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  “Maybe we should sell the whole company before that happens,” Kate said.

  Total silence. For a minute she thought maybe she’d caused her mother to go into acute cardiac arrest at even suggesting such a thing. She held the phone out from her ear to be sure she hadn’t lost the connection and then yelled, “Mother!” into it.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Teresa finally said.

  “Maybe I have, but if there’s a dark cloud hanging over me, then it wouldn’t take long for the company to go down the tank. People don’t trust multi-million-dollar business deals to women who may or may not have murdered their husbands.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Haven’t had a drink yet, but I’m planning on having half a bottle of wine before I go to bed, so I might be willing to give the company away about midnight,” Kate answered. “You know that several bigger companies have been sniffing around us for years. Talk to them and get a backup plan before this gets any bigger.”

  “God almighty,” Teresa fumed. “I can’t believe you’d even suggest such a thing.”

  “If anyone had told me six weeks ago that I would think about selling out, I would have thought they’d lost their marbles, but . . .” Kate let the sentence hang.

  “But that was before you got labeled a murderess in the Dallas newspaper,” Teresa said.

  “That’s right. Think about what I said. We’ll talk later. Right now I need to have an important conversation with Jamie.”

  “More important than your future? Maybe what I should do is stay in my office, weather the storm, and send you to a country where they won’t extradite you back here to stand trial,” Teresa said.

  “Buy four tickets if you do. Good night, Mother,” Kate said, hit the “End” button, and headed for the kitchen.

  “Hey, Gracie said there was wine, and it’s even cold.” Jamie already had the glasses on the table.

  Amanda came from the hallway into the kitchen. “And I hear you bought Diet Coke for me. Thank you.”

  “You are both welcome.”

  “And you are spoiling Gracie, but we both love it,” Jamie said.

  “I’m enjoying every minute of it. To Gracie.” Kate poured the wine and then held up her glass to clink it with Jamie’s.

  “Wait. I want to toast, too, if it’s to Gracie. She and I have so much fun when Jamie lets me keep her.” Amanda hurriedly filled a glass with ice and Diet Coke. She touched it with the other two, and they all sipped at the same time.

  “We made the Dallas newspaper,” Kate said and went on to tell them what her mother had said.

  “Well, shit!” Jamie said. “I wonder what that will do for my teaching job there.”

  “Probably put you on the fired list there and might get you an award here.” Kate giggled.

  “It’s not funny,” Jamie fumed.

  “Did they mention names?” Amanda went pale.

  “Oh, yes, and probably even where we are all from. I didn’t ask, but we could pull up today’s paper on the Internet and read the column,” Kate answered.

  “I looked into that banking job. They couldn’t hire a suspected murderess,” Amanda said.

  “There’s a job at the school that you could do,” Jamie said. “They haven’t hired a secretary yet. And if they aren’t going to throw my application in the trash, then they’d probably consider you for that job. Thank God, Victor is on the school board.”

  “Wow!” Amanda slumped down into a chair. “That would be an amazing job. I’d be off when my child was out of school and during the summer. Thank you, Jamie.”

  “You are welcome.” Jamie poured more wine into the glasses. “Was your mother angry, Kate? I remember her from the funeral, and she looked pretty fierce to me.”

  “Oh, yeah, she furious, but not at the paper or the columnist.”

  “At you? We’re innocent. Why can’t people believe that?” Amanda wailed.

  “It’s not the guilt or lack of it that is the problem. It’s the taint it leaves behind. Who is going to trust me if they even think I might have had a hand in this? Trust is what our business is built on. It’s our image. We do multimillion-dollar deals.”

  And right now I wish that I was a plain old dirt farmer.

  “Crazy, ain’t it, but the only place we might be welcome is right here in Bootleg,” Jamie said. “This settles it. I’m putting in my application for the job tomorrow. Want me to get the paperwork for you to apply for the office job, Amanda?”

  “Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

  “Reckon I could be a janitor? I’ve learned how to run a tractor. I bet I could master a floor buffer in no time,” Kate teased. “On another note, listen to Gracie giggling back there as she talks to her dolls. That is the sweetest sound in the world.”

  Jamie smiled. “This is going to sound hinky, but like Amanda said earlier, I think Iris likes us being here. It’s like her spirit needed to find rest. You found the letters, Kate. Gracie is bringing a little girl’s laughter back into the cabin.”

  “I believe that spirits linger until things are settled,” Amanda said. “It’s taken a long time, but maybe us being here is bringing Iris and Darcy closure, and if it sounds crazy then so be it. I read those letters today and they are so sad that they made me cry.”

  “I’ve got a couple more things to tell you while Gracie is out of earshot.” Kate told them they were still on the suspect list and then asked what they thought about the ranch day for the kids. “If they don’t win the fishing contest, it wouldn’t be such a big blow to their little egos.”

  “Yes,” Amanda and Jamie said at the same time.

  “Then that’s settled,” Kate said. “I’ll tell Waylon that it’s a date.”

  “There’s nothing we can do but pray that the real killers do something stupid and get caught,” Amanda said. “I know I didn’t kill him. I also know that neither of you did. The cops just have to figure out the rest, and we’ll sit right here in Bootleg until they do. We’re protected here. I can feel it.”

  Jamie stretched up her hand, and Amanda gave her a high five.

  “I’m going up to Wichita Falls tomorrow, so I’ll be gone all day. Aunt Ellie and I are having supper together after she gets off work. I’ll try to be home by dark so I’ll be back in my safe place.” Amanda giggled.

  “And I promised Gracie that we’d go back to Dallas after we get finished at the school and get some more of her clothing and toys, so we’ll be gone most of the day. Paul has given Lisa permission to go with us, and we’re planning on McDonald’s for supper. We’ll slip in and out and hopefully the police won’t slap the cuffs on us.” Jamie grinned and poured more wine in her glass.

  “This is pretty serious stuff for y’all to be teasing about,” Kate said.

  “Lighten up. We’re innocent.” Jamie held up her glass. “To never spending a day in jail.”

  Kate poured more wine into her glass. “When I get this down, I’ll be mellow enough to call my mother back and talk to her some more about all this mess.”

  Jamie chuckled. “I’d never get that mellow. Now my grandmother is a different story altogether. She raised me.”

  “Why?” Amanda asked.

  “Mama doesn’t have much sense when it comes to men, and most of her boyfriends didn’t like me. When I was four, she dropped me at Mama Rita’s place and never came back,” Jamie said.

  “You mother didn’t fight for you?” Kate asked.

  “No, ma’am. She signed the papers giving Mama Rita the right to adopt me.”

  Amanda set her empty glass on the side table. “Sounds kind of like my situation, only my mama was sixteen when I was born and she lived with Aunt Ellie, who was her older sister. When she was nineteen, she married a man and she said she was coming back to get me in a few months. But then she had a couple of kids and she embraced his traditions that didn’t have room for a little red-haired stepdaughter,” Amanda said. “Aunt Ellie filed desertion papers when I was six and adopted me. I h
ave no complaints. She raised me in a good home.”

  “Where did your mom go?” Jamie asked.

  “Iran. She met a man at a restaurant where she was working, and they fell in love. When he went back to his country, she went with him,” Amanda answered.

  “Why would she leave you behind?” Kate asked.

  Amanda shrugged. “Aunt Ellie said that she was pregnant again and the new husband wasn’t too keen on a stepdaughter.”

  “Have you seen her since then?” Amanda asked.

  Amanda shook her head. “No, she never came back to Texas. I get a Christmas card from her sometimes, but she never remembers my birthday. I have two half brothers I’ve never met. But you know what? It’s all good. Aunt Ellie was and is a good mother to me.”

  “My father was a loving, sweet, gentle man,” Kate said. “My mother is the bulldog. I got a lot of my father’s trusting nature. Conrad never would have snowed Mother like he did me.”

  “Or my Mama Rita, either, but I bet that he preyed on women who were vulnerable,” Jamie said.

  “Probably so, but I’ve learned my lesson,” Kate said.

  “Oh, yeah.” Jamie’s head bobbed up and down.

  Amanda swiped at a lonely tear making its way down her cheek. “Damned hormones. Lately everything makes me weepy. I even cried over a television commercial about toilet paper, but those little bears were so cute.”

  Kate picked up what was left of her wine and touched their glasses. “To the future.”

  “To the future,” Amanda and Jamie said.

  “And now to bed.” Kate stood up. “But first I’ll need an apple and a handful of Amanda’s sugar cookies.”

  “Apple?” Amanda asked.

  “If you eat fruit, it nullifies all the calories in cookies and wine. Like if you drink diet soda pop after or with a candy bar.” Kate grinned.

  “She jokes.” Amanda pretended shock.

  “Hey, now!” Kate teased, and it felt really good.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Waylon and Johnny had spent the whole afternoon on Friday getting the stagecoach ready to roll—cleaning it up and hitching the horses to it, taking it from the ranch to Bootleg, which took three hours, unhitching the horses and putting them in the vo-ag barn. Thank goodness for Paul’s offer to keep them there overnight.

  He wished that Kate could have ridden up in the driver’s seat all the way to town with him that evening. But after that damned newspaper leak—which had to come from his office—there was no way their names could be linked as anything other than detective and suspect. At least not in public.

  “If I had that damned columnist in my crosshairs, I would pull the trigger without blinking,” Waylon declared to the air that evening as he ate alone in his kitchen.

  He was flipping through channels on the television when his phone pinged.

  The message was from Kate. Princess Gracie has requested your presence at a living room movie showing.

  Yes, he wrote back.

  The next message said: Her Majesty would like pepperoni pizza, please and thank you.

  He grinned as he typed in: Yes, be there in twenty minutes.

  As long as he could see Kate and spend time with her, he didn’t care—on the lake, in the house, or out taking a drive in the rain.

  He noticed that Jamie’s van was gone when he parked and wondered where she was as he jogged from his truck to the porch, pizza in hand. Before he could knock, Gracie swung the door open.

  “Kate says for me to let you in. She’ll be here in a minute. She’s talking to her mama on the phone. Come on in out of the rain and put the pizza on the table,” Gracie said.

  “Yes, ma’am. Where’s your mama?” Waylon asked.

  While he unloaded the food, Kate walked up behind him.

  His well-honed sixth sense, developed on the force, told him that she was there even before she spoke. That wonderful scent that she wore blended with the sweet coconut smell of her hair and the aura that belonged to no other woman in the universe sent his senses reeling.

  “Gracie is babysitting us,” Kate said. “Amanda started having pains, so Jamie drove her to the hospital in Wichita Falls so they can monitor her for a few hours to be sure it’s not labor. They figure it’s Braxton-Hicks.”

  “Well, then, Gracie, since you are the babysitter, do you think we can have some pizza and bread sticks?” Waylon asked.

  Gracie sighed. “I thought you’d never get here. Can we put a quilt on the floor and watch our movie while we eat?”

  “We sure can,” Kate answered.

  “What are we watching?” Waylon carried the pizza boxes back to the living room. “Will the babysitter let us have a beer with our supper?”

  “Of course.” Gracie giggled. “And I’m not really the sitter. Y’all are. Big people can have a beer, but little kids have to drink milk or juice. Can I please have a soda pop?”

  Kate nodded. “Pizza does not go with milk or juice. You can have a Coke, but let’s make it one of the caffeine-free ones.”

  “I don’t care if it’s got calves in it or not.” Gracie removed the quilt from the back of the sofa and spread it out on the floor. “We are watching Homeward Bound. Mama says it’s a good movie.”

  “Isn’t that like twenty years old?” Waylon whispered.

  “Twenty-four, to be exact, but you take what you can get at the convenience store rental. We don’t have cable television here at the cabin,” Kate answered.

  “Let’s go to the movies, then.” Waylon nodded.

  Gracie plopped down in the middle of the quilt and nodded toward the sofa. “You old people can sit there.”

  “Ouch!” Waylon winced.

  “Painful, isn’t it?” Kate nudged him with her shoulder as she passed.

  By the end of the movie, Waylon wanted to marry Kate and adopt Gracie. They were both adorable all through the movie, crying when the cat, Sassy, was nearly killed, giggling at the antics of the young dog, Chance, and worrying about the older big yellow one, Shadow.

  Gracie declared that as soon as they moved all their stuff to the cabin, she wanted a cat just like Sassy. Kate had fallen in love with Shadow, and Waylon wondered if she’d ever considered having a big dog.

  As the credits rolled, Gracie yawned and crawled up in Kate’s lap. “I wish my mama was home. I’m sleepy and I don’t like going to bed all by myself.”

  Kate wrapped both her arms around the little girl. She would have made an amazing mother. Gracie was the child that her husband produced with another woman, and she was humming to her. That took some kind of special person.

  The strumming of a guitar playing the first chords of “Girls Like Us” came from the end table.

  Waylon chuckled.

  “What?” Kate asked. “It’s either Jamie or Amanda.”

  He handed her the phone. “Fitting song choice.”

  Kate flashed a smile over the top of Gracie’s head and put the phone on speaker. “Hello, Amanda, what’s the news?”

  “We are about five minutes from the cabin. I had false labor. Everything is still on schedule and fine. Sorry we’re only calling now—the storm messed with the cell service. Jamie is driving and we just passed the convenience store. See you soon.”

  Kate hit the “End” button, and Gracie wiggled out of her embrace, yawned, and stretched. “So we don’t get a baby tonight?”

  “That’s right, but your mama will be here real soon,” Waylon said.

  “I’m glad.” Gracie yawned again.

  “For which one? That the baby isn’t here or that your mama is almost home?” Kate stood up and folded the quilt, picked up the paper plates from the coffee table, and carried them to the trash.

  “Both,” Gracie answered. “Amanda told Mama that if she had the baby now, she’d have to leave him in the hospital, and I want to bring my little brother home. And I really miss my mama.”

  Waylon helped by taking the empty beer bottle and the Coke can to the trash. “Is that my cue to leave
?”

  “No rush,” she said.

  “I’ve loved every minute of this evening.” His phone rang.

  “Mama’s here!” Gracie shouted simultaneously.

  The two women came through the door talking while he answered the call. He listened for a minute and then said, “I’m on my way.” He crossed the room in a couple of long strides. “Glad everything is fine, Amanda. Victor has gotten his car stuck in the mud down at Hattie’s. They saw my truck parked outside when they came home from getting ice cream and they need help.”

  “I’ll walk you out.” Kate sucked in the fresh air when they were on the porch. “You never get this in the city.”

  He wrapped his hand around hers. “What?”

  “Stars this bright or this scent after a rain.”

  “It’s the smell of wet dirt.” He stopped when they reached his truck and pulled her close to his chest. “I wish we’d met sooner, like when we were in our twenties, and that we’d had a whole yard full of little kids like Gracie. You would have been an awesome mother, Kate.”

  “But we weren’t these people back then. We might not have even liked each other at that age. Look who I ended up picking later.”

  “I would have liked you at any age.”

  “Really?” Kate cocked her head to one side.

  “Absolutely. Though you are right. Right out of college, neither of us would have enjoyed tonight the way we did. I’ll see you tomorrow, Kate.”

  Watching her stand on the porch and wave until he was out of sight kicked his pulse into high gear.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It seems like we’ve been waiting for hours.”

  Amanda checked the time on her phone. “It’s not even seven o’clock yet. We’ve only been here ten minutes, Jamie. They have to get settled and get the preliminary talkin’ done. Don’t be nervous. If not, then we’ll go back to what we were doing, right? You have a teaching job in Dallas. I’ve got the shop. It’s not like we are going to have to stand on the street corner and beg for quarters.”

  “You are so right,” Jamie said, fidgeting with a speck of lint on her skirt. “But Gracie is so happy here. I wish they’d call one of us into the meeting and get it over with.”