Matchmaking with a Mission

by B. J Daniels

  Either way, Nate knew he’d been a fool to think that Vaughn would make it easy for him.

  But he also couldn’t keep looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life. Vaughn was in town. Nate was convinced he was the man McKenna had seen. It would end where it had started. But apparently on Vaughn’s terms.

  Or maybe it would end in this canyon, right here, right now. Vaughn would know that Nate would search him out. Hell, he could be watching Nate from some of the rocks higher up the canyon wall and laughing his ass off that Nate had been so stupid as to come here alone.

  Even armed, Nate knew he would be no match for the Roy Vaughn he’d known. The kid had been a bull, strong and tough. Nate hated to imagine what he was like as a grown man with years of cruelty behind him.

  But unfortunately—or maybe fortunately—Vaughn wasn’t hiding in the canyon. At least not today.

  Which meant he could be anywhere. Even at Harper House.

  MCKENNA DIDN’T SEE Nate all afternoon. After lunch, some of their friends came by, including the sheriff and a couple of deputies.

  She saw Eve and the sheriff, their heads together, discussing something that looked serious. But a few moments later she saw Eve give Carter a kiss and tried to relax. This wedding had to go off as planned. McKenna was the maid of honor and felt responsible for seeing that nothing went wrong.

  At one point the sheriff pulled McKenna aside.

  “I did some checking on people who used to work out here.” He seemed to hesitate. “Quite a few them are deceased, but the only ones with foul play indicated were the Cherrys.”

  McKenna nodded. She’d grown up on the edge of Old Town Whitehorse, so she knew the story of Norman and Alma Cherry only too well. Norman had allegedly taken his wife down to the root cellar in the middle of the night, put a bullet in her head, then one in his own. No one had ever known why.

  “Is it possible they were the first?” McKenna asked.

  Carter shook his head. “That was more than thirty years ago. The paper you found was dated only twenty-one years ago.”

  She had a terrible thought. “Unless this death pact wasn’t something new to Harper House. The Winthrops told me it’s been operating over thirty years. Maybe these boys got the idea from others who had lived there before them.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” he said. “I’m still doing some checking.”

  “Who else is deceased?”

  Carter handed her a list of the names.

  She scanned it and froze. “Hal Turner?”

  “Killed in a hunting accident.”

  McKenna fought to breathe. “A man stopped by here the other day. He said his name was Hal Turner.”

  “Obviously not the same Hal Turner,” Carter said and then seemed to notice how shaken she was. “Am I missing something here?”

  “What if the man I saw was one of the boys using the name of someone who used to work there?”

  “McKenna, you’re starting to worry me now. I think you’re letting this get to you. Hal Turner didn’t work there. He was one of the first guys who lived there.” He took the list from her. “All of these deaths were ruled an accident, okay?”

  She nodded numbly. It was too much of a coincidence that the man had used that name. She’d known he was lying at the time. Now she knew Hal Turner had been one of the boys who’d lived in the house. “What about the names on the list that I found?”

  “Three of them are deceased,” Carter said. “Lyle Weston, Steven Cross and Andrew Charles. Bobby French is serving time in prison in Oregon. The others I haven’t been able to find. But, as I told you, some of them were adopted, so their names would have been changed when they were still juveniles.”

  She nodded. That left only three names on the list: Roy Vaughn, Lucky Thomas and Denny Jones. She felt some relief that the others were accounted for.

  “By the way, I see you have someone staying out back,” the sheriff said.

  She cringed. So like Carter to have noticed even though Nate’s tent wasn’t visible from the house. The only way Carter could have noticed was if he had looked around the property.

  “Nate Dempsey,” she said, trying to sound as casual as possible. “He’s trading work for boarding his horse. I told him he could camp out there to make it easier for him to work on the house.”

  “What do you know about him?” Carter asked.

  “He fixed my shower and made some other repairs that will make it possible for me to move in soon,” she said maybe a little too cheerfully.

  “How long is he staying?”

  Good question. “Just until I move into the house,” she said, thinking that was probably true. As much as he apparently liked his solitude, she couldn’t see him hanging around after that. Unless he was the one who’d been digging in her yard—and hadn’t found what he was looking for.

  She expected Carter to interrogate her further and was surprised when he didn’t.

  By late afternoon the painting was done. Tomorrow, if it didn’t rain, the furniture would be brought in.

  She’d painted her office a sunny yellow. The bedroom she’d painted a pale lilac like the trees just outside her window. The other rooms were varying shades of warm, rich color.

  “Too girlie,” one of the off-duty deputies said about the color she’d chosen for her bedroom. “Didn’t they have a nice tan?” he only half joked.

  “White’s good, too,” said Deputy Nicolas Giovanni.

  “A little colorphobic, are you, Nicolas?” Eve teased. “Are you trying to tell me that Laney is painting all the walls in your new house white?”

  “I suggested it,” Nicolas said with a grin.

  “And he lived to tell about it,” Carter added. “We’ve got to go. You have everything under control out here?”

  McKenna nodded and thanked them all. After the men left, she noticed that Nate’s pickup was still gone. What did he do when he wasn’t here? She had no idea. He’d said he had business in Whitehorse. None of her business.

  The men all left promising to help with the furniture move. After they’d gone, Eve said she had to go, as well.

  “What? You aren’t going to stay and meet Flynn?” McKenna asked.

  “No reason to,” Eve said. “You aren’t serious about him.”

  “Well, I’d like to meet him if he’s as handsome as she says,” Faith joked.

  As McKenna watched her sisters leave, she thought how she’d never been able to fool Eve even when they were young. Eve knew her too well.

  SHERIFF CARTER JACKSON had just walked into his house when he got the call.

  “You were asking about people who used to work out there at the old Harper place?”

  “Yes.” He recognized the woman’s voice as that of Mabel Brooks, an eighty-something ranch woman who raised sheep on her place outside of town. He didn’t bother to question how she’d heard he’d been asking around.

  “I remember the first couple who worked out there,” Mabel was saying. “Cherry was their name. Both dead. Then there was Lloyd Frasier. Also dead.”

  Carter listened, jotting down the new names going back to when Harper House had begun taking in troubled boys. All of the former workers were deceased. Heart attacks, car wrecks, ranch and hunting accidents. Except for the Cherrys’ murder/suicide.

  The longer he listened, the more concerned he became. A lot of bad luck had befallen anyone who’d worked at the place, apparently.

  Still, he thought as he hung up, Frank Merkel and Rosemarie Blackmore were fine. Could it be a coincidence so many of the people had died? Could be their ages, he reminded himself. The place had sprung up more than thirty years before. The youngest of people who worked there had to be over fifty now, many much older than that.

  He realized he hadn’t heard back on his request for information on Nate Dempsey, and now that he knew the man was staying on McKenna’s property…

  He called, this time ringing the chief of police in Paradise at home. The joke about small-tow
n sheriffs and chiefs of police was that more people knew their home phone number than that of their office.

  “You’re inquiring about Nate Dempsey?” the chief asked, sounding amused. “May I ask why?”

  “With all the construction fraud nowadays, I was just checking to make sure there wasn’t a problem with him working on a house up here.”

  “He picked up a hammer again? He must be doing some moonlighting on his vacation, then,” the chief said.

  Huh? “Are you saying he isn’t employed in construction? He’s driving a truck with Dempsey Construction on the side.”

  “He was in the construction business with his brother. That must be his brother’s pickup he’s driving. But Nate hasn’t worked construction for almost ten years now.”

  Chapter Twelve

  After everyone was gone, McKenna felt restless. She finally walked up the creek to where Nate Dempsey had pitched his tent. She saw his Appaloosa on the other side of the fence, grazing in the summer sun, but no sign of Nate. His horse trailer was parked next to the barn, his pickup gone.

  Blue came over to the fence to give her a nuzzle. She rubbed the horse’s neck and thought about peeking into Nate’s tent. For what? she asked herself. What is it you need to know before you trust the man?

  At the sound of a vehicle coming up the road she turned to see a black pickup headed this way. The last thing she wanted to do was get caught out here by his tent, but it was too late to escape unnoticed.

  Nate drove up the drive past the house to park next to the barn.

  She could only watch him as he got out and strode toward her. It wasn’t until he was almost to her that she could see his face in the shadow of his Western straw hat brim. He didn’t look happy.

  “That horse can be temperamental,” he snapped.

  “Yeah, I can see that,” she said, giving Blue one last pat before she moved away from the fence. “He seems to be settled in fine. What about you?”

  “As you can see, I have everything I need.”

  Apparently.

  “How did the painting go?” he asked as if trying to make conversation, although clearly something else was on his mind. “I thought your sisters would still be here with you.”

  “They just left. We got the upstairs done. They’re coming back tomorrow with a load of my furniture.”

  “You’re going to move in before you finish all the painting?” He sounded more than surprised.

  “It will make it easier to get the work done if I’m staying here. We plugged in the old fridge in the kitchen. It works. So I’ll bring some food out. My new stove should be delivered soon. I’ll be fine.”

  He nodded but didn’t look happy about it.

  “And you’ll be here if there’s any trouble, right?”

  She hated the fear that seemed to close her throat at the thought that he’d hightail it the moment she moved in.

  “I’ll be here,” he said, not sounding in the least happy about that, either.

  “Great.” She wanted to ask him what he was really doing here. Not for a place to board his horse. He’d said he was here on business. He just hadn’t mentioned for how long.

  She glanced at her watch, telling herself that once she was settled in the house maybe it would be best if he left. She would always wonder what it was that he really wanted. He still hadn’t asked her out, although she’d expected him to mention Whitehorse Days again. He hadn’t, though.

  “Well, I need to get ready for my…” She bit her tongue, but it was too late. “Date.” She groaned inwardly. Why had she mentioned her date? Was she expecting some kind of reaction from him? Say, something akin to jealousy? Well, if she was, she was sadly disappointed.

  He said nothing as she took a couple steps backward. She turned and walked toward the house as quickly as she could, mentally kicking herself the entire way.

  FLYNN GARRETT WAS nothing if not prompt. As he climbed out of his truck, she saw him glance up at the house and shake his head.

  “Want to see what we’ve done upstairs?” she asked.

  “A waste of paint,” he said but smiled as he did. “Maybe some other time. I have us a reservation for seven and we’ll be late if we don’t leave now. Rain check on the tour?”

  “Sure.” Although she was disappointed. But she understood on some level that he didn’t want to see the house he’d tried to buy himself.

  They ordered steaks again. No champagne this time. Conversation seemed harder this time, and McKenna wondered if she’d made a mistake by having Flynn pick her up at the house. He’d been overly quiet ever since, as if brooding.

  “I did something crazy today,” she said.

  He looked up expectantly from his dessert.

  “I went by the homes of the two people who used to work at Harper House and warned them they might be in danger.”

  He put down his fork. “You’re kidding? I thought the sheriff told you there was nothing to worry about.”

  “Yes, but I felt I had to.”

  “And?”

  “Neither appreciated my concern. Both pretty much threw me out.”

  “Ingrates,” he said. “You do realize that you may have just put yourself in jeopardy, though, don’t you? I mean, if you’re right and these guys are coming back after twenty-one years, seeking vengeance, they probably wouldn’t appreciate you butting in.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. “More than likely all I did was scare a couple of old people for no reason. I’m beginning to think that I’m dead wrong about this.”

  “Interesting turn of phrase.” He smiled. It was nothing like Nate’s smile. “I wouldn’t worry about it. If you’re right, by buying Harper House you’ve already put yourself in jeopardy. You probably didn’t make it any worse today.”

  “Thanks,” she said with a laugh. “I knew you’d make me feel better.”

  “Sorry.” He frowned. “I just wish I’d known you were considering doing that. I would have tried to talk you out of it.”

  She nodded, knowing he wouldn’t have been able to, but no reason to tell him how stubborn she could be. “Fortunately, I don’t think there is anything to it. After all these years, what are the chances?”

  “Well, you gave it your best shot,” he said.

  Yes, hadn’t she? She frowned as she remembered Rosemarie’s expression as she’d watched Nate drive away. No doubt it was from being frightened by the news McKenna had brought her. Or maybe she’d mistakenly thought Nate was one of the boys, grown now.

  She reminded herself again that his name hadn’t been on the list. That she and Rosemarie Blackmore were both a little crazy.

  “I have to tell you,” Flynn said, drawing her attention back to their date. “When I picked you up at the house this evening I was thinking about what you found there. The paper. Quite frankly, I’m not sure you’re safe there. Maybe you should stay at your family’s ranch until you’re sure there’s nothing to all this.”

  She thought about mentioning the man she had living on the creek behind the house but thought better of it. The fewer people who knew about her arrangement, the better.

  “Maybe,” she agreed, then changed the subject, and in a few minutes Flynn was telling her funny stories about the ranches he’d worked on, his worries about her apparently forgotten.

  IT WAS DARK BY THE time Flynn dropped her off at the house. He left the engine running.

  “I have an early day tomorrow,” he said as he got out and walked her to the door.

  This time when he kissed her McKenna knew it was their last date—and she realized she was fine with that.

  She watched him drive away, wondering if Nate was camped on the creek. Or if he’d gone into town. Or maybe even left. And told herself the only reason she cared was that she wanted him around for a while. Just until she got completely moved in. Until she was sure the strange man wouldn’t be back. Or that there really was nothing to the contract she’d found under the floorboards.

  But the truth was she wanted him
around. She had no idea what it was about him that drew her to him. These feelings made no sense, especially since he obviously didn’t share them.

  She pulled her pickup keys from her shoulder bag. There was really no reason to go into the house since she was still staying down at her family’s ranch until her furniture was moved in tomorrow.

  But she was here and the night was young. She might as well take a look at the upstairs, admire the work they’d done and think about where she’d put the furniture when it arrived.

  Unlocking the door, she reached in and turned on a light before stepping inside. The wood floors gleamed. She couldn’t wait to finish the painting. The house already had a different feel to it, didn’t it?

  She glanced through to the kitchen and the window that looked out on the backyard—and the creek. She could see a flickering light through the branches on the cottonwoods along the creek. A campfire. Nate. Her pulse took off, heart beating a little faster. He was here.

  Climbing the steps to the top floor, she turned on a light and surveyed the painted rooms, talking herself out of walking back up the creek on some pretense to see him. The floors up here glistened in the light, the paint smell still strong even though she’d opened all the windows.

  The faint breeze wafting in smelled of cottonwoods and summer nights. She stepped to it, breathing in the memories of her childhood summers. What kind of memories did the boys have who used to live here?

  The thought startled her, just as did the creak of the stairs behind her. She spun around to find Nate Dempsey standing in the doorway.

  NATE TRIED TO STILL the pounding in his pulse. He’d followed her up here with one thing in mind. But seeing her standing there…in this room…the summer smells coming through the open window—all of it took him back to a place he had never wanted to go again.

  “You scared me,” she snapped, a hand going to her heart, those blue eyes wide and frightened.