Haystacks and Hoaxes (Cowboy Brand of Justice #3)

Chapter 3 Baffling Discovery

S econds ticked past while Rock waited for Mila to respond.

“You still there?” he prodded to make sure they hadn’t gotten disconnected.

A faint sniffling sound met his ears. “I’m here.” She sounded choked up. “Having a bit of a happy meltdown. Sorry.” A damp laugh eased out of her.

It was his turn to feel awkward. He hadn’t meant to make her cry.

“Thank you,” she added in a rush. “I don’t know what you did to convince my brother to hire someone with zero experience, but I’m grateful. More than you’ll ever know.”

His reasons were simple, and he didn’t mind sharing them. “Your drawings sold themselves.” Mostly. He’d given his boss a few additional nudges, but she didn’t need to know that, at least not today. “You have a real gift, Mila. Your brother said so himself.”

“He did?” She sounded emotional again.

“Yep.” He sensed there were more wrinkles in her relationship with Decker than what had come up during her interview. Though it wasn’t any of his business, it felt good to know that his job offer might help smooth things between them.

“I’m thrilled about your willingness to take a chance on me,” she gushed. “Thank you for the opportunity. I’ll admit I’m a little nervous about living up to y’all’s expectations, but?—”

“I’ll help bring you up to speed,” he cut in. “I didn’t bring you on board to flounder. It’s a new department, so we’ll be riding the learning curve together.” Most of his job experience was with the military. He was still adjusting to the way things worked in the civilian sector.

“You’re gonna let me walk before I have to run, huh?” She sounded relieved.

“For the first day or two,” he teased. “Maybe until after Christmas. Things are on a bit of a holiday slowdown around here.”

She snickered. “Very generous of you, boss.”

Boss? Ouch! “Rock,” he corrected. “I thought I made it clear we go by first names around here.” He could think of only one exception to that rule. “If you have a burning desire to toss around titles, save them for Gil. After three decades of serving as the town sheriff, he’s earned the right to be called sir.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. When do I start work?” The eagerness in her voice made him smile.

“I’m going to let that be your call.” He didn’t want to sound over-zealous, but he’d waited months for the right person to come along for the job — months that had put Decker Kingston in a twitchy mood to pick up the pace with getting their new forensics team off the ground. “I’ve been given the green light to bring you on board as soon as tomorrow morning. That said, it’s only a week until Christmas. If you’d rather wait…”

“No!” She sounded so vehement that he grew silent. “Believe it or not, you’re saving my hide all over again by letting me start right away. I, um, sort of skipped out on a holiday cruise with my parents to show up at today’s interview.”

“You did what?” His heart sank.

“Trust me. I much preferred being at the interview.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “And starting work tomorrow will make me look a lot better in their eyes than kicking up my feet until after the holidays.”

He felt like he’d intruded far enough into her family’s dynamics for one day. “In that case, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“What time?”

“Eight o’clock.”

She chuckled again. “If I get started now, I should be finished with my happy dance by then.”

He joined in her laughter. He couldn’t help it. Her joy was infectious. As he ended the call, he glanced longingly toward the clock on the wall. Eight o’clock tomorrow morning couldn’t come fast enough for him.

Mila’s happy dance ended with an almost face plant in the narrow, carpeted walkway between her unmade queen-sized bed and the adjoining bathroom. She bent over to scoot the culprit, an overflowing plastic laundry basket, to the far wall, vowing to fold and put away her clothes before she went to bed. While she was down near the floor, she did something she hadn’t done in a long time. She slid to her knees at the foot of the antique iron bed she’d pilfered from a dumpster a few years ago.

“Thank You,” she whispered, clasping her hands and tipping her head back to gaze up at the ceiling. There was a water stain in one corner that she’d been trying without luck to get the maintenance crew to fix. With as much as she was forking out in rent for a lake view, it didn’t seem right to have to stare at a water stain every night in bed. However, she was too happy right now to let it bother her the way it normally did.

In her heart, she knew it was a miracle she’d landed her dream job at Lonestar Security, and she hadn’t done it on her own. Not with her stepbrother making it clear he was dead set against hiring her. Nope. Rock Dreamboat Hefner had done something to change his mind. She didn’t know what it was, but she was humbled with gratitude that he had.

She was puzzled, too. She was accustomed to guys flirting with her. Her wavy, white-blonde hair and sapphire eyes had always been attention grabbers. Guys loved telling her she looked like an angel, though her mother had always been quick to assure her she was the opposite of angelic. According to Carla Kingston, Mila had been lucky to finally capture the attention of “the kind of guy who actually mattered.” Those were her mother’s words, not her own. The same guy who’d cheated on her at his bachelor party, causing her to abandon the relationship altogether.

What Mila was not accustomed to was having a swoon-worthy, single guy like Rock have her back the way he’d had hers today. Referring to her as his partner was the icing on the cake. She was going to enjoy working for him. She could feel it in her bones. He already treated her with the respect she’d always craved. Maybe some of it would roll off on Decker. Maybe Rock would help her brother see the person she was trying so hard to become.

“Thank You,” she whispered again to her Maker. They were the only two words that felt adequate at the moment. So many good things were happening to her all at once. Before she got off her knees, she added a quick request for a favor she didn’t deserve. “And please help me figure out how to be a better sister and aunt this evening.” She felt a sliver of guilt about omitting her role as a sister-in-law from her prayer, but Decker’s wife hadn’t done squat to include her in, well, anything. If Mila ever worked up enough goodwill to pray for the woman, it would probably sound more like a complaint. Like please sweeten her sourness. Or bring her off her high horse to the level of regular people like me. Yeah, that didn’t sound too reverent, so she ended her prayer with another whispered thank You .

Then she stood and pondered what to wear to the Taj Mahal for dinner. She rummaged through her closet for several minutes, debating and discarding the idea of throwing on a cocktail dress. In the end, she decided that her wide-leg black pants and beige blazer were chic enough.

You know what? I’m just gonna be myself. She should probably make it her new motto. If she’d learned anything during the past twenty-four years of having her ears chewed off by her mother, it was this. A girl simply couldn’t please everybody. It didn’t matter how hard she tried. At the end of the day, Mila Kingston was the only person who had to live with her decisions. And now that she’d made a few good ones in a row, she was on a streak that she was reluctant to give up.

New college degree. Check.

New job. Check .

World’s most incredible new boss (who doesn’t want to be called my boss). Check.

A dinner invitation to the Taj Mahal. Check.

The alarm on her cell phone went off, alerting her it was time to leave. She ducked into the bathroom to fluff her hair one last time, make sure her scarf was still tied, and to squint critically at her makeup.

Good enough for me.

She scooped her purse off the bed, along with the floppy-eared stuffed rabbit she’d bought at a department store on the way home. Though she didn’t know what her two-year-old niece liked, she wasn’t about to show up without bringing her a present. She’d only met the kid a few times during holiday gatherings at her parents’ house. At least half of those times, Gwen had been asleep. This was Mila’s first real chance to establish herself as the little girl’s aunt.

She resumed her happy dance across the living room, giving the stuffed rabbit a twirl. Mid twirl, she nearly tripped over a stack of sketch books she’d been sorting on the floor earlier. Since it would be dark when she got back, she bent over to gather them up and stack them neatly on her coffee table. Then she straightened the snowman throw pillows on her overstuffed sofa and danced the rest of the way to the door.

Right before she opened it, her doorbell rang. She was so surprised that she yelped and jumped back a step. Then she moved forward to peek through the peep hole. There was no one standing outside her door.

Hmm. She opened the door a crack and caught sight of a box sitting on the black oval doormat. It was wrapped in brown packing paper. It wasn’t just sitting there, though. It was sagging there — literally pressing the rubber doormat into a bowl shape, as if it was about to fall through to the sidewalk below.

That’s odd. She frowned as she bent to pick it up. Tucking it underneath an arm, she used the toe of her boot to push the doormat aside and made a disturbing discovery. A chunk of the wooden flooring beneath the mat was missing. A jagged hole, approximately a foot in diameter, gaped open.

Her horrified gasp created a smoky puff of whiteness in the cold December air. The hole didn’t look like something that normal wear and tear had caused. She also couldn’t see any damaged wood littering the concrete walkway on the level below her. The only other reasonable explanation was that the hole was a malicious act of vandalism.

She shook her head, utterly perplexed. She wasn’t sure how she’d made it into her apartment less than an hour earlier without falling through the hole. The fact that she wasn’t on her way to the hospital with a broken ankle felt like yet another miracle in her day full of miracles.

She shakily pulled out her cell phone, took a picture of the hole, and uploaded it to her apartment app as an emergency maintenance request. Knowing she couldn’t leave a tripping hazard of this proportion for someone else to stumble on, she reluctantly pulled up her brother’s contact information. As much as she hated to cancel their dinner plans, handling the current crisis was the only right thing to do.

Before she could dial Decker, though, her phone rang. The caller ID flashed across her screen. It was the maintenance department.

She hastily accepted the call. “That was quick! Am I ever glad to hear from you! ”

“Are you alright, ma’am?” The workman on the other end of the line sounded harried.

“I am. Thank you. Just standing beside the hole, wildly grateful I didn’t step in it.” She still wasn’t sure how she’d missed it.

“Don’t move,” he instructed tersely. “I’m on my way.”

He arrived in less than five minutes, with an unpainted two-by-four in one hand and a circular saw in the other. He had a jam-packed tool belt buckled around his beanpole waist. After assessing the damage to the flooring, the wiry maintenance guy nervously adjusted the brim of his ball cap. “It’s your lucky day. You caught me right before I clocked out and headed on vacation.”

“Oh, wow! Thanks!” Though she felt bad about delaying his vacation, the hole in the floor wasn’t something that could wait.

He crawled around on his hands and knees, examining the hole. “If you’ve got some place else to be, I can take it from here.”

She’d been expecting a bigger reaction from him at the sight of the gaping hole. His deadpan voice felt anticlimactic somehow. “Shouldn’t we, um, call the police about this, Mr. ah…?” Come to think of it, he hadn’t introduced himself.

“Pat. Just Pat.” He fiddled some more with the brim of his cap, not looking up to fully meet her gaze. “I reckon we could, but they might say it’s the result of faulty construction. Since I’m the one who built this walkway, I could lose my job over it.”

Aha. No wonder his reaction hadn’t been what she expected. He was clearly overcome with guilt. She hastened to reassure him. “It doesn’t look like faulty construction to me, sir. It?— ”

He cut her off with an agitated wave of his gloved hand. “With all due respect, ma’am, you’re not the one locked in a custody battle for your two kids.”

Okay. You’re right. I’m not. Her lips parted in dismay. She wasn’t accustomed to crossing paths with someone whose life was in more shambles than hers. Since she’d been fortunate to land a nice-paying job today, it only seemed fair not to add to someone else’s misery. Who knows? Maybe I’m being paranoid about the whole vandalism thing. Maybe she should dial it down and let him do his job.

He was right about one thing. She did have somewhere else to be. If she took off now, she might arrive fashionably late instead of not at all.

Pat didn’t wait for her to give him a thumbs up. He was already scraping and sawing away the damaged wood, cleaning the formerly jagged edges all the way back to the floor joists. At the rate he was going, he would have the hole patched in record time.

“I guess I’ll just get going.” She backed away reluctantly, still not a hundred percent at peace about not calling the police.

He nodded without looking up.

“I really appreciate you getting here so quickly.” Because of his promptness, she wasn’t going to miss dinner at the Taj Mahal after all.

Though he kept his head bent over his saw, he paused the motor long enough to inform her in an anxious voice, “You’ll get sent a survey when I’m done. I’d appreciate five stars if you’re happy with my work.”

She gave him a playful salute with her free hand, not that he saw it. “Consider it done. I really appreciate you doing this.” Spinning around, she headed for the stairs. She was extra careful on her way down, looking for everything from cracked boards to loose screws. Thankfully, she made it to the brand spanking new Lexus SUV without any further incidents.

Since she was already running late, she tossed the little brown box on the passenger seat. She was forever ordering heirloom seeds for her balcony garden. She also had a replacement order for her favorite herb and vitamin daily supplements on its way in the mail. Online shopping was one of her weaknesses. It was a weakness she was going to be able to afford a lot better, now that she was gainfully employed again.

On the short drive to her brother’s home, she kept getting the prickly feeling that she was being followed. She glanced repeatedly into her rearview mirror, but she didn’t see anything other than ordinary traffic. Since it was smack dab in the middle of rush hour, the usual gaggle of vehicles was on the road. However, rush hour in Heart Lake was nothing compared to rush hour in Dallas. There was no bumper-to-bumper stopping and going, no bottlenecks, and no sign of the white utility truck that had nearly run her off the road earlier. Even so, the feeling of being watched persisted.

She told herself she was probably being paranoid. Her emotions had swung from one end of the spectrum to the other all afternoon —unbelievable excitement about landing an interview with her number one choice of employers, fear for her safety on the road, a soul-crushing encounter with Decker, followed by a new level of hope during the actual interview, which had ultimately culminated in a too-good-to-be-true job offer.

That turned out to be oh so true! Her current heightened senses were probably to blame for why she was feeling so jumpy. She was soon driving up the paved road that curved toward Decker and Chanel’s mountain oasis. Though she’d never been inside their home, she’d driven past it a few times out of sheer curiosity. As usual, she was struck by the enormity of it.

It was a palatial two-story mansion made of beige stone and stucco, with arched windows and a brick-red tiled roof. A stone fountain with two tiers of cascading water anchored the circle driveway. Mila parked between the fountain and the stone steps leading to the front double doors.

The black sheep of the family has arrived. No doubt Deck and Chanel owned security cameras that had already warned them of her presence. She snickered beneath her breath as she reached for her purse and the rabbit. The fat red bow around his neck looked crooked. While she straightened it, her gaze landed on the brown square box. Wondering which one of her orders had arrived in the mail, she flipped it over to read the shipping label and discovered there wasn’t one.

That’s weird. Maybe it had fallen off in transit. If she hadn’t already been running late to dinner, she would’ve taken the time to open the box. Instead, she left it sitting in the passenger seat as she exited the Lexus and hurried up the porch steps with the fuzzy white rabbit clutched in her arms.

Before she could knock, the door on the right swung open. Decker stood there, looking ridiculously clean cut and handsome in gray slacks and a pale blue dress shirt. He was wearing it unbuttoned at the neck with no tie. The buzz cut he’d worn when they’d first become a blended family had been replaced by longer, wavier blonde hair on top. He still wore the sides short, though, just not as short as he used to .

“You made it.” His honey-gold eyes glinted with a cautious welcome as he ushered her inside.

“With a heart full of gratitude,” she declared playfully. He’d hired her despite their strained relationship. She was doing the lazy backstroke across a sea of thankfulness.

His expression softened, making it impossible for her to simply sail past him into his home.

“Thank you,” she muttered in a voice that trembled with emotion. Then she did something she’d never done before. She stepped right up to him and delivered a bear hug around his fancy-shmancy designer shirt, stuffed rabbit and all. His shirt probably cost more than her entire outfit, including her purse. Once upon a time, that might’ve bothered her, but not this evening.

Decker grew still at first. Then he hugged her back.

“Thank you for the job.” She stepped back, blinking rapidly. “And for the wildly gorgeous Lexus.” And for giving me a chance for once. She added the last part inside her head, not wanting to muck up her little speech with any negativity. His reasons for doing what he’d done for her today utterly baffled her, but she could happily live with that kind of bafflement.

Decker waggled his eyebrows at the stuffed rabbit she was still hugging while he shut the door behind them. “You impressed the socks off of Rock Hefner.”

“I tried.” She wrinkled her nose at the memory of how uptight she’d been at the beginning of the interview. However, he’d quickly put her at ease by making her feel like he was on her side. She was a little out of her element again this evening, trying not to gawk at her opulent surroundings. The entry foyer of her brother’s home was bigger than her entire apartment. A double set of curved staircases led to an equally grand balcony above their heads.

“You did more than try. You succeeded.” He gallantly waved her into the adjoining dining room.

Mila’s small, curly-haired niece ran squealing in their direction. She’d gotten a lot bigger since the last time Mila had seen her. And faster. “Daddeeeee,” she crowed, launching her chubby limbs into his arms.

He swept her into the air, giving her a noisy kiss on the cheek that made her giggle. She returned the favor with a noisy smooch on his lips. They engaged in a wrestling match next, trying to be the first to tweak each other’s noses.

Mila could tell by watching them that this was something they did often. She stood silently in the arched doorway to the massive dining room, soaking it all in and thinking about how cool it must be to have a dad at that age.

Gwen finally noticed her, leaning back in her dad’s arms to point at Mila. “Who dat?”

Decker cuddled her closer to nuzzle her cheek as he turned with her toward Mila. “That’s your Aunt Mila.”

“No ant.” Gwen shook her head, frowning fiercely as she made a crawling motion with two fingers down her dad’s arm.

“Mila,” Mila repeated, stepping up to them and pointing at herself. Then she pointed at her niece and said, “Gwen.” Afterward, she pointed at herself again and repeated her name.

Gwen watched her curiously without saying anything.

Mila pointed at the stuffed rabbit and said, “Rabbit.” Then she held out the toy to the little girl.

Gwen’s eyes grew wide. She glanced at her dad, as if seeking his permission to take it. He nodded, and she joyfully leaned forward to close her arms around it. Since she was dressed in red velvet overalls and a long-sleeved white shirt, she and the rabbit made a matched set.

Gwen gave the new toy a sloppy kiss like the one she’d given her father. Then she pointed at Mila again. “Mila Rabbit,” she announced.

“Aunt Mila,” Decker corrected, raising another ferocious scowl from his daughter.

“Mila Rabbit,” the little girl repeated, raising her chin stubbornly.

Mila chuckled. “I can totally live with being called Mila Rabbit.” It was terribly sweet that the kid was associating her gift with the woman who’d given it to her. She added beneath her breath for her stepbrother’s benefit. “Believe me. I’ve been called worse.”

He snorted. “Haven’t we all?”

Mila sniffed the air. Her mouth was watering from the scents wafting from the kitchen. “Where’s Chanel?”

“Making final preparations for dinner.” He pretended like he was going to tweak the nose of the stuffed rabbit, which inevitably started another wrestling match with Gwen.

“I’ll help.” Mila took a step toward the doorway on the opposite end of the room, astonished at how long the table was and how exorbitantly decorated it was with pine boughs, ribbons, and candles.

“No need, but thanks.” Chanel breezed into the room, looking like she’d just stepped off a runway at a fashion show. She was holding a crystal bowl filled with dinner rolls. A swirl of steam rose from them.

Mila blinked at her sister-in-law, wondering how in the world she’d prepared dinner in a beaded ivory jumpsuit without spilling anything on herself. Chanel designed high-end clothing for a living, which she displayed and sold at her upscale boutique downtown. Mila had never darkened the door of it. Modello’s was way out of her price range.

A tall, gray-haired woman in a crisp white apron followed Chanel, bearing a charcuterie board. It was loaded down with meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds in a spectacular Christmas tree-shaped arrangement.

That’s when the truth dawned on Mila. Her sister-in-law hadn’t prepared dinner. She was having it catered, which made a lot more sense.

“Wow!” Mila stared hungrily at the tray as the woman in the apron set it on the buffet cabinet against the wall. “It looks too pretty to eat.”

Chanel gave Mila an unexpectedly warm smile that made her sophisticated French twist and perfect makeup look less snooty. “It seemed kinder than making you suffer through my poor cooking.”

“You cook?” Decker met his wife in the middle of the room and leaned in to touch his lips to hers.

“Haha,” she murmured against his mouth.

Gwen managed to scramble out of his arms like a little monkey into her mother’s arms. She immediately held up her new stuffed animal. “Mila Rabbit,” she said carefully, pointing happily at Mila.

“That’s me.” Mila spread her arms, chuckling.

“Cute.” Chanel busied herself tucking Gwen in a high chair. Then she whisked a baby carrot and a stub of celery off the charcuterie board and set them on the tray in front of Gwen. “This is rabbit food,” she announced cheerfully. “Yum, yum!” She pretended to nibble the end of the carrot.

Gwen gave a yelp of girlish protest and yanked it away, holding it high above her head. Then her little arm moved in a blur to her mouth. She swiftly took a bite and held the carrot back over her head.

Chanel continued to pretend she was going to steal a bite, thereby coaxing the entire carrot down her energetic toddler.

“Genius parenting skills,” Mila murmured, stepping closer to her brother, who was dunking a broccoli floret in one of the vegetable dips.

“Agreed. She’s an incredible mom.” Decker looked so besotted by the two lovely ladies in his life that Mila had to stifle the urge to roll her eyes.

Wow, but they had him wrapped! Somehow, though, he’d still summoned the generosity to keep the stepsister he barely knew in a set of wheels for the past year. And today, he’d given her the job of her dreams.

Her hunger finally got the best of her. She reached for the charcuterie tray and selected a piece of cauliflower. They stood there together, munching on veggies, mixed nuts, and fruit. He finally reached for one of the paper-thin slices of ham that was artfully curled to resemble a rose.

“It’s too pretty to eat,” Mila wailed softly as he popped it into his mouth in one bite.

“Not true.” He reached for another one.

Before his fingers closed around it, an explosion outside the house rattled the arched dining room windows.

Decker yanked his hand back and sprinted around the table to peer out the nearest window.

Mila was right at his heels. What she saw on the other side of the glass made her whimper in horror. The front passenger seat of the Lexus had erupted into smoke and flames. Tears rolled down her cheeks at the realization that the luxurious vehicle her stepbrother had lent to her only hours earlier had been destroyed.

Somewhere in the house, the two Golden Doodles she had yet to meet were barking and howling frenziedly.

“I’m so sorry, Deck,” she gasped.

He gave her an incredulous, white-faced look. “I’m just glad you weren’t inside the vehicle when it happened.”

Guilt flooded her over just how wrong she’d been not to report the vandalized walkway outside her apartment door to the police. “I-I…” More tears gushed down her cheeks, making Decker’s face blur.

She felt his hands on her shoulders, guiding her into one of the dining room chairs. Then he whipped out his cell phone and made a call. It sounded like he was speaking directly to the sheriff — not the retired one who worked for Lonestar Security, but the newly elected Luke Hawling. She wasn’t surprised that a security firm owner like himself had those kinds of connections.

When Decker ended the call, he knelt in front of her chair. “I need you to tell me everything that happened to you from the moment you left the parking garage at Lonestar Security until you arrived here.”

She began her story even earlier than that, since it might be relevant for him to know about the reckless driver who’d nearly run her off the road. It wasn’t easy speaking coherently between sobs. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. She was shaking all over.

“She’s in shock, hon.” Chanel pressed a glass of water into Mila’s hand and helped guide it to her lips.

“Thanks.” Mila choked down a sip. Blinking rapidly to clear her vision, she perceived that Gwen was no longer in the room. Neither was the tall woman wearing the apron. Mila hoped like crazy that the woman had whisked her precious little niece into a safe room.

She took another sip of water before launching back into her description of all the weird things that had happened to her today.

Her stepbrother’s face grew even whiter as he listened to her tale about the vandalized floorboards outside her front door.

“There was a small box on my doormat,” she concluded in a shaky voice. She described the packaging and the missing shipping label. “I like to shop online, so I didn’t think much of it. Since I was running late to dinner, I tossed it on the passenger seat and brought it with me.” The thought hadn’t entered her mind that she might be transporting a bomb across town. A bomb! “I’m so, so, so sorry, Deck!”

“For what?” He glared at her.

“For not following my gut and calling the police like I should have.” She squeezed her eyelids shut, unable to bear the thought of what might’ve happened if she’d brought the box inside the house with her. Or remained in the vehicle a few minutes longer…

He drew a heavy breath as he stood and walked a few paces away from her to make another phone call.

Mila scrubbed a hand across her damp cheeks as she reopened her eyelids.

Her sister-in-law was still hovering over her, looking concerned.

“I’m so sorry for ruining dinner.” Despite all the good things that had happened to Mila earlier in the day, her life felt like it was coming unraveled again. Maybe her mother was right about trouble dogging her heels since the day she’d been born. Maybe it always would .

“You didn’t ruin dinner.” Chanel plopped into the chair beside Mila. “Whoever planted a bomb on your doorstep is the one who ruined dinner.”

Mila stared at her for a moment. “Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?” The words tore out of her before she could stop them.

Chanel looked perplexed. “I’m not sure how to take that question.”

Unfortunately, Mila was too overwrought to stop babbling. “I honestly thought you hated me.”

Her sister-in-law gave a huff of disbelief. “I’m pretty sure that shoe is on the other foot.” She lightly tapped the toe of her ivory high-heeled pump against Mila’s ankle boot. “I’m not the one who skipped out on our wedding shower. And our baby shower.”

“Only because I wasn’t invited!” The fact that Mila had been deliberately excluded from the invitation lists of both showers still stung.

“That’s not true.” Chanel looked more confused than ever. “Even though you were still living with your parents, I sent you your own invitation to both events.”

No! That’s not possible! Unless it was. Mila started shaking uncontrollably. Since her mother had gone out of her way to stress that Mila hadn’t been invited, someone had to be lying.

“Why would my mom say something like that if it wasn’t true?” She spoke through numb lips, wondering what else her perennially malcontented mother had lied about.

Chanel slapped a hand through the air. “I can think of a few reasons, though now isn’t the best time to have this discussion. You’ve been through enough today, Mila. Right now, the only thing you need to do is breathe. ”

Mila nodded and obediently dragged in a breath and let it out. She watched as Chanel hopped to her feet and left the room, returning moments later with a lovely red, white, and green afghan in hand. It looked like a family heirloom, yet she didn’t hesitate to unfold it and place it around Mila’s shoulders.

“Thank you,” Mila whispered, tugging the ends of it tighter around her. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this cold before. Every part of her felt cold. Her extremities. Her bones. Her very soul.

A siren blared in the distance, then another one. They quickly drew closer. The next hour passed in a blur of policemen coming and going from the driveway. A pair of them came inside the house and spoke to Mila, asking a bunch of questions. They typed her answers into their electronic notebooks. Eventually, they left her alone, and the damaged Lexus was towed away.

Decker’s cell phone rang with an incoming call. He stepped away from Mila and Chanel to take it. He returned to them only seconds later.

Catching his sister’s eye, he announced bleakly, “You might as well get comfortable, sis, because you’re not going anywhere until we figure out what’s going on.”

Her eyes widened. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m down a set of wheels. I wouldn’t get very far even if I wanted to.” She sure didn’t feel up to walking a few miles home in the dark.

“I haven’t forgotten.”

One hour earlie r

“Are you gonna get that?” Rock’s older brother, Gage, jostled him with his shoulder as he walked around the kitchen island.

“Get what?” Rock continued to decorate the pair of pizzas he’d promised to make from scratch for dinner. He was currently living with his brother until he found a place of his own. Not wanting to outstay his welcome, he’d met a few times with a real estate agent. So far, though, he hadn’t found the perfect place to call home. And now his realtor was on Christmas vacation, so his house hunting was on hold.

“Your phone, doofus!” Gage stalked to the living room to retrieve it from the end table beside the recliner Rock had vacated only minutes earlier. He waved it at Rock to indicate he was about to toss it to him.

Rock caught it and frowned at the caller ID. It was Decker Kingston. He immediately laid down his bag of pepperonis and accepted the call. Reaching for the cane he’d propped against the island, he limped back to the living room as he held the phone to his ear.

“Hey, Deck! What’s going on?” The guy was supposed to be having dinner with his sister for the first time in ages.

“We’ve got a situation over here.” His boss, who was never rattled, sounded thoroughly rattled. “Someone left a bomb on Mila’s doorstep. She assumed the package contained something she ordered online and tossed it on the passenger seat of the Lexus. Long story short, it blew up.”

Rock gave a choking cough and dropped heavily into the leather recliner. “Is she…?” He couldn’t bring himself to complete the question.

“She’s fine. Sorry,” Decker said quickly. “I should’ve led with that statement.”

“Is she somewhere safe?” Rock growled.

“She’s at my place. It happened a few minutes after she exited the vehicle and came inside.” His voice grew hoarse as he described the events leading up to the explosion. “Man, Rock! If she’d stopped for gasoline or anything on her way here…” He stopped and cleared his throat.

“But she didn’t.” Rock was having a hard time breathing normally himself. The very idea of the woman he’d interviewed today being blown to smithereens was too much to wrap his brain around. “You’d have never turned that vehicle over to her or anyone else without a full tank.” It was company policy to top off every vehicle before returning them to the motor pool.

“Of course not,” Decker barked, “but she stopped to buy a gift for my kid right after her interview. If she’d waited to purchase it on her way here?—”

“Don’t do that to yourself.” Rock could only imagine what the guy was going through, but it wouldn’t help to dwell on the what-ifs. “This isn’t the time to play the blame game. We need to stay focused on figuring out who wants your sister dead.”

“About that…” Decker launched into an eerie description of a man wrapped to the gills in winter clothing, driving a utility truck that had hounded his sister on her way to her interview.

“That must have been right after she parked in front of Chester Farm to sketch a bunch of half-rotten haystacks.” Rock’s brain raced over the details Mila had told him about her sketch of Chester Farm and her relationship with the late Mr. Chester.

“I wouldn’t call four a bunch of haystacks, but okay.” Her brother’s voice was dry.

“Come again?” Even though Rock hadn’t zoned out, he suddenly felt like he’d missed a key detail in their conversation.

“Four haystacks,” Decker clarified dryly. “And they’re not actually haystacks. They’re huts he built to look like haystacks for the folks who visited his?—”

“I know,” Rock cut in to save the guy’s breath. “Mila told me about his holiday festivals and fundraisers. Not to be disrespectful, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure there are more than four haystacks in the sketch she did earlier.” He reached for his duffel bag on the floor beside the recliner. Unzipping it, he pulled out the manilla folder containing Mila’s application and sketches. It was time to take another look at them.

“That’s impossible.” Decker sounded impatient. “Monty Chester isn’t building more huts from the grave, and the nephew who inherited his farm is filing to have the entire kit and caboodle declared a sanctuary for some nearly extinct lizard.”

What? Rock shook his head. “Now I’ve heard it all.” He quickly spread Mila’s sketches out on the coffee table in front of him. “I’m going to take another look at her sketches and see if anything pops.”

“I was thinking we should do the same thing.” Decker’s voice adopted a distracted tenor. “Gotta run. The police are here. Keep me posted.”

“Roger that.” After his boss disconnected the line, Rock continued scrutinizing Mila’s sketches, impressed all over again by the details she’d included. He couldn’t wait to watch her at work on her first crime scene.

Well, I’ll be! His shoulders tensed as he counted haystacks. Decker was right. There were only four haystacks in the sketch she’d done in charcoal. However, he counted five in the version she’d drawn in ink. Out of curiosity, he flipped the papers over, wondering if she’d written the date on them. She had. Apparently, she’d sketched the scenes three days apart. Assuming she’d drawn exactly what she’d seen, it meant an additional haystack hut had been constructed during the span of those three days. Interesting.

He reached inside his duffle bag a second time and pulled out Mila’s sketchpad. Flipping to the one she’d made right before her interview, he compared the newest sketch to the two older ones.

In the scene she’d drawn today, there were six haystack huts.

A lizard sanctuary, my hide! Chester Farm had been turned into a construction zone. For what, Rock had no clue. Yet. He whipped his cell phone back out and did an online search for the name of Monty Chester’s heir. It was a bit of a long shot. However, a single line item popped up in his search results. It was a lengthy news article posted by the Heart Lake Times shortly after the aging farmer had passed away.

His nephew, Troy Bentley, was the sole heir to Chester Farm and all of its assets. It was a name Rock recognized all too well, since Troy’s family owned the biggest car dealership in town, Bentley Auto. Troy also happened to be Mila’s ex-fiancé, a creep who’d clearly done something to send her running from the altar.

It didn’t feel like a coincidence that Mila had innocently sketched a field of decaying haystacks that had once been part of a beloved entertainment spot for the entire town.

A spot that had been inherited by a man she’d refused to marry.

And now her life was in danger.