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  “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Of course, I’m a full partner in the ranch,” she said thoughtfully. “And I keep the books and make decisions about breeding and diet and upgrades of equipment. When I get through this computer course, I’ll be able to rewrite spreadsheet programs and keep up with my breeding program better.”

  “And Judd doesn’t mind giving you that authority?” he asked, puzzled.

  She smiled curiously. “Why would he? I’m good at what I do, better than he is, and he knows it. Besides, I don’t have a clue about marketing. That’s his department. Oh, and he pays bills.” She grimaced. “I don’t mind keeping bank statements reconciled and doing projection figures, but I draw the line at writing checks.”

  “I don’t like that, myself,” he had to admit. He chuckled. “I had you pictured as a nice little kid who went to school and let Judd do all the hard work.”

  “Fat chance,” she scoffed. “No man’s supporting me while I sit back and read magazines and paint my fingernails. I’m a hands-on partner.”

  “Judd never seemed like the sort of man who’d tolerate a female partner,” he murmured dryly.

  “You don’t know him well, do you?” she asked, smiling. “He fought really hard to get women into the Jacobsville police force, and he won’t put up with men who denigrate the worth of women in business or law enforcement. Besides, he can cook and clean house better than I can. If he ever gets married for real and has kids, his wife will be lucky. He loves kids,” she added absently, hating the thought that he was determined to get an annulment the second she turned twenty-one, next month, and just about the time that Tippy Moore would be on hand.

  “You look worried.”

  She shrugged. “Tippy Moore is world-famous and beautiful,” she said without thinking. “Judd really perked up when they mentioned she was starring in this movie. He’s never been around women like that. He’s a minister’s son and rather unworldly and conventional in some ways.”

  “You think she’ll captivate him.”

  She met his gaze evenly. “I’m no beauty,” she said flatly. “I’m backwoodsy and I know computers and cattle, but I can’t compete with an internationally famous model who knows how to act seductive. She’ll draw men like flies, you watch.”

  “Not me,” he said easily. “I’m immune.”

  “Judd won’t be,” she said worriedly.

  “Judd’s a grown man. He can take care of himself.” He was remembering, and not wanting to disillusion her by admitting, that Judd had very little trouble attracting beautiful women in the old days. The man was no Romeo, but he was handsome and confident and aggressively seductive with women he wanted. He was also successful. He didn’t mention that to Crissy. It would have crushed her. He wondered if she knew how much her feelings for Judd showed when she talked about him.

  “I suppose he can,” she murmured. She picked up her cup and sipped her hot coffee. “I wish we didn’t have to have film people climbing all over the ranch,” she added impatiently. “But they’re offering us a small fortune to use it for location shooting, and we need the money so badly that we can’t refuse.” She sighed. “That old saying’s right, isn’t it, that everybody has a price. I didn’t think I did, but I do want to replace that Salers bull.” She smiled doggedly. “We don’t insure against cattle losses, but at least he’ll be a tax deduction as a business loss.” She shook her head. “I paid five thousand dollars for that bull. If Clark did poison him, and I can find a way to prove it, I’m going to take him all the way to the Supreme Court. I might not get my five thousand back, but I’ll take it out in trade.”

  He chuckled. “I like your style, Crissy Gaines.”

  She smiled at him over her coffee cup. “If I can get proof, will you arrest him for me?”

  “Of course.” He sobered. “But don’t go looking for trouble alone.”

  “Not me. I’m the cautious type.”

  He doubted that, but he wasn’t going to argue about it. “Are you game to get back on the dance floor?”

  “You bet!”

  He grinned and took her hand, leading her back out. The band leader, noticing them, immediately stopped the slow country tune they were playing and broke out with a cha-cha. Everybody laughed, including the couple of the evening out on the dance floor.

  * * *

  Saturday morning, bright and early, the director, the assistant director, the cameraman, the cinematographer, the sound man, two technicians and the stars of the movie came tooling up the dirt driveway to the ranch in a huge Ford Expedition.

  Judd had just driven up in the yard a minute ahead of them. Christabel and Maude came out on the porch to meet them. Maude was in an old housedress, with her hair every which way. Christabel was wearing jeans and a cotton shirt, her hair in a neat braid. But when she saw the redheaded woman getting out of the big vehicle, her heart fell to her boots.

  It didn’t help that Judd went straight toward the woman, without a single glance back at Christabel, to help her down out of the high back seat with his hands around her tiny waist.

  She laughed, and it was the sound of silver bells. She had a perfect smile—white teeth and a red bow mouth. Her figure was perfect, too. She was wearing a long swirly green dress that clung to the long, elegant lines of her body. Judd was looking at her with intent appreciation, a way he’d never looked at plain little Christabel. Worse, the model looked back at him with abject fascination, flirting for all she was worth.

  “She’s an actress,” Maude said with a comforting hand on her arm. “She’d never fit in here, or want to, so stop looking like death on a marble slab.”

  Christabel laughed self-consciously. “You’re a treasure,” she whispered.

  “And I’m cute, too,” Maude said with a wide grin. “I’ll go make a pot of coffee and slice some pound cake. They can come in and get it when they’re ready.”

  “Christabel!” Judd called sharply.

  She glanced ruefully at Maude and hopped down the steps with her usual uninhibited stride and stopped beside Judd as he made introductions.

  “This is Christabel Gaines. She’s part owner of the ranch. Christabel, I’m sure you remember Joel Harper, the director,” he said, introducing the short man in glasses and a baseball cap, who smiled and nodded. “This is Rance Wayne, the leading man.” He nodded toward a handsome tall man with blond hair and a mustache.

  “This is Guy Mays, the assistant director,” he continued, introducing a younger man who was openly leering at the model. “And this is Tippy Moore,” he added in a different tone, his eyes riveted to the green-eyed redhead, who gave Christabel a fleeting glance that dismissed her as no competition, and then proceeded to smile brilliantly up at Judd.

  “I’m very glad to meet you,” Christabel said politely.

  “Likewise. We’re ready to start shooting Monday,” Harper told Judd. “We just need to discuss a few technical details...”

  “If you want to know anything about the livestock,” Christabel began.

  “We’ll ask Judd,” the model said in a haughty, husky voice. “He’d surely know more than you would,” she added with deliberate rudeness.

  Christabel’s dark eyes flashed. “I grew up here...” she began belligerently.

  “Judd, I’d love to see that big bull you told us about,” the model cooed, taking Judd’s arm in her slender hands and tugging him along.

  Christabel was left standing while Judd walked obediently toward the big barn with Tippy and Joel Harper and his entourage. She wanted to chew nails. She was, after all, a full partner in the ranch. But apparently they considered her too young to make big decisions, and Judd was too fixated on the redhead to care that she’d been dismissed as a nobody on her own place.

  She glared after them until the sound of a horse approaching caught her attenti
on. Nick Bates, their livestock foreman and ranch manager, came riding up, his tall, lithe figure slumped in the saddle.

  “What’s your problem?” she asked him.

  “I’ve been chasing cows,” he muttered darkly. “Some damned fool cut the fence, and five cows got out. We ran them into another pasture and I came back for the truck and some wire to fix the break.”

  “Not the pregnant cows,” she said worriedly.

  He nodded. “But they seem all right. I had the boys herd them into the pasture down from the barn, just in case.”

  “Who left the gate open?” she wanted to know.

  “None of my men,” Nick assured her, his dark eyes flashing in his lean, rugged face. “I rode up to Hob Downey’s place and talked to him. He spends his life in that rocking chair on the front porch most of the year. I figured he might have seen who cut the wire.”

  “Did he?” she prodded.

  “He said there was a strange pickup truck down there early this morning, one with homemade sides, like a cattle truck would have,” Nick told her. “An older truck, black with a red stripe. Two men got out and one acted like he was fixing the fence, then Hob went out on his porch and yelled at them. They hesitated, but a sheriff’s patrol car came up the road and they jumped in the truck and went away real fast. It was a small opening, just wide enough to get a cow through, and not visible except up close.”

  She moved closer to the horse, worried and thoughtful. “I want you to call Duke Wright and ask him if he’s got a black truck with a red stripe, and ask who was driving it this morning.”

  Nick leaned over the pommel, meeting her eyes. “You’ve got some idea who it is,” he said.

  She nodded. “But I’m not mentioning names, and what I know, I’m keeping to myself. Get down from there.”

  He lifted both eyebrows. “Why?”

  “I don’t want to have to go to the barn to saddle Mick,” she admitted. “The film crew’s down there. They make me nervous.”

  Nick swung down gracefully. “Where are you going?”

  “Just out to see how that fence was cut,” she told him.

  “I already told you...”

  “You don’t understand,” she said, moving closer. “The fence where the bull died had been cut, too, remember? I never mentioned it to Judd, and we fixed it, but I noticed how it was cut. No two people do the same thing exactly alike. I can tell if it was Maude or Judd who opened a cola can, just by the way they leave the tab. I know what the first wire cuts looked like.”

  “I’ve got to find Denny. He picked up some new salt licks. We’ll take those out when we fix the fence.”

  “Good enough.” She swung gracefully into the saddle and patted the gelding’s red neck gently, smiling. “I’ll take good care of Tobe, okay?”

  He shrugged. “I never doubted it. Want me and Denny to get the truck and follow you over there?”

  She shook her head. “I’m no daisy.” She noted the rifle that protruded from the long scabbard beside the saddle horn. “Mind if I take this along?” she added.

  “Not at all. I’d feel better if you did. Remember the safety’s on. Is Judd down there?” he asked abruptly, nodding toward the barn.

  “Yes, so you’d better go straight to the equipment shed. What he doesn’t know won’t get me dressed down.”

  He started to argue, but she was already trotting away.

  She didn’t really need to look at the cuts to guess that Jack Clark had been around, making mischief. He might have just wanted to let the cows out, or he might have planned to steal some. But she wanted to get away from Judd and the others. If she were lucky, they’d be long gone by the time she got back. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to make sure her theory was correct. If she could get any sort of evidence to give Cash, he could take care of Jack Clark for her.

  She remembered the look in Judd’s black eyes when he’d helped Tippy Moore down from the SUV, and the way he’d let her lead him away after insulting Christabel. He hadn’t even seemed to notice that she’d been insulted, either. Her heart ached. Just as she’d dreaded, the model’s arrival marked a turning point in her life. She wished she could turn the clock back. Nothing was ever going to be the same again.

  5

  As Crissy suspected, the fence was cut in the same place that the other one had been, very close to the vertical brackets of the hog wire. She swung down from the saddle and examined the cuts carefully. The wire cutters that had been used both times weren’t sharp and the cuts weren’t neat and clean.

  She turned, leading Tobe by the reins, and sighed angrily as she looked toward the flat horizon. Jack Clark had stolen from them, and they’d fired him with justification. But Clark had a vindictive streak a mile wide, and he wanted vengeance. Crissy was afraid that it wasn’t going to end with poisoned bulls and cut fences. She hoped that Duke Wright would have some news for Nick about the Clark brothers when he phoned him.

  She spotted Hob Downey on his porch and walked up to greet the older man.

  Hob was in his seventies. He’d been a cowboy all his life, until he was forcibly retired by his boss. He knew more about horses than most anybody, and he was lonely. He sat on his front porch most every day, hoping that somebody would stop and talk to him. He was a gold mine of information on everything from World War II to the early days of ranching. Crissy visited him when time permitted, but, like most young people, time was in short supply in her life.

  “Hi, Hob!” she called.

  “Come sit a spell, Miss Crissy,” he invited with a grin.

  “Wish I had time, Hob. Nick says you saw some fellows in a pickup truck down by our fence this morning.”

  He nodded. “Sure did. Skulking around like. I don’t have a telephone, or I’d have called you.”

  “Was one a tall man with a bald head?” she asked carefully.

  He grimaced. “One was wearing a hat pulled down low on his forehead, so I can’t say if he was bald. Couldn’t say how tall he was, either. The other fellow was wearing a shirt that could have drove a colorblind man crazy. Kept on the other side of the truck, mostly, couldn’t see him well.”

  She sighed. “How about the truck?”

  “Had a big rust spot on the left front fender,” he offered. “Rest of it was black with a thin red stripe. Had homemade gates, unpainted. Looked to me like they were about to collect a cow or two, Miss Crissy.”

  She’d have to find out if the Clark brothers had a pickup truck, or drove one of Wright’s fitting that description, and what color it was.

  “Cut that fence, didn’t they?” he persisted.

  She nodded. “But don’t let that get around, okay?” she asked. “They might be dangerous, and you’re all alone out here.”

  He chuckled. “I got a shotgun.”

  “You can’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day,” she pointed out.

  “They might come back and try again.”

  She couldn’t be sure of that. “You just keep your eyes open and watch your back,” she told him.

  “Somebody mad at you, is that it?” he wanted to know.

  “Something like that. Thanks, Hob. You take care of yourself, and lock your doors at night.”

  “You, too, Miss Crissy. Sure you won’t sit a spell?”

  She smiled. “I’ll come back when I can. But I’m up to my ears in movie people right now. I have to get back home.”

  “We heard they was going to make a movie at your ranch. You going to be in it?”

  She laughed. “Not me! See you, Hob.”

  “See you.”

  She got back on Tobe and turned him toward the dirt road that led back to the ranch. It was disconcerting to think that Jack Clark and his brother John might have been responsible for two attempts on their livestock. They might try again, and they couldn�
��t afford many losses right now, not even with the added revenue the movie shoot would bring in. They needed a new direction or they were going to go under.

  Specialization, she thought, was the only answer to their problem. They could do what Cy Parks did and raise purebred livestock—but that required a hefty bankroll up front that they didn’t have. They could do what a few other producers had done and try marketing their own brand of organic beef. But that would entail upgrading their production methods and finding a buyer who wanted quality organic beef...maybe an overseas buyer, because those profits were really high, according to Leo Hart, who sold organic beef to Japan.

  If only horses could fly, she thought, and laughed at her own whimsy. Judd had tried that angle already, and failed. They were told that their cattle weren’t lean enough for the high priced markets, that they were fed too much corn and too little grass. That was why Christabel had been nudging their cattle into pastures to fatten them on grass—and had lost their prize Salers bull in the process.

  But it wasn’t the grass—rather, the clover—that had killed that bull. And that cut fence was no accident, either. It was the Clark brothers. She knew it, even if Judd wouldn’t listen. Cash would. And somehow, she was going to prove it!

  * * *

  She walked Tobe down to the barn, noting that the big SUV was gone, and so was Judd’s truck. What a relief. At least she didn’t have to worry with company today.

  But the relief was short-lived. After she’d unsaddled and brushed Tobe, and taken the rifle back to Nick, there was unwelcome news.

  “Duke Wright doesn’t own a black pickup with a red stripe,” Nick told her with a sigh, pushing back the hat from his sweaty blond hair. “And he doesn’t have any cowboys who do.”

  She grimaced. “I was so sure...!”

  “Maybe he borrowed it,” he said.

  Her eyebrows lifted. “You think?”

  “Anything’s possible.” He gave her a long look. “Judd wanted to know where you were. I told him you rode over to check on the cows that got out of the pasture.” He held up a hand. “I didn’t tell him the fence was cut. I figured you’d tell him when you wanted to.”