by Linda Warren
“Yeah,” he said, and clicked off before Monty could get in another question.
Chance hurried for the stairs to get dressed. On the third step he stopped. Was he seeing things? Was there a light coming from Judd’s study?
He eased down the stairs and went to check, thinking it might be the early morning sun reflecting off the big front windows. He walked into the hall. The doors to Judd’s study were closed and there was definitely a faint light coming from within—a light that hadn’t been there earlier. Was Renee up and looking for something? But the study was Judd’s private sanctum and it wasn’t like his mother to be up this early.
Slowly, Chance opened one of the French doors, and received the shock of his life. Shay had Judd’s safe open and was rummaging through it. What the hell?
She closed the safe and turned the knob. Then she saw him. In the light of the lamp on the desk he could see the blood drain from her face.
Chance glanced from her to the safe and then back to her startled eyes. “What are you doing in here?”
“Nothing.” She edged around the desk.
“You had the safe open. What were you looking for?”
“Nothing.” She moved farther away and held out her hands, palms up. “I didn’t take anything.”
“Come on. Who are you? What are you doing here and how did you know the combination to the safe?”
Before he guessed her intentions, she darted past him, ran through the foyer and slammed the front door in his face. He immediately ran after her, only to see her jump into the rental and tear out the driveway.
Since he didn’t have his boots on and his truck was at the bunkhouse, Chance didn’t even try to follow. It was too late; she was already long gone.
He cursed himself while dressing. Walker had her address, and Chance was going to track down Shay Dumont if it was the last thing he did.
In a matter of minutes he had her Houston address from Walker. Chance told him about the incident, and the constable wanted to put an All Points Bulletin out on her. Chance kept seeing the fear in Shay’s eyes, however, and wanted to find out firsthand what she was after. The law officer reluctantly agreed, but they both knew Judd was going to be pissed. It was up to Chance to make everything right. He felt he owed that to Judd for bringing her into the house.
He didn’t tell Renee much—only that the rental had been delivered and their mysterious guest had left. The older woman was disappointed.
He checked on the cowboys and put Monty in charge. Then, after filling his truck with gas, Chance headed for Houston.
Thanks to the GPS in his truck, her house was easy to find. He took the Airline Drive exit from the freeway. She lived in the north central area of Houston, in an older neighborhood. He pulled up near a small, cream-colored frame house with brown shutters. The paint was peeling and the place needed a good coat of fresh color.
A bright blue house was next door, the two set closer than the others on the block. The yard was hard to miss, since about a dozen pink flamingoes stood among plastic windmills, birdhouses and birdbaths. On the garage door was a sign: Nettie’s Beauty Nook. Evidently the garage had been converted into a beauty shop.
Shay had said something about a cousin who helped her. That could be her house.
Farther down the street two guys were working on a car, with a stereo blasting. Cigarettes dangled from their lips and tattoos ran up their arms. Another car sat to the side with grass growing around it. Chance had a feeling the neighborhood wasn’t too safe.
He turned into Shay’s driveway and parked. Time to meet her and her family. Climbing from the truck he strolled up the walk. There wasn’t a bell so he knocked.
No one came to the door, but he could hear voices inside. Suddenly the door opened a crack, the safety chain still attached.
“What do you want?” a girl about seven or eight asked. In jeans, sneakers and T-shirt, she seemed overly thin. Her brown hair was cut short like a boy’s, and she wore wire-rimmed glasses that were so lopsided he wondered how she saw anything out of them.
“You better close the door,” a boy about the same age said from behind her. “Your mom said we weren’t supposed to open it to strangers.”
Mom? Shay had a kid?
The girl spared the boy a sharp glance. “You’re such a scaredy-cat.”
“Am not.” He peered around her shoulder to the driveway. “Look, Darce, he’s got a truck.”
She followed his gaze and then looked at Chance. “Does it have a Hemi?”
Chance was taken aback by the question. Most kids her age wouldn’t know the term. “Do you know what a Hemi is?”
“Yes.” She nodded and straightened her glasses. “It’s a tough truck that will go through mud, creeks and mountains. It can do anything.” She pointed to the boy. “His brother is saving up for one and has pictures all over his wall.”
“I see.” Chance had to smile at the imagination of children. He glanced over his shoulder. “My truck is a Chevy four by four.”
“Then it’s a piece of junk.” The girl had a razor-sharp tongue and the attitude of a cowboy who’d had too many beers the night before.
He couldn’t stop thinking that this was Shay’s child, and that Shay probably had a husband as well. She had a family and was trying to rob the Calhouns. That didn’t fit. She was too nice.
Whoa, cowboy. He was letting his heart rule his head because he was smitten with her. Feeling that way about a woman hadn’t happened in a long time. And it felt good. But now he had to think with his head.
“Go away,” the girl said, and made to slam the door. But he put his booted foot in the opening, that had become wider as they were talking.
“I’d like to talk to Shay, please,” he said politely.
“Sic him, Tiny,” she said to the dog fussing around her feet.
The small canine, a cross between a Chihuahua and something else, launched himself through the crack. Latching on to Chance’s jeans with his sharp teeth, Tiny shook his head as if he were a Doberman about to take down a rottweiler.
Chance reached down and dislodged the dog from his jeans. He rubbed the animal’s head, and Tiny growled deep in his throat. “Think I’ll take you home with me. I know two little boys who’ll give you a run for your money.” Chance had no plans to take the dog. He just wanted to get the girl’s attention. And he did.
“Hey. You can’t do that. That’s my dog.” She quickly undid the safety chain and charged outside.
“Maybe little girls who are rude shouldn’t have a dog.”
“Darcy, where are you?”
“Uh-oh,” the little boy said.
“I’m at the front door.”
“What are you…” Shay’s voice trailed away when she saw Chance, and her eyes were huge. Evidently she’d thought he wouldn’t follow her.
“This man wanted to see you and I wouldn’t let him in.”
“You’re not supposed to open the door to strangers. Period.”
“I’m eight years old. I’m not a baby.”
“Darcy, don’t talk back to me.”
Shay was still reeling from the shock of seeing Chance Hardin, and now she was arguing with her adopted daughter in front of him. What did he want? Well, that was a no-brainer; after the way she’d left Southern Cross.
She’d trembled all the way home, listening for the sound of a siren. She’d thought she was home free, but he’d followed her. Damn. What should she do now?
“Shay, where in the hell are you?”
Darcy frowned. “The witch’s been calling for you.”
“Do not call Blanche a witch.” Shay’s nerves were about to snap. She couldn’t deal with Chance, her mother and Darcy all at the same time. At the moment he was the most pressing problem. Chance was glaring at her with those beautiful dark eyes, and she almost forgot she had to get rid of him.
“Mother, I’ll be there in a minute.”
“You finally dragged your ass home. That kid is making too much noise.”<
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Shay cringed that Chance was listening to this.
“I was at the shop,” she called back. “Just give me a few minutes, please.”
“I want a glass of iced tea.”
“Fine. I’ll fix it.”
Shay turned to her daughter. “Go outside and play with Petey, and we’ll talk later.”
Darcy jerked her thumb toward Chance. “He has Tiny.”
Shay wondered about that. What was he doing with Darcy’s dog? And how could she get Tiny back without causing a scene? Before she could form a plan, Chance placed Tiny on the concrete and he trotted to Darcy. She lifted the dog in her arms, hugging him as he whimpered, and then she and Petey ran outside.
Now Shay had to talk to Chance. She felt like running outside, too. But she steeled herself and faced him. This is what you get, she thought, when you try to rob houses—a harsh dose of reality.
“You left in rather a hurry, didn’t you?” One eyebrow lifted beneath his Stetson. She ignored the hammering of her pulse.
“How did you get my address?”
“The constable looked up your license plate. High Cotton might be a small town, but we’re not idiots.”
She bit her lip. “What do you want?”
His eyes met hers in a direct, no-nonsense stare. “The truth, Shay Dumont. The honest-to-God truth.” He dragged out her name as if to remind her of her lie.
She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Okay, I lied. My real name is Shay Dumont.”
“Why?” His voice was as cool as ice water, and she trembled. But it didn’t keep her from noticing how good-looking he was. Tall and lean, with everything a girl could want in between. How she wished they had met before she’d pulled such a stupid stunt.
She swallowed and wasn’t sure what to say to him. The truth would hurt too many people. “Listen. I didn’t take anything from Southern Cross, so can we please let this drop?”
“No.”
She should have known that he didn’t plan to be lenient. He’d come for the truth and he wasn’t leaving without it. The truth. It was a can of worms that had been festering for over twenty years, and once opened, it would stink from Houston to High Cotton. How could she open that can? She had to stall, or maybe entice the handsome cowboy. She stopped herself from laughing out loud at the ridiculous thought. What did she know about enticing?
Chance shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Let me make this easy for you.” He could see she was thinking of dancing around the truth. He had to apply pressure. “If you don’t tell me why you were trying to rob the Calhouns, I’ll call the constable of High Cotton. He’ll notify the police here and they’ll arrest you for attempted robbery and take you back to High Cotton to face the charges.” He gave her a second to digest that. “Do you want to put Darcy through that?”
Shay paled. “You wouldn’t.”
“You know I would. I wouldn’t have come here otherwise.”
She winced. “I thought you were nice, but you’re not.”
“I’m the foreman of Southern Cross and responsible for everything that happens while the Calhouns are away.”
“I didn’t take anything, okay?” Her voice grew angry.
“I don’t know that for sure. When I came in, you had the safe open and were rummaging through it. What were you after? And how did you get the combination?”
Her head jerked up. “You saw me leave, and could see that I didn’t take anything. How many times do I have to say that?”
“But you were after something. I just interrupted you.”
Shay gazed down at her sneakers and remained silent.
The shattered look on her face twisted his stomach and prompted him to add, “Shay, I mean you no harm, but I have to know why you tried to rob Southern Cross—a house in a small out-of-the-way town.”
She still remained silent.
“If you’re innocent, I’ll forget the whole thing.”
Her hands curled into fists. “But I’m not innocent.” The words came out low, but he heard them.
He felt a blow to his chest. For the first time he realized he wanted her to be innocent, or to have a very good explanation. In a short amount of time she’d awakened his heart. He’d thought it had stopped working long ago, but one look into her green eyes had started him thinking of happy endings and the fairy tales his mother used to read to him.
Shay looked him in the eye. “If I tell you the truth, will you promise I won’t be arrested? I can’t leave Darcy. I’m all she has.” She sighed heavily. “And, yes, I should have thought of her before….”
“Why didn’t you?” When he saw the kid, he’d wondered why she’d take such a risk. There had to be a reason. “Where is the child’s father?”
“Darcy is my adopted daughter. Her parents are dead.” Shay heaved another sigh. “I did a very stupid thing because—”
“Shay!” a woman’s voice shouted, through a fit of coughing.
Shay glanced over her shoulder. “I really have to go.”
Chance placed his hand on the door to keep her from closing it. “Not until you tell me.”
They stared at each other, one unyielding, the other determined. Shay knew she was beaten and had no choice. She had to open that can and reveal secrets that should never be told, at least to her way of thinking. It was a little late to realize her foolishness, but she had to consider Darcy now. First, though, she had to have some assurance.
“Promise I won’t be arrested.”
“If you didn’t take anything, I’ll do all I can to get Judd to drop the whole thing.”
She frowned. “Why do you have to tell him?” She didn’t want anything to do with the Calhouns. Her momentary-insanity jaunt had made her realize she didn’t belong at Southern Cross. She should have kept that door closed, as always.
“Because he’s the owner of Southern Cross, and as his foreman I don’t keep things from him.”
“Do you have the word loyalty tattooed across your butt?” The question slipped out before she could stop it.
His lips twitched into a grin. “Yes.”
Shay realized the conversation had switched into flirtation. This could be easy.
She flipped back her hair. “Maybe you’ll show me one day.”
“Maybe,” he drawled, and then his voice became serious again. “But first you have something to tell me.”
Damn. She should have known this wouldn’t be easy. He probably really did have loyalty tattooed on his butt.
“Well?” He waited.
She tried to speak, but her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth.
“Shay.”
Her name sounded so wonderful on his lips. It reminded her of lovers, moonlight and… What was she thinking? There was never going to be anything between her and Chance Hardin, especially after she told him the truth, and for a number of other reasons.
The words hovered in her throat and then she blurted them out. “My mother was once married to Jack Calhoun.”
Chance felt as if he’d been kicked in the head by the meanest bronc in Texas. Had he heard her correctly? “Excuse me?”
“My mother, Blanche Dumont, was Jack’s second wife. He lavished her with jewels and anything she wanted, but in the end he took everything from her, including her wedding rings.” Shay drew a long breath. “As I told you, my mother is dying of lung cancer and she’s obsessed with Jack Calhoun. He’s all she thinks about. She’s been pressing me for months about her rings. She wants to be buried with them on her finger, so she devised this plan…. That’s what I was doing in High Cotton.” Shay grimaced. “But things went awry.”
The name finally clicked. Blanche Dumont—the stepmother from hell. How many times had he heard Judd say that? But not lately. Since Judd and Cait had found happiness, Blanche’s name was no longer mentioned. Judd had filed that away under his father’s bad taste in women.
Chance barely remembered the details. He’d been just a kid, but everyone in High Cotton knew o
f Jack Calhoun’s love triangle with Renee and Blanche.
“How…how were you planning on getting in the house? You didn’t…”
“Have the wreck on purpose?” she finished for him. “I may have been under pressure, but I’m not that stupid. I didn’t plan on being gone overnight, either. I would never leave Darcy that long.”
Chance was glad to hear that, but he was still grappling with the truth. Could Shay be Judd’s half sister? How old was she? And how did you ask a woman that question?
“I was distracted with my phone,” she was saying. “I was going to introduce myself as Blanche’s daughter and ask for the rings, or demand them, as my mother wanted me to.”
“The asking part would have worked. The Calhouns are very nice people.”
“My mother didn’t have a good relationship with Renee, and I wasn’t sure.” Shay shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. Once I met her I couldn’t do it. She was too kind. But…” Shay hesitated. “When I left you in the kitchen, I had a wild idea to check and see if the rings were still in the safe, as my mother had said. The moment I saw the jewelry in the velvet box I knew it would be robbery. Just because something once belonged to you doesn’t mean it still does. I couldn’t take the rings—not even for my mother.”
Chance’s eyes narrowed. “How did you get the combination?”
“From my mother. She got it out of Jack one night when he was drunk. I was surprised it still worked.”
“Nothing much ever happens in High Cotton. It would take a real crazy person to come onto a ranch that size with armed cowboys everywhere.”
She held up a hand. “That would be me.”
Her green eyes sparkled and he had to resist that lure. “Why didn’t Blanche ask for the rings after Jack’s death?”
“She would never belittle herself to Renee.”
“But she’d ask her daughter to steal?”
Shay stepped back, her hand on the door. “You got what you wanted, now, please leave.”
Silence stretched as they stared at one another. He had so many things to say, questions to ask, but all he could do was stare into her eyes and wish there was such a thing as a happy ending instead of pain and heartache.
