Page 38 of Killer on the Homestead
“Because my mama raised me right.” Being back home gave him a new perspective on how everything he’d managed to build as a professional athlete had been built on the foundation his parents, and this ranch, had laid.
She made a scoffing noise, but her mouth curved. “I should hope so. We’ll see how long that sweet talk lasts when I task you with my next favor. I don’t suppose you can think of a way to follow your father around this morning without making him think we’re trying to babysit him? I’d rather you do that than ruin my garden by continuing to plant my cowpeas too close together.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, ignoring her old complaint. She used to joke she’d put him in T-ball just so she could plant her garden right.
Then both his parents had sacrificed a whole hell of a lot, all because he’d fallen in love with a game. And he wanted to pay them back the only way he thought they might accept. By figuring this damn murder out.
“But first, I want you to tell me more about Owen.”
Mom blew out a breath and squinted out toward the bunkhouse. “I didn’t have much interaction with the boy before the murder. I remember the first week he was here, Terry had some complaints about the both of them. Lazy work. Bad attitudes. Dad, of course, asked Terry to be patient.”
“Was he?”
“Always,” Mom said loyally. “Kept complaining for quite some time, but no threats to turn them out. It takes time to work the lazy out of boys who’ve never been given a chance.”
“And when do you think they worked it out of them?”
“Your father would have a better grasp on timing.” Her eyebrows drew together, as if she was trying to think back. “I can’t remember when the tide really turned. Sometime after Christmas I’d have to guess.”
“So they’ve been model hands these past few months?”
“Model? No. Efficient? Not really. Better? Yes. Improvement. I had high hopes for Hunter. Less for Owen, but that’s probably how I feel about your father’s family coloring my perspective.” She glanced toward the bunkhouse again. “Poor boy has been nothing but grief-stricken since. I asked him if he wanted to go home, be with family, and he begged me to stay. Said he’d worked twice as hard, enough for him and Hunter. Just begged me not to send him away.”
“Something back home scares him?”
“I don’t know about that. I just don’t think anyone cares about him back there, poor kid. And not that Terrycares, but he takes good care of those boys. So does your father. This is a good place to be.”
That sentiment stayed with Duncan as he went about his day. Helped with a few ranch chores he could do one-handed, talked with some of the hands, shared a sandwich with Terryat lunchtime. He tried to poke into Owen, and Hunter for that matter, without being too obvious about it.
Not one of them, Dad included, would give the two compliments on their work ethic, but the consensus among the hands matched up with Mom’s. They’d been improving.
This is a good place to be.
Except someone had been murdered. Right there, in his own front yard, and the cops hadn’t found any answers yet.
So if they wouldn’t, he and Rosalie would have to.
It wasn’t a date. Rosalie told herself that as she debated for far too long about what to wear. It was a high-school baseball game. So jeans and a T-shirt and she needed to stop overthinkingwhichT-shirt.
But she considered about ten different options, told herself to wear her ratty old Bent County High School T-shirt, and ended up pulling on the form-fitting V-neck the color of her eyes. She considered her hair next. She should just throw it up and slap a hat on it, but she didn’t. She took time—too much time—curling the careful strands she pulled out of the ponytail. Then putting on makeup—ridiculous, just ridiculous—with a deft hand to make sure it didn’t look like she was wearing any.
When she was done with that, irritated with herself, irritable with the situation, so damn nervous she thought she’d be sick, she marched herself downstairs.
“It’s just a baseball game,” she muttered to herself. But just as she got downstairs, the front door opened and Audra stepped in.
Rosalie had been hoping to escape before Audra was done for the day. But there was no way around her sister, standing there in front of the door. “Hey,” she offered.
“Headed out?” Audra asked, innocently enough, nodding toward the purse Rosalie carried.
“Yeah.” Rosalie let the silence stretch out. Maybe Audra would hear it through the grapevine, maybe Rosalie would feel like talking about itafter, but she was not about to let Audra think she was going out on a date with Duncan.
Because she wasn’t.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Audra said.
There was no point in denying it, and it was better than talking about Duncan. “Yep.”
“You can’t forever.”
