The Lone Rancher - By Carol Finch Page 0,45
Someone was intent on fueling speculations and gossip about her and Cahill. Someone also wanted to keep Adrianna and Quin’s suspicions about each other alive.
Why? Adrianna wasn’t sure but she intended to find out.
“You think someone orchestrated that fire to make you look bad?” Lucas focused his dark-eyed gaze on the plumes of smoke drifting in the wind. “Any idea what someone might gain from this?”
Quin scowled, then glanced sideways to watch Boston and her entourage head toward his house. “Don’t know, Burnett. Maybe it’s a warning for Boston to distance herself from me because I have this so-called curse hanging over my head and now it’s rubbing off on her.”
Lucas snorted. “Every rancher in the area has been plagued with rustled cattle, stolen horses and fires of some sort. I lost a couple of horses that I had planned to sell at Fort Ridge last week. They were in the pasture one night and gone the next morning.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m overly suspicious,” Quin replied. “But it’s been a bad week, not just a bad night.”
Lucas waited a beat, then said, “I’m sorry about your little sister. Even if the rumors aren’t true, it adds fuel to the turmoil surrounding your family name.”
Quin scowled. He didn’t want to discuss his sister and brothers while frustration boiled inside him. “Thanks for the help, Burnett. Sorry to cut your special evening short.”
Lucas peered directly at Quin. “You would have been there if I had needed you, right, Cahill?”
“Of course.”
“Then there you go. I have three friends around here. You, Rosa and Dog. Everyone else is a nodding acquaintance. Well, except for Addie K. and her employees,” he added with a grin. “Rosa says they are my family now, like it or not.”
Quin managed a faint smile as he strode alongside Lucas. “I can count my true friends on one hand. Everyone else thinks I’m jinxed because my name is Cahill.”
Lucas chuckled. “Maybe you should change your name, then.”
Quin contemplated it all the way home. The knot of tension that tightened his chest eased slightly when he arrived at his house. Lights were blazing in the windows of all three stories. It reminded him of the days when his parents were alive and his brothers and sister were around. He welcomed the company and the distractions tonight, especially after the shocking news about Leanna and the suspicious fire that had destroyed Boston’s new addition.
Soaked to the bone, Quin ascended the steps to his room. He stopped short when he realized Boston had made use of the space to change into her customary tan breeches and blue blouse. Even with wet hair dangling around her face she still appealed fiercely to him.
“Sorry,” she said as she gathered up her soggy emerald-green gown she had draped over a chair. “I’ll get out of your way so you can change clothes.”
“No, you can have my room. I’ll stay in Ma and Pa’s suite.” Odd, he’d never given a thought to taking over the spacious two-room living quarters. He had left everything the way it had been two years earlier. But as his brothers and sister had said, Ma and Pa weren’t coming back. No matter how hard Quin tried to cling to the past, nothing was going to be the same again.
She eyed him intently. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do, Quin? Elda told me that you prefer to leave everything in its place. I can camp out on the third floor, you know.”
Quin smiled in wry amusement. “So that’s why Elda agreed to come to work for me. She was your spy. Clever, Boston, did you put her up to it?”
She grinned impishly. “No, I didn’t have to. Elda thought of it all by herself. Oh, and I recently discovered that Hiram Butler and Beatrice Fremont have been carrying on an affair without my knowledge for a decade. So if you hear someone tiptoeing down the hall after lights out, do not investigate. It might prove embarrassing.”
Quin chuckled. “I’ll ignore footsteps. Wouldn’t want to stand in the way of true love, if that’s what it is.”
When he spun on his heel, Boston fell into step behind him. “I want you to know that I never, not even for a moment, thought you were involved in tonight’s fire.”
“Thanks, Boston. I doubt you’re in the majority. Too many folks envy the fact that I make money as a member of the town’s founding family because I sell commercial and residential lots, carry