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“Of course not! No one did, except us. At the time, we didn’t have any more than a suspicion against him, with absolutely nothing to back it up!”
Laredo was untouched by her argument. “I wish to God I had never told you Chase was alive. I had the ridiculous idea you knew how to keep your mouth shut.” He spun away from her, muttering, “God only knows what else you’ve blabbed.”
He hurled the towel aside and grabbed his hat off the counter on the way to the door. It took Jessy a full second to realize he actually intended to leave. Furious, she went after him and jerked the door out of his hand when he tried to close it behind him.
“I never told anybody anything,” she stated, her voice flat and hard.
Laredo paused on the steps, standing sideways to look back at her, the rain pelting him. “Yeah, just like you didn’t say anything to Markham,” he mocked.
“What difference does that make?” She stood in the doorway, indifferent to the wind-driven drops that reached her. “I didn’t tell him anything he couldn’t have found out by asking Cat.”
“But he wouldn’t have asked Cat if you had made up some story to throw him off the track. You could have told him that note was anything, and he would have believed you. Stop being so damned proud, and admit it, Jessy: you blew it, big time!” Laredo swung away and walked down the last two steps.
Jessy hesitated and glanced at the curtain of rain, then ran down the steps after him. She caught him by the arm and turned him back to face her.
“Explain what you meant. How did I blow it?” she demand
ed.
He stared at her for a long second, moisture glistening on the tautly ridged line of his jaw. “When Markham found out about that note, he must have started worrying that Chase might have written down whatever it was he knew about him. Five will get you ten that Markham took that note. I don’t know how or when, but it doesn’t matter. For all we know Chase could have unknowingly scribbled something damning in it. Even if he didn’t, I’m betting Markham is wondering if there are any more lying around. And he knows that if there are, you would be the one who would know about them.”
“But there isn’t,” Jessy protested. “I looked and couldn’t find anything. Oh my God.” She bowed her head with the sudden stirring of a memory.
“What!” Laredo grabbed her arms, giving her a stiffening shake.
“Before the funeral, someone sat with the coffin around the clock. Monte took one of the predawn shifts. He would have been in the den by himself for two or three hours. He could have easily gone through the desk and destroyed anything damning.” The wetness of the rain lost any meaning in the face of this new realization.
Laredo took her thought a step further. “Then you produce a note that Markham knows he never saw in the desk.” His fingers tightened their grip on her arms. “Are you certain he hasn’t asked . . . No, he wouldn’t do that,” he said, answering his own question. “He wouldn’t want you to start wondering why he wanted to know where Chase kept his personal papers. Markham is too smart for that. I have a feeling that you are going to see a whole lot more of him from now on, Jessy,” he warned.
“Why?”
“For starters, he’ll be wondering if there are more notes like the one you supposedly found. And he’ll be watching you, looking for any change in your attitude toward him. Hell, he may not do that at all. He may have already decided you are too big a risk.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jessy brought her arms up to break free of his hold.
“This isn’t a man who takes chances.” Thunder rolled under Laredo’s words. “Look at how quickly he acted to get Chase out of the picture. He didn’t give any warning. If he had, Chase would have told you what he knew—or suspected.” His fingers dug into her flesh. “From now on, you stick close to the house, Jessy.”
“That’s impossible,” she retorted. “I have a ranch to run. I can’t hole up like Chase.”
“You’d better, if you want to stay alive.”
“I can take care of myself,” Jessy insisted impatiently.
“Like hell you can. This guy doesn’t work close up, Jessy. He does his killing from long distance—with a rifle and a scope. Unless you have some dumb luck like Chase, you won’t even know what hit you.”
The near savagery of his expression chilled her. “If you’re trying to scare me, you succeeded. Satisfied?”
“Yes, I want you scared,” Laredo snapped as lightning lit the sky behind him. “If you’re scared, you might stay alive. If anything happened to you, Jessy—” He clamped off the rest of the sentence and brought his hand up, flattening it against the side of her wet cheek, his thumb sliding to her chin.
It was the only warning he gave her before his mouth drove against hers. The suddenness, the heat of it was a shock. One moment there was space between them and in the next, she was pressed against the length of him, thigh to thigh, hip to hip, stomach to stomach, while his mouth tunneled against her lips with hungry insistence, awakening a rush of unexpected sensations.
Struggling to surface from them, Jessy started to turn her face away, but Laredo abruptly broke off the kiss and raised his head scant inches from hers, rain funneling off the brim of his hat onto her head.
“Don’t give me some damned lecture about me needing a woman,” he growled while his gaze devoured her upturned face. “If any woman would do, that’s where I’d be. But it’s you I need.”
“You don’t understand.” But Jessy wasn’t sure she did, either. She wanted to tell him it was happening too fast, except she had felt it coming. But she hadn’t decided if it was what she wanted.
“What! That you loved your husband?” The warmth of his breath fanned her cheek. “I understand that. But he’s gone and I’m here. If that’s wrong, then I don’t know what’s right. I just know God didn’t make flesh and blood to live alone.”
