Cowboy's Legacy

Probably just a repairman waiting for one of her neighbors, she told herself. She had to quit this. For so long, she’d been running scared. She liked to blame Celeste, but Maggie suspected her real fear was of losing Flint. She loved him so much. What if she moved in with him and he realized he didn’t feel as strongly about her? Maybe Celeste was right. Maybe there was a reason Flint hadn’t asked her to marry him. Maybe he never would.

With a curse, she shifted her car into gear, angry that she’d let Celeste back in her head. She had to stop always thinking something terrible was going to happen when she and Flint were together. She had to believe in the two of them. She also had to believe that she could overcome her past.

Sometimes their future seemed like a brass ring suspended in front of her. All she had to do was grab it—and not look back. But her life hadn’t been easy, far from it. A part of her wondered if she deserved to be happy.

As she drove down the street, she noticed all the Christmas decorations in the yards. Red, green and white lights twinkled in the afternoon light. From one yard, a huge snowman waved to her in the breeze. She smiled and tried to relax. It was almost Christmas. She needed to be thinking about what she was going to get Flint. It would be their first Christmas together. They should get a tree and decorate it together, she thought as she drove, her mood lifting.

At the stop sign, she couldn’t help herself. She glanced back in her rearview mirror. The brown van was two vehicles back.

The moment the light changed, she peeled out, burning rubber as she took off. She thought about calling Flint. And telling him what? I saw a van on my street and now it’s behind me?

In a town this size, that wasn’t unusual. But as she neared Flint’s street, she noticed the time. Maybe he’d get off work early knowing she was going to be there. Maybe he’d be at the house waiting for her. It would ruin her dinner surprise, but she didn’t care. Sometimes she just needed his arms around her and right now was one of them.

The van was still behind her. Only one car back now. She still couldn’t see the driver for the glare of the setting sun. She turned onto Flint’s street and glanced in the mirror, afraid she would see the van turning in behind her. Instead, it sped on past and disappeared around the next corner.

She pulled into Flint’s drive and slumped against the wheel. What was wrong with her? She couldn’t keep going like this, making trouble where there wasn’t any. She thought about her past relationships and the mistakes that she’d made. She wasn’t going to do that with Flint. She’d learned her lesson. Wasn’t that why she’d moved to Gilt Edge? She’d wanted to be someone else. Anyone but the Margaret Ann Thompson she’d been born.

She shut off the car engine and looked toward Flint’s house in the pines. The place fit him. It was secluded with the nearest neighbor back up the street and hidden in the trees. The house sat on a slight hill, the empty lot behind it falling to the next street in a thick grove of pine trees.

Maggie was sure that the seclusion had been part of the charm. The house itself was small and neat, nice inside, though basic. She thought of ways she could make it more homey. Make it more theirs, since he’d lived in this house with Celeste. But that had been a long time ago, so she wasn’t going to let that bother her.

Excitement filled her as she grabbed a couple of her bags and headed for Flint’s back door. As she did, she saw one of the neighbors down the street out at her mailbox. The neighbor waved. Maggie waved back, feeling as if she’d finally come home.

Flint had given her a key last time they talked about moving in together. She’d never used it. But she doubted she would have to now. He always left the back door unlocked. Just like a sheriff, she thought with a smile. He wasn’t worried about anyone breaking in.

She’d been worried when he’d told her. “What about Celeste?”

“She took everything she wanted when she left,” he’d said with a laugh. “Trust me, she has no reason to return.”

But Maggie thought once she was moved in, they would definitely get the locks changed and start locking the doors.

The afternoon sun was casting long shadows. It had been a mild fall. But the weatherman was forecasting a white Christmas. She glanced toward the dark pines and felt a shiver. That feeling that someone was watching her made her turn to look back up the road. She saw no one, but still couldn’t shake off the feeling that she wasn’t alone.

As the door swung open, she started to step in, but stopped to look down into the pines again. The breeze stirred the trees. The boughs moaned softly and cast dark shadows on the ground.

Hurrying now, she stepped inside. She started to lock and bolt the door behind her, but she had more things to get from the car. She knew she was being silly. If Flint could see her now, he’d have second thoughts about her moving in. Tossing her purse on the table by the back door, she pulled out her phone and smiled, anxious to hear Flint’s voice.

The call went straight to voice mail. Disappointed, she almost hung up, but at the last minute, she decided to leave a message. “Hi, it’s me. I’m at your house. I should warn you. I ran into Celeste earlier. I’m pretty sure she overheard me telling you that I’d changed my mind and I was going to move in with you. Oh, and I got something for our...” She realized that she’d run out of time on the message. Not that it mattered. She’d been babbling anyway.

She disconnected and realized she’d almost told him about the dinner she had planned as a surprise for him later. But then it wouldn’t have been a surprise, huh.

Maggie pocketed her phone. She was still smiling at the thought of their first night together there when she heard a sound behind her and spun around. Her smile vanished as her heart began to pound. She took a step back as she fumbled for her cell phone with trembling fingers. “What are you doing here?”

CHAPTER THREE (#u609b1c04-8cd3-507d-a667-9ac14df12f1e)

“MAGGIE?” FLINT CALLED as he opened the back door to his house. He’d been thrilled when he’d gotten her message. But just seeing her car parked in the drive made it seem all the more real. He couldn’t wait to see her. He had no idea why she’d changed her mind; he was just glad that she had, especially since he would be giving her the ring this weekend.

Her deciding to move in only made him all the more sure about asking her to marry him. It was time. They’d come through the worst of it, he told himself, remembering the message she’d left him about running into his ex.

Flint could imagine how unpleasant it was for Maggie. Every time he crossed paths with Celeste, it ruined his day.

He noticed that the passenger-side door of her car was open as if she was still in the process of moving a few things in. He thought about checking to see what else needed to come in, but he was too anxious to take her in his arms. After her call, he’d decided to come home early. He’d had to make one stop after hearing that his father had been seen coming out of the mountains. Not that he’d found him at his cabin. He told himself he’d deal with Ely later. He was too anxious to see Maggie.

He had big plans for tonight, he thought with a smile. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to wait until this weekend to ask her.

“Maggie?” He started to step deeper into his house when he saw the overturned bookcase. Books were strewn across the floor. The lamp that had been next to it lay on the floor, the globe shattered. “Maggie?” Goose bumps rippled over his skin as the hair on the back of his neck quilled. “Maggie!”

He rushed toward the kitchen even though the lawman in him told him not to. This looked like a crime scene and if it was... She wasn’t in the kitchen or the dining room. He headed for the stairs at a run, all the time telling himself he might be destroying important evidence.

Taking the stairs three at a time, he reached the landing. “Maggie!” No answer. The silence of the house had an ominous feel to it. “Maggie!”

She wasn’t in any of the bedrooms or the bathrooms. She wasn’t there, and yet all the way he’d been praying that, yes, there’d been an accident, but she was all right. They could buy another lamp. He could clean up the mess. Everything was fine.

But in his heart he’d known the moment he saw the overturned bookcase and the broken lamp. There’d been a struggle—and Maggie had lost.

Trying not to panic, he stopped on the landing and called her cell phone. As he waited for it to ring, he told himself there was an explanation, one completely different from the scenario playing in his head right then.

The sound of a phone ringing drew him back down the stairs and into the living room again. He stepped closer to the fallen bookcase, his pulse in overdrive. There, poking out from under one of the books, was her phone. He bent down and instinctively reached for it, but stopped himself. The screen was smeared with blood.

Half-blind with fear, he stepped back and keyed in 9-1-1. “I need Mark over at my house right away,” he said to the dispatcher. His undersheriff, Mark Ramirez, had a cool head in emergencies and right now he needed that. He hung up, desperately wanting to put out a BOLO on Maggie right away. Just as he wanted to call in the experts from the Division of Criminal Investigation out of Billings. All his instincts told him that he had to find Maggie and fast.

But even as a law-enforcement officer, he couldn’t call in the cavalry until he knew for certain that she was even missing. He also had to stop thinking like Maggie’s boyfriend. He needed to be the lawman he was.

From where he stood, he could see drops of blood on the wood floor. They were still wet. He looked at his watch. Whatever had happened here hadn’t happened very long ago.

Telling himself not to jump to conclusions, he called the hospital. It was possible there had been an altercation and the other person involved had taken Maggie to the emergency room. It took everything in him to remain calm and wait for the phone to be answered.

“Hello, yes, this is Sheriff Cahill. I need to know if Maggie Thompson was admitted to the emergency room. Yes, I’ll wait,” he said even though he wanted to beg her to hurry. He knew that if his instincts were right, every minute counted.

“I’m sorry, Sheriff. We have no record of her being in the ER. No one here has seen her.” The hospital was small. Gilt Edge had only a couple of doctors. “Her family doctor is here doing rounds. He said he hasn’t seen her, either.”

“Thank you.” He quickly dialed Just Hair, the salon that Maggie owned. Daisy, the only other stylist, hadn’t seen or heard from her. Neither had her best friend, Belle. He was just disconnecting when he heard a vehicle pull in.

All his fears rushed back. His first instinct was right—just as he’d known in his gut. He hurried to the front door rather than the back and stopped, the lawman in him kicking in again. The lock didn’t appear to have been jimmied. He hadn’t checked the back door, hadn’t taken the time to do anything but search the house for Maggie.

Using his shirtsleeve, he carefully opened the front door. The last thing he wanted to do was destroy any fingerprints that might have gotten left behind. The action felt foolish. Whoever had taken her had used the back door, the one he was sure he’d left unlocked.

Not that he didn’t already know who had done this. He knew who had Maggie. That was why he was so terrified.

“Come in this way,” he called to Mark as the undersheriff got out of his patrol SUV.

The moment Mark saw his face, his eyes widened in alarm. “What’s wrong?”

“There appears to have been a struggle. Maggie’s missing.” His voice broke. He waved Mark in and pointed toward the scene near the back door. “She was moving in today. Her car door is still open. Her purse is on the table by the door. She must have been surprised by someone.”

Mark pulled out his phone and began shooting photos of the room as he moved cautiously toward the fallen bookcase. “I saw Maggie’s car by the back door. You’re sure no one stopped by, maybe took her to the emergency room for stitches? Maybe she called to a neighbor?”

“She hasn’t been admitted to the hospital. I called while I was waiting for you. Nor has her doctor seen her.”