The Cowgirl in Question. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ his eyes dark. “Yes, I witnessed the way you work men, Blaze. I saw how you got Forrest to dance with you to make Rourke jealous. I know how you operate.”

      He was making her angry, but she hated to show it, hated to let him know that he was getting to her. She also didn’t like the fact that he thought he knew her. In fact, was wise to some of her methods when it came to men.

      “You’re afraid of Rourke,” she challenged, wondering if she’d hit a nerve or if it was just simple jealousy. “Is there something you wanted to tell me about that night?”

      Easton shot her a pitying look. “I had no reason to kill Forrest Danvers. Can you say the same thing?”

      “I couldn’t kill anyone,” she cried, but right now the thought of shooting Easton did have its appeal.

      “Take my advice,” he said, going back to the work at his desk. “Stay away from Rourke. It isn’t going to make me jealous, but it might make you regret it.”

      “That almost sounds like a threat.”

      “I’m trying to save you from yourself, Blaze,” he said with a bored sigh. “But I’m not sure anyone can do that.”

      Blaze turned her back on him again, wondering what she saw in the man. Little, other than what he could afford her, she told herself. And he’d always wanted her. No matter what he said, he’d been jealous of her and Rourke.

      She turned her attention back to the Longhorn Café and her cousin Cassidy.

      Easton was right about one thing. Blaze had danced with Forrest to make Rourke jealous—and to see what he would do. She hadn’t expected Forrest to fight him. Nor had she expected Rourke to kill Forrest up at Wild Horse Gulch. At least that was her story and she was sticking to it.

      But what if Rourke wasn’t that hotheaded bad boy McCall anymore? She hated to imagine. No, Rourke would come back hell-bent over the past eleven years he’d spent in prison, and he’d make a show of looking for the “real” killer, then he’d go berserk one night and end up back in prison. He wouldn’t be here long enough to find out much of anything about the night Forrest was murdered.

      She realized she could make sure of that—once she and Rourke took up where they’d left off. She would keep him so busy he would have little time to be digging into the past. And that way she’d know exactly what Rourke was finding out about the night Forrest was murdered. She’d make sure he didn’t find out anything she didn’t want him to. He wasn’t messing up her future. She’d see to that.

      She caught a glimpse of a pickup she remembered only too well from years ago. Her pulse jumped. Rourke McCall. That pickup brought a rush of memories as Rourke drove slowly up Main Street.

      As the pickup passed her window, all she saw of him was his silhouette, cowboy hat, broad shoulders, big hands on the wheel, but there was no doubt about it. Rourke was back in town.

      She waved excitedly, but unfortunately he was looking in the direction of the Longhorn Café—and Cassidy. Blaze let out an unladylike curse.

      Wasn’t this what she wanted? Rourke back? Rourke set on getting even with Cassidy? But just the thought of Rourke interested in Cassidy for any reason set her teeth on edge.

      “What?” Easton said impatiently behind her.

      She turned to smile at him. “Rourke. He’s back.”

      Easton couldn’t have looked more upset and she realized she had him right where she wanted him. Soon she’d have Rourke where she wanted him, too.

      If Easton didn’t ask her to marry him by the end of the week then her name wasn’t Blaze Logan.

      But as she looked at her future fiancé, she had a bad feeling he was hiding something from her.

      HOLT VANHORN PICKED UP one of his father’s prized bronzes from the den end table and hefted it in his hand. The bronze was of a cowboy in chaps and duster, a bridle in his hand as if headed out to saddle his horse, his hat low on his head, bent a little as if against a stiff, cold breeze. Holt had little appreciation for art. What interested him was the fact that the bronze was heavy enough to kill someone.

      “Holt?”

      He turned, surprised he hadn’t heard his father come into the den. Mason VanHorn was frowning and Holt realized his father’s gaze wasn’t on him but on the bronze Holt had clutched in his fist.

      He put down the work of art carefully, avoiding his father’s eye. For his thirty years of life he’d been afraid Mason could read his thoughts. It would definitely explain the animosity between them if that were the case.

      “So what brings you out to the ranch, Junior?” Mason asked as he walked around his massive oak desk to sit down.

      Holt heard the bitterness behind the question. Mason had never gotten over the fact that his only son hated ranching and if he could get his hands on the land, would subdivide it in a heartbeat and move to someplace tropical.

      Holt had moved off the ranch as soon as he could, living on the too-small trust fund his grandfather had left him and what few crumbs Mason had thrown him over the years.

      His father didn’t offer him a chair. Or a drink. Holt could have used the drink at least.

      Mason VanHorn was a big man, broad-shouldered with black hair streaked with gray, heavy gray brows over ebony eyes that could pierce through you faster and more painfully than a steel drill bit.

      Holt looked nothing like his father, something that he knew Mason regretted deeply. Instead, Holt had taken after his mother, a small, frail blond woman with diluted green eyes and a predilection for alcohol. His mother had been lucky, though. The alcohol had killed her by fifty. At only thirty, Holt didn’t see an end in sight. At least not as long as his father kept the purse strings gripped in his iron fist.

      “I need to go away for a while.” Holt’s voice broke and he saw his father’s startled expression.

      “Away where?” Mason asked.

      Holt shook his head. The massive desk was between them. He had the stronger urge to shove it aside and go for his father’s throat but, he thought wryly, with his luck, the desk wouldn’t budge and he’d crash into it and break something. He was good at breaking things. Clumsy as an oaf, he’d once heard his father tell his mother after he had managed to break another bone. If he hadn’t been aware of his father’s disappointment in his only son, he certainly was then.

      “I…” The words seemed to catch in his throat as if barbed, and he hated his father even more for making him feel like a boy again in his presence. “I just need to get out of town for a while.”

      “Where?”

      Anywhere. As far away as he could get from Antelope Flats, Montana. “I’d like to go down to Texas. Maybe go back to school.” He was grabbing at anything he could think of.

      “What is this really about?” Mason VanHorn demanded.

      His father always saw through him. Mason VanHorn held the purse strings, so he also had a stranglehold on Holt’s life.

      “Please just give me enough money to—”

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