Buch lesen: «Alaskan Sweethearts»

Chapter One

Thick clouds gathered overhead as Hunter Jacobson pressed down on the gas pedal of his pickup, determined to reach the café in Dry Creek, Montana, before his grandfather talked Scarlett Murphy out of whatever money she had in her purse. He had the windows open and leaned forward, feeling the sweat on his back. He’d never seen this Scarlett woman, but he pictured her carrying one of those worn black clutches that widows used for their grocery money. He gritted his teeth and stepped on the gas pedal harder.

“Of course, she’s not going to thank me for saving her,” he muttered, glancing down at his sole passenger, a calico barn cat who was sitting on the other side of the pickup floor licking one of her front paws. She’d gone with him to feed the cattle and he hadn’t taken time to shoo her away when he’d gotten back into the pickup moments ago. She ignored him now.

Hunter eyed the country road more closely, squinting as dust billowed up. The sky ahead was gray and the wheat fields beside the road were nothing but a blur of early fall stubble as he sped by.

He had seen the woman’s letter lying open on the table when he’d gone inside the house to get a drink of water before heading back to the fields. His grandfather’s pickup wasn’t parked in its usual spot and, since they were the only ones living on the ranch, he’d picked up the note thinking it was for him. Instead he’d read that Scarlett Murphy was to meet his grandfather this morning at the café to sign some papers he had for her. Her signature was ladylike, spiderweb thin and elegant. Nobody under seventy years of age wrote that way anymore.

Not that age was proof against his grandfather’s schemes. Hunter was thirty-three years old, but he probably wouldn’t know what to do about the old man’s mischief if he lived to be a hundred.

Hunter pulled up close to the café, then braked and turned his vehicle onto the strip of barren dirt that everyone used for parking. He pulled the keys from the ignition and opened the door all in the same smooth motion. The heat hit him as he reached back and grabbed the envelope that held the letter. He was surprised when the cat jumped out of the pickup. He’d thought her paw would still be bothering her since he’d pulled a prickly cocklebur out of it only hours ago.

He bent to pick up the feline, but she dodged his hands. The family of cats who had ruled the ranch’s barns for generations was tough. They were survivors, all of them. He decided that if this one wanted to run loose for a few minutes among the dozen or so buildings that made up the small town of Dry Creek, she wouldn’t come to any harm.

Hunter wasn’t so sure about his grandfather’s fate.

Thus far, the old man’s victims had all taken pity on him and not pressed charges once they’d been paid back. But one of these days he would trip up. The schemes had started more than twenty years ago after the car accident that had killed Hunter’s parents. Only a boy then, Hunter hadn’t paid much attention to the problems his grandfather had caused. Their neighbors had held back their complaints at first, saying they could understand how a tragedy like that could unhinge a man who was already in his sixties at the time. But those days of tolerance were long over.

His grandfather’s deals were legendary. Early on, the old man had convinced one farmer to buy a new breed of pigs, claiming they would reproduce like rabbits. They were all sterile. Then he sold a vacuum cleaner that was supposed to remove grease spots. Instead it shredded the carpet and left the stain untouched in the frayed pieces that were left. One after the other, their neighbors had been duped, and gradually the gossip had spread. Finally even the fresh eggs that Hunter’s two younger brothers had tried to sell one summer at a farmer’s market had all come home still in their crate. A rumor had started that the eggs were empty shells and no one had enough faith to even crack one open to find out.

Hunter stood in the dirt beside his pickup, the cat twining around his feet, and lifted his eyes to the darkening sky in frustration. Every man, woman and child this side of the Dakota border had been warned not to have any dealings with the Jacobson family. Hunter had thought God would take care of the old man’s inclinations after they’d both returned to the church a year ago.

Apparently—Hunter gave the sky a look of rueful reproach—it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Shaking his head, he hurried up the porch steps, reaching for the handle on the café door just as he heard a quiet motor behind him. He turned and almost stepped on the cat.

“Oops,” he apologized.

The feline gave him a sharp meow.

Then both Hunter and the cat turned to see what was coming. A sleek black car had pulled off the asphalt road that swept in from the highway. Slowly, it rolled to a stop. The windshield was tinted, but Hunter didn’t need to see inside to know a stranger was behind the wheel. Anyone who drove these roads with any regularity had dirt and mud splattered on both sides of their car, especially during this time of year when the rain came in a downpour or not at all. This car was spotless.

Not many strangers found their way into Dry Creek. This had to be Scarlett Murphy.

Hunter looked down at the envelope he held. He read the return address for the first time—Nome, Alaska. Now that was odd, he thought. His grandfather had gotten his start there as a young man in the 1950s. He’d worked a small gold mine on a trickle of running water called Dry Creek just outside the town of Nome. Located near the Bering Sea, the mine had made enough money that, when he’d left it, his grandfather had been able to buy eighty acres on the banks of a different Dry Creek in southeastern Montana. Hunter always believed his grandfather had been lonesome for Alaska when he’d bought his property down here. There was no other way to explain the coincidence of the names.

Hunter waited on the porch, the cat beside him, as a woman stepped out of the car. She didn’t turn toward the café but stared into the window of the hardware store on the opposite side of the street. The store was filled with shadows, but a person could still make out the black potbellied stove in the middle of the room and the men sitting on chairs around it talking.

Beside him, the cat started to make a noise low in its throat. Hunter couldn’t tell if it was a growl at the threat of the woman or a purr of appreciation at seeing someone so striking.

Hunter voted for the threat. The blood slowly drained out of his face as he realized he had been mistaken about Scarlett. If this woman carried a clutch, it had a designer label. Even without seeing her face, he knew she was young, not old. And he was almost certain that her last name—Murphy—was the same as the business partner in Nome who had betrayed his grandfather years ago by stealing the woman he’d loved. The growing unease Hunter had about all of this deepened. The old man had been muttering about the meaning of life lately. Maybe it wasn’t past habits that had caused this latest bit of mischief. Maybe his grandfather wanted to settle a score and get some final revenge before he died.

Lord, help us all, Hunter thought in an absentminded prayer. If his grandfather was intent on vengeance, he could cause big trouble.

Hunter could only see the woman’s back, but the graceful set of her shoulders and the halo of fiery copper hair blowing lightly around her head made her look like a Botticelli angel out for an morning stroll. The charge in the air might not all be from the upcoming lightning, he thought as he swallowed. His grandfather had said the woman who broke his heart had been stunning. This one was certainly her equal. She wore a sleeveless white silk top. Her arms were well-defined and bronzed by the sun. She put a hand up to smooth down the wayward strands of her hair and he saw a silver bracelet on her wrist. She had muscles and was, at the same time, delicate and utterly feminine.

Hunter was taking a step down from the porch when the woman turned around. He faltered. She was even more beautiful than he’d feared. Something sparkled as she lifted a silver chain that was loose around her neck and slipped it into the front of her blouse. Her face was pale and brushed with the same bronze as her arms. He couldn’t fully see the color of her eyes from where he stood, but he could sense their intensity. As best he could tell they were hazel, gold mixed with green.

That’s when he realized he could feel the smoldering heat in her eyes because she was staring at him—and not in a good way.

He looked down at his shirt. He hadn’t changed after coming in from feeding the cattle and discovering the letter. Hunter tried to casually brush the fine hay dust off of his jeans without calling too much attention to it, but there was nothing he could do about the small red stain he’d gotten from putting iodine on the scrape he’d found along the back of the milk cow this morning. His boots were scuffed but clean.

He squared his shoulders. He shouldn’t have to apologize for wearing work clothes. He was a rancher and everyone knew it. The last woman he’d come anywhere close to settling down with had called him a dirt farmer and had walked away when he’d assured her that his ranch was not as prosperous as she’d hoped. He’d had no helicopter in the shop for repairs despite what his grandfather had told her. He’d had no tuxedo at the dry cleaner’s and likely never would. He wasn’t as poor as his date had thought based on her angry, parting words, but Hunter had decided then and there not to let a woman judge him by his wallet—or his wardrobe.

He finished walking down the porch steps and stood with his legs braced for trouble. This woman dressed expensively and that was never a good sign. He wondered what she had around her neck that she felt the need to hide from him.

“Scarlett Murphy?” he called to her.

He heard another rumble in the distance and the sky over the empty street turned darker. The woman was eyeing him now as though he’d challenged her to a gunfight on the streets of an Old West town.

He smiled.

She didn’t.

The cat suddenly appeared at his feet and meowed sharply. The woman glanced down at the feline, her face softening.

“Careful of the cat,” he cautioned softly.

The family of cats that guarded the Jacobson barn didn’t know any middle ground with strangers. People were enemies until they proved to be friends. The felines didn’t mind a fight, either. That’s why Hunter didn’t usually bring any of the cats into Dry Creek with him.

The woman nodded and lifted her eyes, looking at him from the far side of her car with increasing suspicion. “I’m here to see Mr. Colin Jacobson.”

“I know,” Hunter said, careful to keep his voice steady. He didn’t want to alarm the cat, but he needed Scarlett Murphy’s cooperation. “I’d advise you to leave town without talking to him.”

“What?” The woman sounded baffled. The touch of bronze had left her face, which had turned mostly white. She looked like a fine Italian statue. “I’ve just flown two thousand miles to see him. From Alaska.”

“I know,” he said. “And I’m sorry for that.”

“He has papers for me to sign.”

Hunter pulled his wallet from his shirt pocket and took out half a dozen fifty-dollar bills. “I’ll cover your travel costs.” He turned his wallet over and got more bills from the inside flap. “Just give me a minute. I’ll send a check for the rest.”

Paying her now would be cheaper than what his grandfather had in store. Hunter always paid back the victims even if his grandfather had already spent the money. With the drought, he couldn’t keep doing it, though. It was time to end his grandfather’s mischief before they went broke.

“You most certainly will not stop me,” she protested. “I came to see Colin Jacobson and that’s what I intend to do. I’m not returning to Alaska until Monday.”

It was Saturday now.

“I’m sorry, but he’s not available.”

At least he wouldn’t be in two minutes, Hunter told himself. He’d take his grandfather back to the ranch if he had to tie him up and put him in the pickup. Sheriff Carl Wall would come and help him if he needed to make it official. The sheriff had been a good friend to Hunter over the years and knew more than most about the trouble surrounding the Jacobson family.

“But it’s the fifteenth of August,” the woman insisted. “We have an appointment.”

The realization shot through Hunter like a bullet and left him just as dazed. For the first time in all these years, he’d forgotten. Today was the anniversary of the accident that had killed his parents. It all came back in a heartbeat. He had been ten years old and had been riding in the front seat with his father. His mother and two younger brothers, in the rear, had been thrown free of the vehicle when it turned over. His grandfather, although widowed and not in the best of health, had taken him and his brothers into his home. The old man hadn’t slept those first few nights, instead going from bedroom to bedroom keeping watch over them. Hunter still remembered the sound of his grandfather’s slippers shuffling across the floor. It had made him feel safe.

Hunter was speechless. No one in the family ever talked about that day. They couldn’t.

This time he glanced down at the cat almost involuntarily and she, perhaps sensing his mood, abandoned her battle stance and stared at him with calm sympathy. His grandfather had gone out to the barn the morning after the accident and brought the ancestor of this cat into the house. He and his brothers had been mute in their grief, hugging the poor mother cat until Hunter was surprised she hadn’t scratched them and demanded release. He’d never figured out how each generation of cats knew when they were needed, but they did.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Scarlett Murphy demanded of him as she took a step forward. “Are you a real-estate agent?”

“Of course not.” Hunter came back from the past and protested automatically. He bent and scooped the cat up to his chest. This time she did not try to avoid it. He dragged his hand over her mottled orange fur to calm her. The feline was still tense, ready to bristle at the woman. No one needed to make this confrontation worse.

“Well, you’re not getting part of the property, no matter who you are.” She glared at him. “No commission. No finder’s fee. We Murphys don’t fool easy. So I’m asking again. What are you doing here?”

Hunter had his breathing under control and the cat was relaxing.

“I came to, uh, make sure no one takes advantage of you,” Hunter managed to say even though he knew it was stilted.

“You came to rescue me?” The woman focused on him even more intently. She made it sound as if he’d taken leave of his senses. “I’m not paying you for that, either.”

“Look, I don’t want any money from you,” Hunter said impatiently. “Not a dime. Just, whatever you do, don’t sign anything.”

The pink was returning to the woman’s face and with it some red. Her face was alive with indignation. She pressed her hands down on the front fender of her car and studied him as she leaned forward. “Who are you, anyway?”

“The man’s grandson.”

His full name was Colin Hunter Jacobson, but he sure didn’t want to hang that first name around his neck. Not with his grandfather’s reputation. He’d changed to using his middle name when he was eighteen. His grandfather had accepted the change without asking for an explanation.

Hunter started to turn away. It was time he called the sheriff.

But the woman wasn’t through.

“Which grandson?” she asked.

“The oldest one. Hunter.”

He turned back, wondering why she’d want to know that.

His brothers were both following the rodeo circuit, taking more risks than they should as they won all their prize money. Cash, the one next closest in age to him, rode broncos and Kurt, the youngest, took his chances on the back of raging bulls. Hunter worried about them both. He should have done more to convince them to stay home. They had both tired of their grandfather’s behavior and had left the ranch a couple of years ago. They’d said they had wanted to live someplace where they could hold their heads up high and not wonder what the problem was every time the phone rang. Hunter hadn’t blamed them for leaving once he’d heard that. He was the oldest, though; he had an obligation to the man who had raised them. Besides, he loved his grandfather.

The woman nodded then as if she understood something. A small self-satisfied smile grew on the sides of her lips as she stood straight. Not a full smile, just the hint of one forming. “You’re the one who helps him with the ranch work?”

He nodded. It was more than he could do himself, but he couldn’t afford to pay an experienced hired hand. If his brothers came back, they’d be able to make a go of it. They’d all grown up working the land and he suspected from their letters that they were almost ready to return. The shine had worn off the rodeo belt buckles and his grandfather had been well behaved lately. His brothers missed ranching. Of course, this latest scheme might change everything.

“Well,” the woman said, her voice as melodious as a bell, “I can see what the problem is then.”

Hunter’s mind snapped back to the present. “Really?”

Tiny drops of moisture were falling, but it wasn’t enough to count as rain.

She nodded. “Your grandfather thought you might be opposed to him giving my family the old place.”

Hunter frowned. “The old place? You mean the land my grandfather bought when he came down from Alaska?”

That’s what they had always called it—the old place. Where they lived now was the new place. But Scarlett Murphy wouldn’t know that.

Hunter knew for sure something was going on now. First the anniversary date and then this. His grandfather loved that piece of land. That was the house he’d brought him and his brothers to after the accident. He’d never give it up. Most of the eighty acres was currently leased to Mr. Cleary who ran a herd of sheep on it. But Cleary was retiring this fall and Hunter had plans to plow the fields and get them ready to plant into wheat next spring. That was the crop he was counting on to keep the ranch out of debt.

Hunter walked closer until he was almost at the woman’s car. He bent and let the cat go. He knew the animal wouldn’t leave his side. Not now. He took a deep breath to try to reassure the feline. When he looked up, the woman was talking.

“I’m sure that’s the land he meant.” She pressed her lips together slightly, as though she was thinking. Then her eyes flashed. “It’s what he bought after stealing the gold mine from us sixty years ago. He wrote my grandmother last month and said he would deed it all over to our family if we came and signed for it. ‘Clearing his conscience’ is what he called it—his land for us saying he didn’t steal the gold mine. Switching the deeds. So here I am.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hunter said. The windows were dark on the woman’s car, but he thought he saw some movement inside. Maybe it was just a raindrop sliding down the glass. “My grandfather had legal claim to that mine. He didn’t steal anything.”

“Is that what he told you?” Scarlett asked, her smile tight now as she walked around the car and stood facing him. “My grandfather would turn over in his grave if he could hear him saying that. Grandma always knew Colin Jacobson was a no-good, low-down thief. Now it seems he’s a liar, as well.”

“My grandfather is a good man,” Hunter protested. Despite everything, he believed that. “I’m sure your grandmother didn’t mean—”

“She also said he was handsome as sin and twice as charming,” the woman acknowledged with a look that measured Hunter with a calm objectivity. “Said it was a family curse of the Jacobson men.”

“Well, thank her—”

Hunter was beginning to think he might be able to resolve any problem here.

“I don’t see it myself,” Scarlett said abruptly.

Hunter rocked back on his heels.

“Well, I never claimed to be particularly good-looking.” He paused in case she wanted to protest out of politeness. She didn’t. “But you must know my grandfather owned that mine. He had it recorded official and everything.”

She put her hands on her hips. “He only had the right to half. He stole the rest when he filed the claim with only his name and left my grandfather off it. They were partners.”

“Yes, but—” Hunter had never asked about the claim. He’d seen the paperwork when he was a boy, though. His grandfather had always called Murphy his partner, but there was just one name on the claim: Colin Jacobson. Hunter had never given it much thought until now.

“My grandfather died from a broken heart after he lost that mine and the gold they’d sent to be assayed,” Scarlett continued with some heat. “‘Never should have trusted a weasel of a Jacobson,’ he said.”

“I’m sorry.” In all of his grandfather’s stories, the man had never mentioned his partner was dead. “What happened?”

Scarlett glared at him. “My grandfather couldn’t believe what yours had done. He was sick with a fever, but he insisted on going out to the mine so he could see for sure. I think he expected to find a note saying it was all a joke nailed to the claim post. The day was bitter cold and he fell, cracking the ice on the creek. Got his feet wet. He barely made it home. My grandmother buried him ten days later in the graveyard on the hill above the mine so he could look down on it. Pneumonia had set in. By then your grandfather had already left the state.”

“He didn’t know,” Hunter said, his voice stumbling. “I don’t think he even knew.”

His grandfather had talked his share of people out of money to finance some purpose or the other, but he’d never deliberately harmed anyone. Not like that. Given the date today, though, Hunter was wondering if the old man was taking care of every bit of bad business in his life.

“My grandmother had to take in washing to support her and her baby,” the woman said, her voice full of reproach. “Even now she claims that’s what caused her arthritis.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean for that—” Hunter started and then stopped. He was going to have to stop defending his grandfather. Even if the man meant well, it never worked out that way.

Everything was silent for a moment.

“My grandmother didn’t think he could have known, either,” the woman finally admitted.

“I’m sorry.” Hunter didn’t say anything else. He had no other words. It had happened long ago, but he could see it was like yesterday for the Murphy family. Sort of like the car accident in his family. Something no one ever got over.

Then Scarlett faced him directly.

“I understand your grandfather has buildings on the property he’s giving us,” she said as though she didn’t expect any further answer to her grief.

Hunter nodded. He understood the desire to keep heartache to oneself. Talking didn’t always help. He knew that himself.

“The house isn’t much,” he admitted. No one had lived in it for seventeen years. They had left the furniture there when they’d moved out, but they hadn’t maintained the place. There could be rats in the cupboards for all he knew. The cats had gone to the new place. “The barn is serviceable.”

Right now the house and barn were the only things not leased to Mr. Cleary. His grandfather had pointed out numerous times that the house should be fixed so he’d have a place to move when Hunter brought a bride home to the new place. Not that there was a wedding in sight. Until his grandfather stopped his schemes, Hunter was stuck. If he did marry, he had no intention of kicking his grandfather out of their home. But he couldn’t ask anyone to put up with the old man’s schemes, either, especially now that they were back in full force. That pretty much tied everything in a nice uncompromising knot.

“You won’t want the house,” Hunter said when he saw that Scarlett wasn’t weakening. “It’s almost falling down. Needs new electrical. Plumbing. Paint. The works.”

“You’re just as bad as your grandfather,” she said with a grin. “You can’t stop me, though. He warned me about you.”

Hunter blinked.

“He what?” He almost couldn’t speak, he was so astonished. “He warned you about me?”

He was the good grandson. Always had been. The one who had stayed. The one who fed the cats warm milk when the snow was knee deep outside and the wind was howling. The one who gave everyone back their money, even if they had lost their receipt. He’d half raised his brothers, made sure they got to school on time and washed behind their ears. And his grandfather had warned her about him?

“Yes,” Scarlett said emphatically. “And my family needs that house—and the land. It’s going to be our new home. We have your grandfather’s promise in writing and we’ll sue if that’s what we need to do to get what should be ours.”

With that threat, she turned back to the car, clearly dismissing him.

Hunter did the only thing he could. He turned around, climbed the steps and stomped into the café. He had to wait a minute for the cat to slip through the open door first, but they both finally made it inside with their dignities intact. As he suspected, his grandfather was calmly sitting at a table in the back —a cup of coffee and a half-eaten piece of apple pie in front of him. Hunter noted that, as usual, the waitress had removed the salt and pepper shakers from the table. His grandfather had a history of putting them in his pocket when he left. Hunter had finally gotten tired of bringing them back so he’d asked the owner, a nice woman by the name of Linda Enger, if she would just have them taken off the table when his grandfather came in. She’d not only done that, she’d preserved the old man’s dignity by telling the waitresses it was to cut down on his salt intake.

“What are you up to with the Murphy family?” Hunter demanded to know as he sat at the table. The cat curled itself under his chair. His grandfather had given up shaving these days in favor of a short white beard that made him look deceptively jolly. He’d lost some height in his old age and was a little more round than he should be. He still wore his trademark long-sleeved denim shirts, though. He said the ladies liked them because their color matched his eyes. Red suspenders held up the black wool pants he preferred. Hunter suddenly wondered if his grandfather wanted to look like Santa Claus so he could fool people easier.