. “Something is wrong in this house,” he said with obvious fear.

      Before she could question him further, there was a knock at the door.

      “Please don’t say anything about this to my wife,” he whispered hurriedly.

      Alexa felt sick to her stomach. She couldn’t believe this is why he’d gotten her here.

      “So how do you like your room?” Sierra asked as she stuck her head into the doorway.

      “It’s lovely,” Alexa told her, though still upset from her conversation with her brother. She was angry with him for getting her here under false pretenses and, at the same time, worried about him. Landon was scared. But he also had enough of their mother in him that he was prone to overreaction and flights of fantasy. His hasty marriage to a woman he barely knew and getting involved with this white elephant of a house were two perfect examples.

      “You did a beautiful job,” she said to Sierra. “I really think you have a talent for this.”

      Her sister-in-law beamed at the compliment. “I can’t tell you what that means to me.” She let out a pleased sigh. “Supper is ready. Afterwards I will give you a tour of the house. You really have to see it to appreciate how amazing it is.”

      Landon followed his wife out of the room, hesitating only long enough to say to his sister, “We’ll talk later.”

      As Alexa stepped out into the hallway, she felt a winterlike draft that stole her breath. She suppressed a shudder as she saw her brother watching her and realized Sierra was also intently focused on her.

      Of course her brother would have told his wife everything about his family—Alexa included.

      “HAS ANYONE HEARD ANYTHING about the people who are staying at the old Wellington place?” Marshall asked as casually as possible during supper at the Chisholm ranch that evening.

      While he and his five brothers all had their own houses, they still had breakfast most mornings at the Chisholm Cattle Company main house—and were always expected for supper unless they were out of town or dead.

      Their new stepmother, Emma, had a hard-and-fast rule about them being at the table on time, showered and shaved and without any manure on their boots. So tonight they were all seated at the table, his father, Hoyt, stepmother, Emma, and his five brothers, Dawson, Colton, Zane, Logan and Tanner.

      “I heard something in town about a bunch of hippies moving into it,” Colton said as he helped himself to more roast beef from the huge platter in front of him. “You want Halley to check on it?” Deputy Halley Robinson was Colton’s fiancée.

      Marshall chuckled at the hippie remark. Anyone from California with relatively long hair was considered a hippie in this part of Montana. The word covered a lot of territory.

      He thought of the woman he’d seen at the window. “I think they might have bought the place.”

      “That’s news to me,” his father said, frowning. “I’d have known if it had come on the market. I’ve been trying to buy it for years and was told the family wasn’t interested. Since the old woman who lived there died, the place has been tied up in the estate.”

      “I wonder then if the people I saw over there might be related to the original owner,” Marshall mused.

      “What is your interest anyway?” Zane asked, studying him.

      “Just curious,” Marshall said, feeling all eyes at the table on him. He was a terrible liar and they all knew it. “I can see the place from my house. I noticed activity over there, three cars, and just wondered what was going on. As I was driving in for supper, I passed a local hardware truck headed out that way with a lot of supplies in the back.”

      “You think they’re remodeling it?” Hoyt said. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to live in such a huge place. Unless they have something else in mind for it.”

      “Are you talking about that old mansion north of here?” Emma asked. “I’d hate to have to heat that place in the winter. Why, it must have thirty bedrooms.”

      “I heard the old woman who lived there last stayed in just a small part of the house, boarding up the rest,” Hoyt said, still frowning.

      “Was it once a hotel or something?” Emma asked.

      “That might have been the original plan,” Hoyt said, “but the community of Wellington died when the railroad came through twenty miles to the south. I still can’t believe anyone has moved in there with the idea of staying.”

      In the silence that followed, Tanner said, “The place has a dark history. I had some friends who went out there one night. They said they heard a baby crying and when they left they were chased by a pickup truck that disappeared at the edge of town. Just disappeared.”

      “I’ve heard stories about the Phantom Truck,” Logan said.

      Emma laughed. “Oh, posh. You aren’t trying to tell me that the place is haunted or something silly like that.” She glanced around the table. “Hoyt?”

      Her husband sighed. “Let’s just say that if a building can be haunted, it would be that one. The Wellingtons СКАЧАТЬ