Page 5 of September’s Cowboy Travis

“That wasn’t on your list?”

“I left room.”

She picked up her pen again.

I took the hint and stepped outside. The afternoon sun hit hard enough to make me squint. I slid my sunglasses back over my eyes as somewhere behind the arena a horse kicked a trailer wall hard enough to make the metal ring.

My truck sat where I’d left it. Dusty, dented, and old enough that I kept threatening to replace it. But it was reliable enough that I never did.

I climbed behind the wheel but didn’t start the engine. Five thousand dollars. Cedar Draw. Parcel 17-B. My account number. Somebody had deliberately tied all four together.

The question wasn’t whether Kaycee Harper believed I’d done it. For some reason, I believed her when she said she’d follow the evidence wherever it went. The bigger problem was that whoever sent the money had known exactly where to send it. Exactly which piece of land to reference. Exactly whose name would make people suspicious before they asked a single question.

Mine.

I started the truck and pulled toward the road. I’d spent plenty of years looking for trouble. For once, trouble had gone looking for me. I just hadn’t expected it to come with five thousand dollars and a forensic accountant I wanted another excuse to see.

CHAPTER 2

KAYCEE

By nine the next morning, I'd verified three things about Travis Cole. He paid his bills on time, his cattle sales matched the deposits into his ranch account, and I'd thought about his smile more times than I’d ever admit. Only two of those things belonged in my notes.

The committee hadn't brought me in because of Travis. The audit had already been necessary after problems surfaced in the rodeo's livestock paperwork, vendor payments, and ownership records. The five thousand dollars in Travis's account was only one of several transactions that needed an explanation, although it had the unfortunate distinction of pointing directly at a man half the town already expected to be guilty.

I pushed my glasses higher on my nose and looked over the Kincaid lease again. The rodeo office was quieter than it had been yesterday, but not by much. Somebody was dragging folding tables across the gravel outside, and the little window air conditioner sounded like it might give out before lunch.

The current lease was straightforward: a hundred and sixty acres, payments current, the legal description matching the county records Morgan from City Hall had sent me. Not a single addendum in the file. There also wasn't a Parcel 17-B.

I checked again because staring at a document until it confessed was a large part of forensic accounting. Still nothing.

The old Cedar Draw records used the parcel number. The modern lease didn't. Morgan had already confirmed the older description fell somewhere inside the land Travis currently leased, but nobody knew why someone had resurrected it for a five-thousand-dollar transfer three weeks ago.

That was the part that was bothering me. Travis claimed he didn't know anything about the transfer or the old parcel number, and so far, his paperwork agreed with him.

I picked up my phone.

He answered on the third ring. “Harper.”

Apparently, hello was optional for him. “Cole.”

“Are you calling to tell me where my five grand came from?”

“No.”

He let out a huff. “That's disappointing.”

“You've known me less than twenty-four hours. You shouldn't have expectations yet.”

His laugh came through the phone, low enough to remind me why I'd been thinking about his smile in the first place. “I've got all kinds of expectations.”

I picked up my pen, mostly so my hand had something useful to do. “I need to see your ranch records.”

“That didn't take long.”

I frowned. “What didn't?”

“You coming up with a reason to see me again.”