Cassidy Harte and the Comeback Kid (16 page)

Why did everybody else seem to think that but her? She huffed out a breath. “So, um, what do you think?” she asked, anxious for her friends' opinion.

“About what?” Ellie asked, her eyes dark green with teasing laughter.

“About him.” she said impatiently. “Zack.”

“He seems very polite,” Sarah offered.

“He must have plenty of sand in his gut to walk right out first thing and face Matt,” Ellie added.

Sarah cocked her head, her expression thoughtful as she gazed at the pasture where the two men stood admiring the horses. “And I have to admit, I can see why a woman might find him moderately attractive,” she said.

Ellie snorted. “Moderately attractive. Right. That's like saying Matt is moderately stubborn. The man's beautiful. Movie-star gorgeous, Cass.”

“He is, isn't he?” She smiled as the tremors in her stomach changed from nerves to that familiar achy awareness.

After a moment Ellie touched her arm, her green eyes worried. “But
gorgeous
and
good for you
aren't the same thing at all. Are you sure you know what you're doing?”

Did she? No. She was still scared to death whenever she thought about the future, but she was beginning to feel the first fledgling stirs of hope.

“I still love him,” she said simply. “I never stopped.”

Ellie studied her, that anxious look still on her face, then it faded away as she smiled. “Then that's good enough for me.”

“Me, too,” Sarah piped in, with uncharacteristically poor grammar but with a sincerity that brought tears to Cassie's eyes.

“Thank you. Both of you.” On impulse, she hugged them both, grateful once more to fate for handing her such wonderful sisters and friends—and that her brothers had been smart enough to snatch them up.

“Just be careful,” Ellie murmured.

Oh, it was far too late for that, she thought. She was way beyond careful. When she stepped away from the embrace, she decided her curiosity couldn't wait any longer “I think I'll just go see for myself what they're talking about.”

“Tell your brother to get up here and start the coals, or it will be midnight before we eat.”

She hummed a little as she walked down to the corral, her heart suddenly much lighter than it had been driving to the ranch. Maybe Zack was right. Maybe everything would be fine, after all.

When she reached the men, Zack's smile of greeting warmed her to her toes. She slipped her hand into his and was met with a look of surprise, then deep pleasure
at her gesture that told him she wouldn't hide their relationship behind her fear.

“Your wife sent me to tell you to start the coals,” she told Matt. “Those steaks aren't going to grill themselves.”

Matt's relaxed grin took her by surprise. She might have expected thick tension between the two men with their history, but they seemed to be getting along like a couple of hogs rolling in mud.

“Yeah, she's a bossy little thing, isn't she?” he answered, looking toward the house and his wife with such an expression of joy and love on his face that tears burned behind her eyes.

Was it happiness she felt for her brother and his bride? Or envy?

Whatever, she blinked them back as he headed toward the house. “What were you two talking about?” Her voice came out a little ragged around the edges, but Zack didn't appear to notice.

“Oh, this and that. I told him I'm interested in buying this little filly for my ranch when she's trained. He told me he'd think about it.”

“Did you…did you talk about Melanie?”

“Yeah.”

She frowned impatiently at him. “And?”

He shrugged. “I told him I didn't leave with her, but he's a hard man to read. I think he's far more concerned about you than about Melanie at this point. I tried to assure him my intentions toward you are honorable.”

“Oh. That's really too bad,” she teased.

His laughter sounded rough. “If I had my way, I'd drag you back into that barn over there, find a nice soft pile of hay and then…” He whispered something in
her ear that sent heat rushing through her like the blast from a welder's torch.

She shivered in reaction, but before she could answer, raised voices sounded on the patio, destroying the moment. With a groan of resignation, she eased away from the sultry promise of that low voice in her ear.

“That would be brother number two. The hotheaded one. Your hay pile idea sounds like a very smart one. Let's go.”

She yanked his hand to lead him toward the barn and outbuildings, but he shook his head, gripping her fingers. “Come on, sweetheart. We've come this far. Don't chicken out on me now.”

She blew out a breath. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

Squaring her shoulders, she walked beside Zack toward the house, her hand still wrapped in his. They were almost to the patio when Jesse marched out to meet them.

She had expected him to be angry, but the sheer cold fury in his eyes stunned her.

“Get away from him, Cass,” Jesse growled. “Right now. Go on into the house.”

An answering anger flared and she stepped forward, chin out. “I haven't taken orders from you since I was fourteen years old. I'm not about to start now.”

“Do it, Cassie.”

She was dismayed—and disgusted—to see dark violence in his eyes, etched into his features.

“Forget it,” she snapped. “You're a little old for settling things with your fists, don't you think? Not to mention the fact that around here you're supposed to be upholding the law, not shattering it.”

“That's exactly what I'm doing. Slater, I'm going to have to ask you to come with me down to the station.”

Zack's laughter held little humor. “You're arresting me for dating your sister? Don't you think that's a little extreme?”

“I'm not arresting you for anything. I just have some questions to ask you.”

Cassie stepped between them. “Stop it. This is ridiculous. We're here to share Sunday dinner with the family, and that's just what we're going to do. If you have a problem with that, Jess, maybe you need to go eat somewhere else.”

 

Zack certainly didn't need Cassie to fight his battles for him but he was absurdly touched that she stood up to her brother, chin up and her hand still in his, clenching as if she was ready to take Jesse on if he made one wrong move.

He wanted to kiss her right there, but he had a pretty strong feeling that that wouldn't go over well given the current climate.

He glanced toward the wide flagstone patio where the rest of her family gathered and the first flickers of unease stirred to life in his gut.

Something was wrong.

Seriously wrong.

Matt and his wife both looked stunned, their faces ashen, and the other woman—Jesse's fiancée, Sarah—looked as if she was ready to cry.

He jerked back to the heated conversation next to him. Cassie was still upbraiding her brother for his lack of manners and his immaturity.

He held a hand out to stop her. “What's going on?”
he asked slowly. “This isn't about some personal vendetta, is it?”

The police chief's voice was hard as a whetstone. “No. I'm investigating a homicide, Slater. And right now you're my prime suspect. I need you to come in for questioning.”

Beside him, he felt Cassie jerk her shoulders back. “A homicide? Are you crazy? We haven't had a homicide in Salt River in years.”

“Right. This one is about ten years old. Remember that skeleton Ron Atkins found a few months ago in the foothills of his ranch? The state crime lab was finally able to make an identification.”

A feeling of dread settled over him. “And?”

“And Matt wasted his money getting a divorce in absentia. Apparently he's been a widower all these years. The bones belonged to Melanie.”

The color leached from Cassie's face. “Oh, no.”

“After her fingerprints were found on some of the items found with her body, the state crime lab ran dental records and they matched perfectly. No question it was Melanie.”

 

She was going to be sick.

The smell of charcoal and starter fluid wafting from the grill suddenly seemed greasy—the heat of the afternoon too heavy and oppressive—and she pulled her hand away from Zack's to press it to the churning of her stomach.

Melanie was dead. Murdered. She could hardly believe it.

She had hated her manipulative, amoral sister-in-law passionately even before she thought Zack had run off with her, but she had never wished her dead.

All these years when she thought of Melanie it had been with malice and hateful anger for the future Cassie thought she had stolen from her. And all these years, the object of her hatred had been dead, buried in a shallow grave just a few miles away from the Diamond Harte.

Her stomach heaved again and she had to breathe hard to battle back the nausea.

She shifted her horrified gaze from her brother to Zack and found him watching her with an odd, stony expression on his features. It was only after she looked closer and saw the deep shadows of hurt in his eyes that she realized she had subconsciously stepped away from him as if she couldn't wait to put as much distance as possible between them.

She wanted to apologize but she was afraid it was too late.

“I didn't kill Melanie.” He addressed his words to Jesse but his gold-flecked eyes locked with hers. “What motive would I possibly have?”

“That's something I'm sure we can discuss down at the station.”

“I don't think so.”

Jesse stepped forward, and she recognized the barely restrained violence simmering under the surface of his calm. “I don't believe that was a request, Slater.”

“You really think that gives you enough evidence to arrest me, only because I was the last person seen with the woman a decade ago?”

A muscle flexed in Jesse's jaw but he didn't answer, which she supposed was answer enough.

“In that case, as I said, I'll have to pass,” Zack murmured, his voice dripping with irony. “I'm always happy to cooperate with the law. I'll answer any ques
tions, but unless the rules have changed since the last time I heard the drill, I believe I have the right to an attorney present for our little chat. I can send my plane to Denver for him and have him here in a few hours. Would that be convenient for you?”

She recognized his statement for what it was, a not-so-subtle reminder to Jesse and everyone else—including her—that he was no longer the dirt-poor ranch hand he'd been a decade ago, that he had money and influence now and wouldn't be railroaded into a murder charge.

Jesse looked as if he couldn't wait for an excuse to take a swing at him, but Matt stepped forward and rested a warning hand on his shoulder.

The motion jarred her out of the dream-like, surreal state she'd slipped into.

Matt. And Lucy. Dear heavens. How was this going to affect them? Her stomach shuddered again, and she tasted bile in her throat. Poor Lucy. Though she and Matt had tried to shield her as much as possible, children at school whispered to each other. She knew they did.

It had been hard enough on Lucy to believe her mother had abandoned her. Now, when she finally had a real family, all the talk about Melanie would resurface and Lucy would be hurt all over again.

She blinked when she realized Zack was speaking to her in a cold, distant voice she hated.

“I'm sure you can find a ride back to the Lost Creek, Cassie. If you'll all excuse me, I need to make some phone calls.”

He turned on his heels, leaving stunned silence behind him. For a moment—only a moment—she was
torn by conflicting loyalties. Her family would need her. Matt and Lucy would need her.

But she couldn't let him leave. Not like this. She turned to follow him, but Jesse grabbed her arm.

“Let him go,” he ordered.

“Back off, Jess.”

She and Sarah both said the words at exactly the same moment, only Cassie snarled like an angry bobcat while Sarah just murmured them in her soft, compelling voice.

She was pretty sure Jesse responded more to Sarah's request than her order, but she didn't wait around to thank her after he let her go. With her heart pounding, she raced around the house and caught up with Zack just as he was climbing into the shiny sage-green pickup she had picked out for him.

She skidded to a stop and stood there for a moment, scrambling for words.

“I'm sorry,” she finally whispered, the only thing she could come up with as shock and misery choked her throat.

His expression was grim, closed. “For what? Believing I could be capable of murdering Melanie?”

She wanted to say she didn't believe it. That she could never believe it. But she had to admit that a tiny dark corner of her heart—the raw bruise that had never completely healed, had never been able to completely forgive him for leaving her—raised ugly doubts.

He
had
been the last one seen with Melanie. Jesse and others had seen them kissing outside the Renegade and then they had driven off together. Who knew what might have happened after that?

She'd been tempted to wring Melanie's neck more
than a few times herself for what she'd put Matt through in their short, stormy marriage.

No. She swallowed hard. The tender man who painted her toenails and held her so gently and blew raspberries on her stomach would never use violence against a woman.

Never.

She couldn't believe it.

“I know you couldn't have killed her,” she said firmly.

“But a part of you wonders, right? Unless your brother comes up with another suspect in a hurry, part of you will always wonder.”

She opened her mouth as if to deny it, then closed it, shattering his heart into a thousand tiny pieces.

How could he blame her? Ten years ago he had broken her heart, had left her without a word. He couldn't blame anyone but himself if she had a hard time believing him after he betrayed her so completely.