The Barefoot Summer Page 15

  She fumbled for an answer. “Because it’s against the law.”

  “You know what my Mama Rita says? She says that I have to obey her when she tells me something, but what my mama says is the law. Is it like that?”

  “A whole lot.” Amanda put the last of the cookies in the oven and checked the clock. It was time to open two cans of soup and get things ready for dinner.

  “Then if my mama had told my daddy not to marry you, he wouldn’t have done it?” Gracie asked.

  “This is a different kind of law.”

  Gracie frowned. “Like the detective that likes Kate a lot. Mama says he’s the law. If he’d told my daddy not to marry you and Kate, then he wouldn’t, right?”

  “I don’t know about that, but what makes you think that Waylon likes Kate?” Amanda asked.

  “I’m a little kid, but I’m not stupid.” Gracie folded her arms over her chest and huffed. “I can see the way he looks at her. Like Mama looks at chocolate.”

  That was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Amanda burst out laughing, and Gracie joined right in.

  “Why is that funny?” Gracie asked when they’d both gotten control.

  Amanda hugged the child. “I hope my baby grows up to be as smart as you.”

  “Mama says it’s my half brother. What’s the other half?”

  “Half brother means you have the same daddy but not the same mama,” Amanda explained.

  “Does that mean I’m a big sister for real?”

  Amanda sure wished that Jamie was there to have this conversation. “It does mean that. Do you want to be a big sister even though you don’t have the same mama as my baby?”

  “Heck, yeah, I do.” Gracie grinned with a chocolate chip stuck to her teeth. “I don’t care who the mama or the daddy is as long as it can be my brother.”

  “Hello, what’s this about a brother?” Jamie asked as she made her way into the house.

  “Amanda’s baby will have my daddy, but Amanda will be the mama. And we’ve got cookies, Mama. Lots and lots of cookies!” Gracie ran to give Jamie a hug.

  Jamie grinned. “The simplicity of innocence.”

  “We are making noodle soup for dinner, Mama. Tell me about your day,” Gracie said.

  Jamie picked up a still-warm cookie. “I want to hear about your day and then I’ll tell you about mine.”

  “I wish Kate was here to tell us about hers. I miss her when she’s gone all day.” Gracie sighed.

  Driving a tractor, even with the radio blaring loudly, left a lot of time for thinking, and that’s what Kate had been doing all morning. The fact that she’d been selfish with the knowledge in Iris’s letters and will kept circling back to haunt her even when other things took top priority.

  She liked this mindless work of plowing a field. She liked being outside in the sunshine and wearing sandals or going barefoot. But what she liked most of all was the freedom in her soul when she smelled the fresh-plowed dirt or looked at a barn full of hay that she’d helped harvest.

  Kenny Chesney was belting out “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” when she made the final loop around the field.

  “Oh, yes, I do.” She grinned. “And my mother would have me committed for saying that.”

  She picked up her phone from the console beside her and poked in the speed-dial number for the lawyer as she drove the tractor back to the barn. They’d located Darcy’s will only to learn she’d left all her earthly possessions to her mother’s church—Hattie’s church. Now it was a matter of getting things legalized and seeing what the church wanted to do with the cabin and the money they’d found in the bank box.

  She turned off the engine and slung open the door. It was time—past time, really—to let everyone know about the will and the letters.

  Today!

  That would take her one step closer to getting all this closed and out of her mind. Waylon reached up, put his arms on her waist, and brought her to the ground like she weighed no more than a bed pillow. “Ready to get some lunch?”

  “The way I’ve been eating, I’ll have to live at the gym when I get home.” Her heart fluttered around like a butterfly in her chest. Yes, his touch had that effect on her, but she had to tell him about the will and the letters, and it had to be today, and that was as much to do with the jitters as his hands on her waist. The past few days she’d started to feel guilty for not telling him or the other two. Right now she just wanted it out in the open, even if it caused a fight with Waylon or with Amanda and Jamie.

  He laced his fingers with hers, and they started toward the house. “Darlin’, you will always be beautiful in my eyes.”

  “That’s sweet of you to say.” She took a deep breath and said, “I’ve been holding back on you. I have some information that could help.”

  He put a finger on her lips. “If you held something back, then I believe you had a reason. What is it and why are you going to tell me now?”

  “I found letters that Iris wrote to her daughter, Darcy. There is a will—she left everything to Darcy, and in Darcy’s will, she left everything to her mother’s church,” Kate said. “That means it could be tied up for a while if either Jamie or Amanda contest it, I guess.”

  “Let’s go in and have some chili. I put a pot on this morning before we got started, and it should be about simmered down real good. You can tell me everything over lunch,” he said. “But I don’t know what a will has to do with his murder or a bunch of old letters, either one. Did you read them?”

  “Of course. The will was sealed, so I didn’t open it, but the rest of them were in unsealed envelopes. Can I be arrested for that?” She opened the cabinet doors and took out two bowls while he stirred the chili and then put silverware on the table.

  “I wouldn’t think so.” He grinned. “They didn’t go through the US mail. Besides, if Iris wrote them, she left them for someone to find, and since Darcy is dead . . .” He dipped up the chili.

  She started talking, too fast, but she had to get the load off her chest. “The first letter told Darcy about Iris’s last will, so I knew what was in it. She left everything to her daughter and nothing to Conrad. She had hired a private investigator to look into him after they were married, but she was so ashamed of herself. Besides, he was threatening her in some way if she didn’t give him control of her money and assets. She was not his first wife, Waylon. He was married twice under a different name—Swanson. One of those women died in a suspicious car wreck. The other one divorced him, and I’d bet dollars to cow chips that he got a lot of money at that time,” Kate said.

  “You sure do remember details well.”

  “You can see the letters if you want to cross-check my information,” she said.

  “That would be good, but go on.” He set the bowls on the table.

  “Okay, then,” she went on. “His birth certificate name is Cain Smith and he was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Mother is Linda Smith. Father unknown. He was raised in foster homes because his mother was or maybe still is an alcoholic. The detective could not find the mother.”

  “This is just the lead I needed.” He grinned. “I can trace back now and maybe figure out what happened.”

  “Slow down,” she said. “Where does that leave us?”

  “Us?” He looked up with questions in his eyes.

  For God’s sake, did he think that, just because they’d exchanged a few kisses and she was finally telling him what she’d known for days, they were in anything other than a working relationship? Or maybe a friendly one if she stretched out the matter?

  “Us as in me and Jamie and Amanda? Were we really married to him? Is my marriage even legal? What happens to the cabin now or his van and his bank account? I have no idea what he had, but it’s sure not mine.”

  She’d unloaded the burden, and now she wanted answers—right now!

  “I’d say you’ll have to get in touch with your lawyers on that one, but I suppose that all his belongings will probably be divided among his childr
en—depending on the story with Darcy. Do you know what’s involved in his assets?”

  Kate shook her head. “I’m not sure. His accountant took care of his business, both personal and professional. I despise his accountant. She’s probably as crooked as Conrad was. You might start there. When I called him about the utilities on the cabin, he said that since Conrad wasn’t there to authorize the payments, no more would be made. They were probably in cahoots in all kinds of scams.”

  “And that is another good lead. I’m going to Dallas after we get done eating. Want to go with me?” he asked as he picked up his phone. “Give me a minute here to call Johnny.”

  The back door opened before he finished hitting a speed-dial number. “Hey, Waylon,” a man called out.

  “Come on in, Johnny. I was about to call you.”

  A tall, well-built guy with close-cut hair and a square jaw came into the kitchen. “Is that chili?”

  “Help yourself. Meet Kate, our new hired hand. This is Johnny, my right-hand man.” Waylon made introductions and then turned back to Johnny. “I’m going to Dallas this afternoon. Hopefully, I’ll be home tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” Johnny filled a bowl with chili and carried it to the table. “It’s nice to meet you, Kate. You’d be one of those women that Conrad married, right?”

  “Yes, I am, and it’s nice to meet you, Johnny,” she said.

  Would that always be the way she’d be seen in the community? At least in a city the size of Fort Worth, very few people knew her or that a robbery had gone bad in Dallas.

  “My pleasure,” Johnny said with a smile. “Guess what, Waylon? We’ve got a set of twin calves. Born too late for this fall’s sale, but in my opinion they’ll be good breeders. Both bulls, and they’ve got some fine lines. That’s what I came to the house to tell you, though I do love a good bowl of chili,” Johnny said.

  Johnny’s biceps bulged the seams of his knit shirt, and his dark hair had a ring where his cowboy hat had set all morning. That he’d been in the military was evident by his body language. The way his eyes didn’t miss a thing told Kate that he might have even been in the Special Forces.

  “So what branch were you in?” she asked him.

  “What?” Johnny brow furrowed. “Oh, you mean the military, not the creek at the back of the ranch. Navy SEALs.”

  “Overseas duty?” she asked.

  “Spent some time in Kuwait. Texas is a paradise compared to that. Good chili, Waylon. I’ll keep an eye on the calves until you get home and then you can see them for yourself.” Johnny didn’t talk much more as he set about eating. When he finished, he carried his bowl to the sink, rinsed it, and put it in the dishwasher. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll keep it runnin’ smooth until you get back home and pin a couple of medals on those two who killed that bastard. I remember Iris and how she always made special treats for us at Bible school.”

  Waylon chuckled. “I sure would like to get this settled.”

  Not as much as I would, Kate thought as she finished the chili.

  “Get it done and get back here for good.” Johnny waved as he left by the back door.

  “You sure you don’t want to go with me?” Waylon turned back to Kate.

  “No, I do not. If I get that close to home, Mother might pull me right back into the business, and I really want to get all this finished before I go back,” she answered. “I’m just sorry that Darcy died not knowing that her mother had figured out what a horrible mistake she had made. She talked about a bank deposit box, too. A key was in one of the letters. If that’s in your purview, go by my office and Mother will give it to you.”

  “Whatever is in there will be Darcy’s, and since she is dead, it will go to whomever she listed as the beneficiary. But I would imagine you and those other two are free to live in the cabin until it’s all settled,” he answered.

  “I’m going to tell Amanda and Jamie about this. They have a right to know,” she said.

  “You should. Please tell them to keep it under their hats. I want to put my best folks on researching every alias that he used. He did stay pretty true to what con men usually do.” Waylon got to his feet. “Funny how things work out, isn’t it?”

  “His choices brought him to a fatal end for sure. But what did you mean by staying true?”

  “They nearly always use the same initials. Would you send me an e-mail this afternoon with all that information? That way I’ll have it when I get to the precinct and we might be able to get something accomplished today.”

  “I will as soon as I get to the cabin,” she said. “How will this help you find his killer?”

  “If we know the past and the way he lived then, it helps us figure out what was going on just before he died.”

  “I’ll bet that it has to do with another wife or at least another woman,” she said. “That was his game. Find a woman. Charm her. Fleece her. And move on.”

  Waylon laid his hand on hers. “You are the exception.”

  “How’s that?”

  “He didn’t fleece you.”

  “That was the only way to hold on to a little bit of my dignity,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Kate got inside her Caddy, started the engine, turned up the air-conditioning, and hit the button to roll down the window. “If you clear my name, I’ll let you drive my vintage cars as a reward,” she teased.

  “Darlin’, that could be considered a bribe,” Waylon said.

  “Oh, really? Are you tempted?” She wished the same cool air that pushed the heat out the window could do the same for her body. But as long as Waylon braced a forearm on the window and leaned down so that their faces were only inches apart, the AC wasn’t going to cool anything down but the car.

  “We could ride down there together and it wouldn’t seem like such a long trip,” he said.

  On one hand she wished she could change her mind. But common sense said she needed breathing space away from him. “I really need to go home. I promised to bring some things from the convenience store, and they’ll be waiting for them. Call me when you get back.”

  “I’ll be home on Sunday at the latest. If I make it in Saturday night, will you go to dinner with me on Sunday?”

  Kate laid a hand on his arm. “We have a potluck, remember?”

  “But I want to take you to Wichita Falls to my favorite burger shop. Once you eat there, you won’t want to get too far away from this area. Who knows? Someday you’ll leave the big city behind like I’m doing.” He straightened up and headed toward the house as he waved over his shoulder.

  “Some things are simply impossible,” she whispered as she rolled up the window and headed back toward Bootleg.

  Never work. Too much change. Those words played through her mind as she drove home.

  Home. Was it really where the heart was? If so, where was her heart?

  Your heart should be focused on our business. And what makes you think that cop can clear your name? All that information you gave him might be a load of crap. The voice in her head was definitely her mother’s. I told you not to marry Conrad. Why can’t you ever pay attention to me? Don’t get involved with that man. You have no sense when it comes to men.

  She shook her head so hard her ponytail whipped around and slapped her in the face. “Heavens, Mother! You can’t even refrain from saying you told me so in my thoughts.”

  And what do you expect to accomplish by letting that cop drive your cars? Do you think that will make him fall in love with you? I’ve told you over and over to focus on your job and the company.

  “Hush,” she said loudly and turned on the radio to the country music station that she liked.

  She missed the turn to go into town for beer and soda and was trying to keep her mother out of her mind when she parked in front of the cabin. She slapped the steering wheel with both palms and turned around to go back to the store.

  The heart is a fickle thing. It trusted Conrad. I cannot let it guide my decisions, she thought as she
pushed open the glass door to the store. She picked up the beer and diet soda pop and added a couple of bags of chips.

  “Anything else?” the lady behind the counter asked.

  Your heart did not trust Conrad. If you’ll remember, you did have doubts even on your wedding day, but there’d already been the big splash of a shower and the wedding plans. Teresa was back in full force.

  “Are you all right?” the lady asked.

  Kate came back to reality with a jerk. “I’m so sorry. I was off in la-la land.”

  “Happens to all of us. Anything else?”

  “Yes, please add half a dozen burritos and maybe a dozen cheese sticks from the deli.” Kate pulled out her credit card.

  She toted her bags out to the car and put them in the backseat, got inside, and in a few minutes realized she was on her way back to the ranch instead of the cabin. She braked hard, leaving a trail of dust behind her from the dirt road.

  “Get your head on straight, Kate!” Her voice bounced around in the car like marbles in a tin can, echoing from every surface to remind her that she should think about what she was doing.

  Amanda waved from the front door when she finally pulled up in front of the cabin for the second time that evening. “Hey, we’re all fishing from the dock. We’re having a picnic supper down there in a little while. Come join us. Did you bring beer and soda pop?”

  “Yes, I did. I’ll just haul it all down there instead of unloading in the house,” Kate said.

  “Need some help? I came up to go to the bathroom. Whoever built this place should have put a toilet in the boat shed.”

  “Got a couple of bags of chips and burritos that you can carry. I’ll take the heavy stuff,” Kate answered. “I probably should wash up.”

  “You look like hell, but so do the rest of us.” Amanda smiled. “We’ll all smell like fish before dark anyway.”

  “Kate, come and see the fishes that I caught. One is big enough to eat for dinner tomorrow,” Gracie hollered as Amanda and Kate made their way down the steps to the boat dock.

  Just seeing her put a smile on Kate’s face. “You are quite a fisherman, Miss Gracie!”