Sheriff Hoover came through the automatic doors, looked around, saw Jake and came over. He helped himself to coffee.
“That gal’s had a bad time of it, hasn’t she?”
Jake nodded over the brim of his cup. “Did you find anything?”
“Nate is over there now going through the rubble. I looked around and picked up some charred pieces of wood from the front of the house. If the fire was deliberately set, we’ll find what they set it with. My guess is that it was gasoline and a match. Do you have any idea who would do that? Fiona hasn’t been here long enough to make enemies unless Suzie’s jealous of you and Fiona.” Hoover’s lips twitched.
Jake rolled his eyes. “Suzie isn’t stupid. Maybe jealous, but not stupid. I heard you and her been seen together around town.”
Hoover chuckled and shook his head. “We’re just friends. Anything between us is long over by now. Fiona, however, is something else.”
Jake eyed Hoover. “Just what does that mean?”
Hoover shrugged. “She’s pretty. Too bad you saw her before I did.” Hoover pulled a slow grin.
Jake didn’t join him in the grin. “I don’t know that she’ll stay. I worried about her taking off even before the fire happened. This isn’t her kind of country.”
“Maybe it will grow on her.”
Jake shook his head slowly. “And cows might fly.”
It was late afternoon when they got back to Opal’s ranch. Fiona went straight to bed in the pretty east facing bedroom that Opal had fixed for her. At least she was under the same roof, and they could look after her. Jake went out to feed and check with the ranch hands to make sure the place hadn’t fallen apart while he was away. They had good hands, and he didn’t expect any major problems, but the way things were going lately, he was apprehensive. And edgy.
He was leaning on the corral fence watching Ruben Sweet, their ace buckaroo, work a young mare when Opal joined him.
“I’m worried,” she said.
“Me, too. Are we worried about the same thing?”
“What are you worried about?”
“Fiona for one. Who is setting fires for another. Missing cows for another.”
“I’m worried about the same things. It’s funny all this stuff happened since Fiona got here.”
Jake didn’t say anything. He thought it over while they watched Sweet move the mare named Fancy into a trot, then canter, then back again. The mare was on a twelve foot lead line, and Sweet kept her circling the corral. The mare was smart and light of foot, and Jake saw in her the makings of a good cow pony. Sweet had a gentle way with horses that Jake liked. He didn’t try to beat them up to make them do what he wanted. He invited them.
Jake tilted his cowboy hat up off his forehead head and wiped his face with the scarf he wore around his neck. The sun was blazing hot even at this late hour of the day. It had been a hot, dry spring, and range fires might be real bad this season. One more thing to worry about.
“I don’t think Fiona being here, and these events are related,” he said. “I could be wrong, but I don’t see a connection. But it was her place that got burned.”
“That’s why I brought it up about her being here,” said Opal. “I’ve been going over and over in my mind why someone would do that. Hoover called and said they found traces of an accelerant at the scene. Someone set that fire. I’m worried about Fiona staying here. I don’t know why someone would be out to get her. Maybe it’d be better she leave for a time.”
“Don’t say that,” Jake said. “She’ll never come back if she leaves now. Besides she hasn’t started the decorating job for you.”
“I know how you feel about her, but it might be the best. The decorating job can wait.”
“Her friend is coming. Maybe she’ll cheer Fiona up.”
“It might put her friend in danger if Fiona is in danger.”
Jake shook his head. “Maybe someone isn’t trying to get to Fiona. Maybe they are saying something to us.”
Opal looked at him with a keen eye. “Who would that be?”
“Same people who are stealing our cows.”
“Jake,” Opal said in a voice so small that he turned to look at her. “I like the way you say our cows. You love this place as much as I do. Are you interested in taking over the ranch?”
“Why are you saying that?”
“I got to think about these things. That’s another of my worries. This place. Who is going to take it over and keep it going when I’m gone?”
Jake looked back at the mare. She was standing still now in the corral. Sweet was talking to her and stroking her neck. He’d be telling her she was a good horse, and she’d done well for today. Jake liked that mare. She would be his horse and that made him think about the long term future. He tried not to think about if the place sold, and he’d have to go somewhere else.
“What about the nieces and nephews? Some of them are itching to sell the ranch and get the money.”
“I don’t want that to happen. I want someone who cares about this place to get it, and I know you care. You’re a good rancher. I know there’re things you’d do here, if it were more modern and your own.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m going to leave the ranch to you.”
Jake turned to look at Opal again.
“You are more than generous, but I don’t want to fight your relatives for it.” He paused. “But I’d be willing to buy it from you, lock stock and barrel. That would make it easier for everyone.”
Opal smiled at him. “I understand. Let’s see what we can work out. The sooner the better. I’m not getting any younger.”
Tired as she was, Fiona was unable to sleep. Thoughts chased around in her head like so many crazy dogs on the hunt. Strangely enough, her mind kept going back to her childhood on the farm in southern Virginia where she grew up. This place reminded her of those early years. She couldn’t wait to leave the farm, go to college, and live in the city. And that was what she did. She went to design school then moved to the Washington, D.C. metro area, drawn to its glamour and glitz. She’d visit her folks on the farm from time to time, and in the back of her mind she entertained the dream of having a home in the country some day. But then her father had died when his tractor overturned on him. He’d been plowing at night on a hillside and somehow misjudged where he was going. When he didn’t come home, her mother went out looking and found him under the tractor. After his death, unable to keep the farm going alone, her mother had sold it. But Fiona’s dream of a country home lived on.
Something like your house burning down around your ears could make a person pause and reflect about life.
Fiona rose from the soft, fluffy bed and went to the east facing window. The light from the setting sun reflected on the rim rock. Through the open window she could hear cows bawling in the distance. She could have had something like this. Her mother wanted her to marry a nice farmer and take over the farm. Being an only child, it would have been hers. It was a pretty farm, too. Corn growing tall in the summer, tassels waving in the hot sun, apples falling like rain from the orchard trees, chickens busy digging, a vegetable garden. She was beginning to see what her parents loved about that farm. And maybe what she had missed because she was too young to appreciate what she had had.
She shook her head. Why now? Why these thoughts? She should leave and get away while she could. She didn’t know what was going on, but it was weird. They said that someone set the fire. Those noises she heard were someone outside her door getting ready to torch her ramshackle little bunkhouse. The thought made chills run up and down her spine. Someone knew who she was, that she was in there. They hadn’t cared if she lived or died.