Page 53 of Reckoning with the Cowboy
“Just checking that Shane didn’t put anything in it. Why don’t you take a look.”
She felt numb at the thought that Shane might have seen her bag, maybe even knew she and Cordell were leaving town for the weekend and put something in there.
At the couch, she went through her bag. She found nothing extra that she could see and checked the side pockets before she replaced the bottle of wine wrapped in a towel that she’d brought and zipped it back up. “Is this going to be my life? Living in fear?”
“No. I promise. I have some ideas I want to run by you, but not right now. Right now, we are going to hit the road. The moment we do, it’s our weekend and nothing is going to spoil it.”
Josie wished she could believe it, but she smiled and tried. She wanted this weekend with Cordell badly. But that darkness she’d seen at a distance was now in town. She could see it drifting down Main Street, peering into windows, circling back toward her.
“Let’s go,” she said, knowing that even Cordell’s new pickup couldn’t outrun it. Shane would be here when she got back, the darkness growing and getting more menacing.
* * *
AmySue hadplanned to make something special for Shane for dinner tonight. She had time. Cordell had taken off with Josie, but Shane had wanted to work late to surprise his boss by how much he would have gotten done.
“Let me know when you’re on the way. I have a surprise for you,” she’d told him when she’d seen him at the hotel. He had to have seen that she was upset and had been crying when she’d stopped by before leaving town. But he hadn’t said anything. He knew that her sister was being just awful about the two of them.
“She’s not used to you having anyone, right?” he’d said the other night. “She probably liked having you to herself and misses that. You should cut her some slack. I’m sure she just wants the best for you. She probably doesn’t think I’m the best partner,” he’d said with a self-deprecating grin. “I’ll prove to her I’m the right man for you and the right brother-in-law for her. We’re going to be the family I’ve always dreamed of. Trust me, she will come around.”
He didn’t know Josie, she thought, as she went into the kitchen at the farmhouse to begin dinner but couldn’t seem to make herself start. All she could think about was her sister’s reaction to the engagement and the awful things she’d said. Josie had her mind made up from the start. Amy Sue couldn’t see her changing it no matter what Shane did.
A thought struck her. What if she could prove to her sister that she was wrong? She turned around and left the kitchen to go upstairs to her room. Shane had moved into the farmhouse with her shortly after Josie had decided to stay in her apartment over her office in town. He hadn’t brought much to Montana because apparently he didn’t have much. She couldn’t imagine getting her whole life to fit into a couple of duffel bags she could tie onto the back of a motorcycle.
She’d been amazed when he’d taken a spare pair of jeans, a couple of shirts, two pairs of underwear and a four-pack of socks from the duffel and then put both bags on the high shelf in her closet. The only boots he had were the ones he’d been wearing.
But was that everything?
Amy Sue hated not trusting him, but she had to look. If he was hiding something, she would find it. She stood on tiptoe but still couldn’t reach where Shane had stored them. Pulling over a chair, she stood on it and was able to pull down both of Shane’s bags. The first one felt empty. It was. She almost didn’t check the second one. Of course he didn’t have any secrets.
The second one appeared completely empty, as well. She felt small and shameful and blamed her sister for making her have doubts about the man she loved.
But then she felt something thick on the bottom of the second bag. She took the duffel over to the window where more light came through and saw what appeared to be a slit in the fabric of the double bottom. She could feel what felt like folded papers shoved in there.
It took a few minutes, but she was able to work the wad of papers out. Her breath was coming in short gasps as she started to unfold the sheets of what appeared to be copy paper.
She tried to flatten them out on the bed, but the pages had been folded too tightly. Still, a couple of words grabbed her attention. She caught her breath as she realized what she was looking at. This was information about the farm, the kind of information you might get from a real estate agent.
At the sound of a motorcycle roaring into the yard, she hurriedly tried to get the papers folded again. Her hands were shaking too hard to force the thick wad back into the slit in the bottom of the duffel and she was running out of time. Shane had cut the bike’s engine. He seemed to be in a hurry. She heard his heavy footfalls on the porch steps, then the porch. The screen door slammed open.
“Amy Sue! You in there cooking already? I’ve got a surprise.”
She tossed the papers into the duffel, zipped it back up and hurriedly tried to return it to the crowded shelf in the closet. But the bag fell to the closet floor.
“Amy Sue?”
Her heart was pounding, her chest hurting with each breath. “I’ll be right down!” she called, but he was already heading up the stairs at a run.
She closed the closet door only an instant before he came rushing into the room. Turning, she fought to hide her panic after her discovery, after what her sister had said about Shane killing them both, about him promising her that all he wanted was to farm the place with her.
Fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice if she was acting as strangely as she felt. He rushed to her, picked her up and swung her around. “We’re getting married!”
“I know,” she said when he finally set her down.
“No, silly, we’re gettingmarried.”
She stared at him, trying to tell herself that of course he had an interest in the farm. He had told her that he wanted to work it with her, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t curious about what it was worth. He’d been excited to find out how many acres there were and talked about what he would grow once it was no longer leased out. The papers meant nothing. She was letting Josie get into her head.
When he set her down, he grinned down at her. He was so handsome and when he looked at her like that, her heart flip-flopped in her chest. He was so sweet. He called her his angel. He said she’d saved him. How could she not love this man?
