He shook his head as if disappointed. In truth, he was. A full confession would have gone a long way with him. “Wish I could, but I’m tied up tonight.”

  “Really?” she said, her smile teasing. “Tied up. That sounds interesting.”

  He rose from his chair. “Thanks for stopping by. Maybe some other time.”

  She nodded, looking disappointed, and he couldn’t help but wonder what she’d had planned for this evening. He hated to think as she opened his office door and left.

  As she did, he knew he couldn’t leave it like this. He would have to confront her and find out why she was so interested in Leann Hayes’s death. Why was he putting it off? Unless he was afraid of what she might tell him. Like Cooper, Abigail might be looking for the truth about Leann’s death. She might even know who was responsible for it.

  Isn’t that what he was really afraid of?

  * * *

  OAKLEY HAD SLEPT at the ranch last night. She’d managed to avoid both her mother and CJ by coming in late through the private entrance. She had never been in the habit of locking her bedroom door, but she did last night. Logic assured her that CJ wouldn’t get up the stairs. But common sense warned her not to trust logic any more than she did her brother.

  Early this morning she heard her mother leave. She watched from her bedroom window, anxious to know if she was leaving alone. Apparently, she was, since she took her SUV. The van equipped to load CJ and his wheelchair was still parked outside.

  She felt a chill at being alone in the house with him. The staff had their own wing. Her mother was so hard to work for that there was a constant turnover. Oakley wasn’t even sure how many were still employed.

  Even though she tried to assure herself that as long as CJ couldn’t walk, she had the advantage. But if he could... She wasn’t entirely convinced that he wasn’t more capable than he wanted anyone to know. Unless, of course, their mother was in on the charade in the hope the chair would keep him out of jail.

  Oakley was about to turn from the window when a large black SUV drove slowly up the road toward the house. She got the feeling that whoever was driving had been waiting for their mother to leave. Stepping back from sight, she watched as the SUV stopped and two large men climbed out.

  She felt a tremor of fear. Were these the two thugs they’d heard about that the gas company had hired to stop the vandalizing? She held her breath as they reached the front door and waited for the sound of the doorbell.

  When she didn’t hear it, she cautiously eased out of her bedroom and padded quietly on bare feet down the hall to where she could watch from the landing at the top of the stairs. The two men were now standing in the living room, looking around as if taking in the place. To rob them? They hadn’t rung the doorbell or knocked that she’d heard.

  At the creak of her brother’s wheelchair coming down the hall from the guest room, she started to call out a warning. The only thing that stopped her was seeing CJ’s expression. He knew the men. He’d known they were coming out to the ranch.

  She knew he’d been expecting them, even though he greeted them with, “I told you not to come out here, Frankie.”

  “Don’t worry. We waited until the head warden left,” the smaller of the two said.

  “As always, Norman, you’ve missed the point. The warden, as you call my mother, could come back at any time. I don’t want her to find you here.” CJ sounded upset but Oakley could see that he was more scared than angry.

  Frankie and Norman. The Lees brothers whom they’d heard about at Dirty Business. So these really were the gas company thugs that had been hired. But what were they doing here?

  “Don’t talk to my brother that way,” Frankie said as he advanced on CJ.

  To her brother’s credit, he held his ground. “The point is you’re not supposed to be here.”

  Frankie grabbed the arms of the wheelchair and leaned down to whisper in CJ’s ear. She watched her brother’s face and, while she couldn’t hear what Frankie was saying, she could tell by CJ’s expression that the man was threatening him.

  “I told you,” CJ said, his voice breaking.

  “I know what you told us, but we haven’t seen you,” Norman said as if trying to ease the tension that had filled the room.

  Frankie shoved the wheelchair back a few feet before turning his back on CJ. “It crossed my mind that you might be thinking of making a deal with the law to save yourself from doing time.” He turned quickly and glared at her brother. “That would be a big mistake on your part. Trust me when I tell you that I can get to you here or in jail. Not even your mother will be able to protect you if you narc on me, let alone double cross me.”

  “I’m sure CJ wouldn’t—” Norman started to say.

  Frankie cut him off when he moved swiftly to CJ, grabbing his right arm. Oakley heard her brother let out a gasp, then a cry of pain. She took a step, ready to go to his defense before Frankie stepped back again—and she came to her senses.

  “Tell me that we understand each other,” Frankie said.

  CJ acknowledged with a pained nod.

  “Good. I’ll be waiting to hear from you, then. Don’t make me wait too long.” With that, Frankie headed for the door, his brother behind him.

  Oakley stood, trying to make sense out of what she’d heard. What were the brothers the gas company had hired to protect their equipment and catch vandals doing here threatening CJ?

  Clearly, they knew him, seemed to have dealings with him. It made no sense. She listened as the men left before she came the rest of the way down the stairs.

  CJ looked up and tried to hide his surprise and fear at seeing her. He’d been rubbing his arm and the angry bright red spot on it. Now he covered it with his sleeve. “I didn’t know you were home.” He made it sound like an accusation. He looked both angry and at the same time embarrassed, afraid he’d been caught?

  “Perhaps you forgot that I live here,” she said.

  In answer, he started to turn his wheelchair back toward the hallway to the guest room.

  “Before you go, how about you tell me why those two men were threatening you.”

  “It’s none of your business.” He wheeled toward the hall.

  “Bet Mom would like to hear about it.”

  He stopped and turned slowly to face her. She remembered her earlier feeling of fear being in the house alone with him. She told herself that he couldn’t stand, let alone walk. If he could, wouldn’t he have risen from the chair to confront the men? Or was he pretending to be helpless so they wouldn’t hurt him any worse?

  “You know what your problem is, Oakley?” he said, wheeling toward her. “You don’t know how to keep your nose out of other people’s business.” She didn’t move, even when his chair stopped dangerously close to her bare feet. “You haven’t figured out that it is bad for your health. I guess being shot and almost dying didn’t teach you anything.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said, sounding more confident than she felt with him so close and fury darkening his narrowed eyes. “I’ve learned a whole lot. Especially about you, CJ. I knew this wasn’t about me being on McKenna land. You are up to your neck in whatever it is I saw that day and it’s bad or those two thugs wouldn’t be here threatening you. It sounds a lot more dangerous for you than for me.”

  She started to turn when he grabbed her arm, his fingers digging maliciously into her flesh. “Tell Mother or anyone else and you’re dead.” He let go of her arm and turned his chair around to leave again.

  “So it does have something to do with why you shot me,” she said to his retreating back. She pulled her phone from the pocket of her pajama bottoms. Rewound for a few seconds and hit Play.

  Tell Mother or anyone else and you’re dead.

  She snapped it off as he whirled around and started to get out of the chair.

  * * *

  AT THE MANSION’S front door, Pickett rang the bell and waited. He knew he was expected since someone had let the town car in through the gate so quickly. He figured Sarah since she was the one who set everything up as she’d done for years for his father. For that reason, he wasn’t surprised that she was the one who answered the door.

  She was dressed much as she’d been when he’d last seen her, this time in a gray suit with a freshly laundered crisp white blouse and low heels as if trapped in a role she’d had to play, one that required hiding her true feelings. That stern, hard look was still in her blue eyes, but he noticed a weakness in her usually rigid frame. She wasn’t as strong as she wanted him to believe.

  “Your father is waiting,” she said and turned toward the elevator that would take them up to the master suite.

  He followed, willing himself to be as strong as Sarah pretended to be. He didn’t want to see his bigger-than-life father frail and dying. He wanted to remember him as an angry giant of a man who used his power and money to force people to be what he demanded. To find his father otherwise would make it harder to hold on to the revulsion he’d had for the man.

  Sarah said nothing as the elevator car took them to the top floor. As the car stopped and the door began to open, she said, “Archibald—”

  “It’s Pickett.”

  She nodded, meeting his gaze, and said the one thing he didn’t want to hear right now. “He isn’t the man you remember.”

  * * *

  OAKLEY LEAPED BACK as CJ shot out of the chair and lunged for her throat.

  At first, she thought the scream that filled the room was her own as her brother grabbed for her, taking them both to the floor. His hands were around her throat. She fought to push him away as the scream grew louder. Stronger than she was, CJ gripped her neck even harder, cutting off her air. She clawed at his fingers. This time, he was going to kill her.

  “Stop!” her mother screamed as she grabbed her son’s arm, breaking the hold he had on Oakley’s throat. He rolled to his side as she gasped for air, their mother standing over them. She looked horrified before she screamed, “What have you done to my son? CJ, are you hurt?”

  Oakley rolled away from the two of them as their mother dropped to her knees beside her son. She caught his smug expression before he turned to their mother and said, “It’s not her fault. We were arguing. I forgot I can’t...” He awkwardly pushed himself into a sitting position, then, using his arms, dragged his lower body over to the chair. Locking the wheels in place, he tried to pull himself back up into the chair.

  Their mother hurried to help him as Oakley sat on the floor rubbing her neck and watching his performance. Had she not been struggling to breathe, she might have clapped.

  “What did she do to your arm?” her mother cried, spotting where Frankie Lees had dug into CJ’s flesh. “What on earth were you thinking?” she demanded as she strode over to glare down at her daughter. “You could have hurt him worse.”

  Oakley could feel CJ watching her, waiting to see what she was going to say. “I thought I heard you leave for town.”

  “I got down the road and realized that I’d forgotten my purse. Good thing I came back when I did.”

  She said nothing as she got to her bare feet, realizing that she was still wearing her pajama bottoms and a large T-shirt and little else. She shot a look at her brother. He had on his innocent face, but the look in his eyes was pure hatred.

  Her mother was breathing hard, scared and furious. What good would it do to tell her anything that had to do with CJ? She would just say that Oakley had provoked him, which was true.

  As she turned to head upstairs, she heard her mother ask her son if he was all right. She couldn’t hear CJ’s answer. At the top of the second-floor landing, she stopped to look back down. Her mother was smoothing CJ’s hair back from his face and looking worried.

  As Oakley headed for her room, she started to call Pickett, but remembered he had gone back east. She called Duffy. When he answered, she felt the pain in her throat, though it was nothing compared to the pain in her heart.

  “Hey, Oak, you better not be calling to cancel tonight.”

  She swiped at the hot tears that ran down her cheeks. She needed Pickett. He’d know what to say to her right now. He’d listen. He’d know that she was scared. “I forgot Pickett’s back east.” The words came out because she was thinking them. She heard the disappointment in her voice and hoped he hadn’t. She shouldn’t have called Duffy.

  “Means it will just be you and me,” he said. “I’ll have you all to myself.”

  She closed her eyes. What would she do if Pickett didn’t come back? “I have news, but I’ll tell you when I see you.”

  * * *

  PICKETT HAD EXPECTED to see his father lying in bed. As he stepped into the semidarkness of the master suite, his gaze went to the bed first, then slowly moved around the enormous room.

  For a moment he felt duped. If his father really was so ill that he was dying, wouldn’t he be in bed, possibly hooked up to all kinds of medical devices with a nurse at his bedside? He started to turn, angry that he’d been sent on a wild goose chase, when something moved in a chair by the window.

  Pickett must have made a shocked sound as the frail figure in the chair took shape in the dim light that stole in through the gauzy curtains at the window.

  “Archibald?” The name came out on a hoarse, gravelly whisper. “I’m sorry. Pickett.”

  In that little light stealing in, he got his first look at his father, Archibald the third. The face appeared skeletal, as did the rest of the diminished body. As Pickett stepped closer, he could see his father’s claw-like hand on the arm of the chair.

  His first thought was that the man wouldn’t want him seeing him like this. His next was that the only reason his father would allow it was that he had very little time left and was desperate. To his surprise, Pickett felt his heart go out to the man he hadn’t spoken to in years.

  Swallowing the lump in his throat, he braced himself for what he was about to see and moved closer. He recognized little about the wasted figure in the chair. He would never have known it was his father except for the rheumy blue eyes sunken in the colorless skin stretched over his skull.

  Pickett was hit with the thought that if he had delayed his trip even hours, he might not have made it here before his father passed.

  His father motioned for him to pull up a chair. He did and sat down, his Stetson in his hand, as he searched for words. But there were none. He’d left here having said everything he’d felt all those years ago.

  “You came,” his father rasped, his head bobbing slightly as his thin lips grimaced into a macabre smile. “Thank you, son.”

  He reached out and placed a hand over his father’s. It felt like bird wings or dried fall leaves. He feared he might break the brittle bones. His father’s eyes filled as Pickett felt his own vision blur.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DUFFY FELT EVEN more unsettled after the phone call with Oakley. He’d heard something in her voice and now wished he’d asked her about her news. She’d almost sounded...scared. Oakley was always so strong, so fearless, he couldn’t imagine what might have scared her.

  Had to be her family. He hoped that what he’d heard in her voice had more to do with that, than her missing Pickett. It couldn’t be easy to be around a brother who had shot her. Charlotte wasn’t a warm, nurturing mother by a long shot, but when it came to CJ and even her other boys, she at least was kind. He told himself not to worry about what he thought he’d heard in Oakley’s voice.

  Instead, he concentrated on tonight. After what he’d thought he’d seen between her and Pickett, he couldn’t wait any longer. He would finally move his relationship with Oakley from friend to hopefully lover.

  He’d had so few friend relationships with women that he didn’t really know how to approach this, though. The one time he’d called Oakley suggesting they go to Billings to a movie, she’d called Pickett and asked him along as if the three of them were inseparable.

  Duffy had figured she just wasn’t ready yet. His way had always been direct, believing that was what women liked. At least it had worked on the women he’d known. But Oakley was different, he reminded himself. Then again, he suspected Pickett had somehow moved from friend to something else with her.

  But Pickett wasn’t here tonight.

  Duffy would show her exactly how he felt. He wasn’t too worried since few women had ever turned him down. He knew that Oakley liked him. She’d even said that she loved him—and Pickett—a few times. Even though he’d known she meant as friends. He told himself that he wasn’t worried about Pickett and didn’t see him as real competition, even though he was his best friend.

  Putting the thought of Oakley aside, he realized he still had time before he met her at their spot. At the back of his mind was concern for Cooper. Leann Hayes’s death and the discovery of Rory Eastwood’s pickup in that reservoir kept niggling at him. Had the sheriff discovered a link between the two? Again, he wondered if he should warn his brother about this latest development.

  But he realized as he grabbed his Stetson and headed for the door, that he shouldn’t call his brother until he had more facts.

  * * *

  THE SHERIFF HAD so much on his mind that he didn’t hear the tap at his door. The one thing he didn’t need was more trouble.

  “Got a minute?”

  He looked up to see Duffy McKenna standing there, his hat in his hand. Without waiting for an answer, the cowboy came on in, closing the door behind him.

  From the look on Duffy’s face, Stuart could tell he probably didn’t want to hear this. He wasn’t sure he was up to more problems at the moment, but he waved him into a chair and waited. As Cooper’s kid brother, Duffy had been a pain in the butt growing up. Stuart and Cooper used to ditch him when they were all younger. Two years younger than Coop, Duffy had been a snot-nosed kid they hadn’t wanted tagging along.