and their generosity. Her friends’ hearts were in the right place, but she couldn’t see how she could go to Cheyenne for a day trip right now, much less on some dream vacation. The work on the ranch hadn’t died with her husband. Hank and Dooley were pitching in to take up the slack, but they were beginning to get nervous about how they’d be paid or whether the ranch would even survive. They were right to worry, too. Karen didn’t have any answers for them. She knew, though, that Dooley, who’d worked with the Hansons for three decades, had persuaded the younger, more impulsive Hank to give her time to figure things out.
It was January now. She could tell them to find other work and manage for a while, but when spring came, she would have to have help once more. Better to scrape by and re-hire these two, whose loyalty she was sure of, than risk finding no one she could trust come April.
She groaned even as the thought crossed her mind. She was beginning to think like Caleb, seeing betrayal and enemies around every corner. He had been totally paranoid about Grady Blackhawk’s designs on their ranch. It was true that Grady wanted it. He’d made no secret of the fact, especially since Caleb’s death, but it was unlikely that he’d try to get it by planting a spy on her payroll.
Apparently she needed this break more than she wanted to admit. She finally dared to reach for the brochure on London and studied the photos of Buckingham Palace, the Old Vic, Harrods, the cathedrals.
She tried to imagine what London would be like in winter, with snow dusting the streets. Currier and Ives–style images from her favorite authors came to mind. It would be magical. It would be everything she’d ever dreamed of.
It was impossible.
She sighed heavily and reluctantly put the brochure down again, just as someone knocked at the kitchen door.
When she opened it, her heart thumped unsteadily at the sight of Grady Blackhawk. He’d been at the funeral, too. And he’d called a half-dozen times in the weeks and months since. She’d tried her best to ignore him, but he’d clearly lost patience. Now here he was on her doorstep.
“Mrs. Hanson,” he said with a polite nod and a finger touched to the rim of his black Stetson.
She had the whimsical thought that he was deliberately dressing the part of the bad guy, all in black, but the idea fled at once. There was nothing the least bit whimsical about Grady. He was quiet and intense and mysterious.
The latter was a bit more of a problem than she’d anticipated when he first came to pay his respects after Caleb’s death. Karen had always liked unraveling puzzles, and Grady was the most complicated one she’d ever run across. Unfortunately, sifting through clues, ferreting out motives took time, time she didn’t dare spend with her husband’s longtime enemy.
She could just imagine the disapproval of Caleb’s parents, if they heard she was spending time with Grady Blackhawk. Word would reach them, too. She had no doubts about that. Most of the people in the area were far closer to the Hansons, who’d lived here for decades, than they were to Karen, who was still regarded as a newcomer even after ten years as Caleb’s wife. The phone lines between here and Tucson would be burning up as the gossip spread.
“I thought I had made it clear that I have nothing to say to you,” she told Grady stiffly, refusing to step aside to admit him. Better to allow the icy air into the house than this man who could disconcert her with a look.
This man, with his jet-black hair and fierce black eyes, was now her enemy, too. It was something she’d inherited, right along with a failing ranch.
She wished she understood why Grady was so desperate to get his hands on this particular ranch. He had land of his own in a neighboring county—plenty of it from what she’d heard. But there was something about Hanson land that obsessed him.
Over the years he—and his father before him—had done all he could to steal the Hanson land. Not that he wasn’t willing to pay. He was. But, bottom line, he wanted something that wasn’t rightfully his, and he intended to get it by fair means or foul.
According to Caleb, Grady had no scruples, just a single-minded determination. He’d tried to buy up their note at the bank, but fortunately, the bank president was an old family friend of Caleb’s father. He had seen the paperwork, foiled the attempt, then dutifully rushed to report everything to the Hansons. That much was fact.
In addition—and far more damning—Caleb had been all but certain Grady was behind a virus that had infected half their herd the previous year. He had also blamed Grady for a fire that had swept through pastureland the year before that, destroying feed and putting the entire herd at risk.
There had been no proof, of course, just suspicions, which Karen had never entirely bought. After all, Grady had been waiting in the wings, checkbook in hand, after each incident. Would he have been foolish enough to do that if he’d been behind the acts in the first place? Wouldn’t he know that he’d be the first person to fall under suspicion? Or hadn’t he cared, as long as he got his way?
“I think it would be in both our interests to talk,” he said, regarding her with the intense gaze that always disquieted her.
“I doubt that.”
He ignored her words and her pointed refusal to back away from the door. “I’ve made no secret over the years of the fact that I want this land.”
“That’s true enough.” She regarded him curiously. “Why this land? What is it about this particular ranch that made your father and now you hound the Hansons for years?”
“If you’ll allow me to come inside, I’ll explain. Perhaps then you won’t be so determined to fight me on this.”
Karen’s sense of fair play and curiosity warred with her ingrained animosity. Curiosity won. She stepped aside and let him enter. He removed his hat and hung it on a peg, then took a seat at the table. She took comfort in the fact that he didn’t remove his coat. He clearly wouldn’t be staying long.
His intense gaze swept the room, as if taking stock, then landed on the scattered brochures.
“Going somewhere?” he asked, studying her with surprise. “I didn’t think you had the money to be taking off for Europe.”
“I don’t,” she said tightly, wondering how he knew so much about her finances. Then again, just about everyone knew that she and Caleb had been struggling. “My friends do. They’re encouraging me to take a vacation.”
“Are you considering it?”
“Not with you circling around waiting for me to make a misstep that will cost me the ranch.”
He winced at that. “I know how your husband felt about me, but I’m not your enemy, Mrs. Hanson. I’m trying to make a fair deal. You have something I want. I have the cash to make your life a whole lot easier. It’s as simple as that.”
“There is nothing simple about this, Mr. Blackhawk. My husband loved this ranch. I don’t intend to lose it, especially not to the man he considered to be little better than a conniving thief.”
“A harsh assessment of a man you don’t know,” he said mildly.
“It was his assessment, not mine. Caleb was not prone to making quick judgments. If he distrusted you, he had his reasons.”
“Which you intend to accept blindly?”
It was her turn to wince. Loyalty was one thing, but her sense of fair play balked at blindly accepting anything.
“Persuade me otherwise,” she challenged. “Convince me you had nothing to do with the attempts to destroy our herd, that your intentions were honorable when you tried to buy up the note on the land.”
He didn’t seem surprised by the accusations. He merely asked, “And then you’ll sell?”
“I didn’t say that, but I will stop labeling you as a thief if you don’t deserve it.”
He grinned at that, and it changed him from somber menace to charming