Chapter Five

A knock on the front door brought Ashley Adair out of their guestroom bedside chair, and she hurried to the front room.

Ashley’s mother, distraught with grief over the happenings in their sleepy little town, looked from the kitchen alcove with red, puffy eyes.

Ashley pulled open the door. “Sheriff Jones. Deputy Clark. Please, come in.” She stepped aside.

Both men removed their hats, wiped their boots, and entered.

Because of her mother’s cooking, the air in the room was thick and uncomfortably warm despite the wide-open windows. What Ashley wouldn’t give for a blessed, cool breeze.

“Blanche still here?” Sheriff Jones asked.

“Yes. And she’ll remain here until she’s ready to go home,” Mrs. Angelia Adair said, coming into the room. “She finally fell asleep. Poor thing is beside herself over Benson. She loved him very much.”

Ashley couldn’t stop her gaze from straying to the hall that led to the bedrooms. What had happened to poor Benson was atrocious. He’d been such a nice fellow, always saying hello to everyone. Careful with his words so as not to speak crudely, not like some of the other freighters that now and then came through Priest’s Crossing. He was a true gentleman through and through. And now Blanche was a widow at twenty-nine years old. Amazingly, she’d lived through the vicious attack by that horrible man locked up in the jail. The half-breed, her mind whispered. Like the man who killed my father. She’d collapsed onto their guestroom bed in a storm of tears and had finally fallen asleep from exhaustion. Her face was badly beaten. What she’d gone through shouldn’t happen to anyone, let alone a woman like Blanche. Her friend would need much care to get over this heartbreak. “Has he confessed?” Ashley asked, clasping her fingers tightly together. What made a man snap like that?

“No,” Jones replied flatly. “He was still out cold when I left. But with Blanche being an eyewitness, he’ll have a hard time making anyone believe any different.”

Deputy Clark scowled.

With his bloodshot eyes and wrinkled shirt, he looked as if he hadn’t slept a wink last night. She thought she detected a slight scent of whiskey.

“What will you do now?” Ashley’s mother asked. “Since you have the perpetrator already locked up? Seems like a closed-book case.”

Feeling like a swarm of bees battled in her stomach, Ashley stepped to the window and looked out on the sleepy street that ran into town. The school, where she had taken over as teacher for Blanche when she married Benson, could barely be seen a quarter mile away at the end of Main Street. The gigantic oak stood guard over the building as if this evening was the same as any other in the year. “It’s horrible,” she whispered, still gazing out. “Murder in our own little Priest’s Crossing. And in cold blood.” She turned back. “No one should die because of money.”

Sheriff Jones rubbed his chin. “That’s the part I don’t get. Luke McCutcheon is one of the richest ranchers in the territory. He could buy and sell this whole town ten times over with his petty cash.”

Ashley’s mother straightened. “Are you saying Blanche isn’t telling the truth?”

The sheriff jerked as if he’d been slapped across the face, reminding Ashley of when he’d first come to town. During the Christmas social, he’d pestered her nonstop and even tried to kiss her. She hadn’t slapped him, but she’d wanted to and told him so in no uncertain terms. Since then, he’d been a gentleman. After he became sheriff, he seemed like a whole different person.

“Of course we believe Blanche,” Hoss Clark, the powerfully built deputy, said before Jack could open his mouth. “She’s lived here all her life.”

Ashley cocked her head. “No, actually, she hasn’t. Not her whole life. Just since becoming the teacher nine years ago. She’s from Chicago.”

A vision of Miss Lowrich, her name until marrying Benson, standing at the blackboard on the day her mama brought Ashley to school for the first time hadn’t faded over those years. Blanche was twenty and the most beautiful woman Ashley ever saw: independent, strong, with a tiny waist and thick, midnight-colored hair. She had stories about the exciting people and goings-on in the world outside Priest’s Crossing. Sometimes this little town seemed much too small to contain her. When the teacher took a shine to the skittish nine-year-old, perhaps because both were new arrivals to town, Ashley had felt special. Still healing from the violent death of her father, Ashley had soaked up Miss Lowrich’s attention and praise like a thirsty rose.

The deputy lifted a shoulder. “That’s plenty long enough to be one of us. But that don’t make any difference. She’s a trusted member of the community, and McCutcheon is an outsider.”

Thinking of Blanche’s battered face, Ashley blinked against the burn of tears behind her eyes.

Her mother came to her side and put a comforting arm around her waist.

“She’s my dear friend,” Ashley said. “She believed in me. Gave me a chance. Helped me take my teaching test right here in town and then hired me. In my book, no one is as unblemished in kindness or character.”

Both lawmen nodded like twins. Good. She was thankful they were in agreement. Blanche had already been through a nightmare of unfathomable proportions, losing her beloved husband and then suffering at the hands of his murderer. Ashley wouldn’t let any more sadness befall her in the days to come.