The Complete Mackenzie Collection Read online

  Tires crunched on the gravel, and Joe left his post to see who had ventured up on Mackenzie’s Mountain. He was back in a moment, with Clay Armstrong behind him. It was a replay of Friday afternoon, and Mary felt her heart lurch; surely Clay wasn’t going to arrest Wolf now?

  “Mary.” Clay nodded at her and touched the brim of his hat. “You doing okay?”

  “Yes.” She said it firmly.

  “I thought I’d find you up here. Do you feel like going over it again with me?”

  Wolf pulled off his gloves as he approached. His eyes were flinty. “She went over it with you yesterday.”

  “Sometimes people remember little things after the shock has passed.”

  Because she sensed Wolf was about to throw Clay off his property, she turned and put her hand on his arm. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

  She was lying, and he knew it, but her mouth had taken on that stubborn set that meant she wouldn’t back down. He felt a tinge of amusement; his kitten was getting back some of her confidence, after all. But no way was he going to let Clay question her alone. He looked at Joe. “Put the horse up. I’m going with Mary.”

  “That isn’t necessary,” Clay said.

  “It is to me.”

  Mary felt dwarfed between the two big men as they walked up to the house; she thought she might soon find such protectiveness smothering. A smile touched her lips. Clay probably felt he had to protect her from Wolf as well as from another attack, while Wolf was determined to protect her, period. She wondered what Clay would think if he knew that she didn’t want to be protected from Wolf. Aunt Ardith would say Wolf had taken advantage of her, and Mary earnestly hoped he would do so again. Soon.

  Wolf caught her sidelong glance and stiffened as he felt her interest and warmth. Damn it, didn’t she know how he’d react, and that it could get embarrassing? Already he could feel the tension in his loins. But, no, she didn’t know. Despite their early morning lovemaking, she was still too innocent about sex in general, and the effect she had on him in particular, to know what that look did to him. He hurried his step. He needed to sit down.

  When they entered the kitchen, Mary moved around making coffee as naturally as she would have in her own house, emphasizing to Clay that she and Wolf were a couple. Folks in the county were just going to have to get used to it.

  “Let’s go through it from the beginning,” Clay said.

  Mary paused fractionally, then resumed her steady movements as she measured coffee into the percolator. “I’d just bought new boots at Hearst’s store and was walking back to my car—my boots! I dropped them! Did you see them? Did anyone pick them up?”

  “I saw them, but I don’t know what happened to them. I’ll ask around.”

  “He must have been standing against the side of Hearst’s store, because I’d have seen him if he had been on the other side of the alley. He just grabbed me and put his hand over my mouth. He held my head arched back, so I couldn’t move it at all, and started dragging me down the alley. I got one hand free and reached back, trying to scratch his face, but he had on a ski mask. He hit me in the head with his fist and I—I really don’t remember much after that until he pushed me down. I kept scratching him, and I think I clawed his hand, because he hit me again. Then I bit him on the hand, but I don’t know if I drew blood.

  “Someone yelled, and he got up and ran. He put his hand on the ground right in front of my face when he got up. His sleeve was blue, and he had freckles on his hand. A lot of freckles. Then…you were there.”

  She fell silent and moved to look out the kitchen window, her back to the men sitting at the table, so she didn’t see the murderous look in Wolf’s eyes, or the way his big fists clenched, but Clay did, and it worried him.

  “I was the one who yelled. I saw the package lying on the ground and went over to see what it was, and then I heard scuffling from the back of the building. When I saw him, I yelled and pulled my revolver, and fired over his head to try to stop him.”

  Wolf looked savage. “You should have shot the son of a bitch. That would have stopped him.”

  In retrospect Clay wished he’d shot the guy, too. At least then they wouldn’t be racking their brains trying to put an ID to him, and the townspeople wouldn’t be so jittery. Women were carrying an assortment of weapons with them wherever they went, even outside to hang the wash to dry. The mood people were in, it would be dangerous for a stranger to stop in the county.

  That was what bothered him, and he said as much. “It looks like someone would have noticed a stranger. Ruth is a small town, and people pretty well know everyone in the county. A stranger would have been noticed right off, especially one with long black hair.”

  Wolf gave a wintry smile. “Everyone would have thought it was me.”

  At the window, Mary stiffened. She had been trying not to listen, trying to push away the memories that had been called up by her recounting of what had happened. She didn’t turn around, but suddenly all her attention was focused on the conversation behind her. What Wolf had said was true. On seeing her attacker’s long black hair, Clay had immediately had Wolf arrested.

  But that long black hair, so distinctive, didn’t fit with the wealth of rust-colored freckles she’d seen on the man’s hand. And hiss kin had been pale. Fair people freckled. The black hair didn’t fit.

  Unless it was a disguise. Unless the object had been to frame Wolf.

  Her spine prickled, and she felt both hot and cold. Whoever had done it hadn’t known that Wolf had had his hair cut. But the choice of victim was puzzling; it didn’t make sense. Why attack her? Surely no one would think Wolf would attack the one person in town who’d championed him, and she’d made it plain how she felt. Unless she had been a random choice, it just didn’t make sense. After all, there was no link between herself and Cathy Teele, no common ground. It could all be chance.

  Still without turning around, she asked, “Wolf, do you know Cathy Teele? Have you ever spoken to her?”

  “I know her by sight. I don’t speak to little Anglo girls.” His tone was ironic. “Their parents wouldn’t like it.”

  “You’re right about that,” Clay said wearily. “A few months back Cathy told her mother you were the best-looking man around, and that she wouldn’t mind dating Joe if he weren’t younger than she was. The whole town heard about it. Mrs. Teele pitched a fit.”

  That chill ran down Mary’s spine again. There was a link, after all: Wolf. Nor could she dismiss it as coincidence, though something about the whole thing was skewed.

  She twisted her hands together, and turned to face them. “What if someone is deliberately trying to frame Wolf?”

  Wolf’s face went hard and blank, but Clay looked startled. “Damn,” he muttered. “Why did you think of that?”

  “The long black hair. It could have been a wig. The man had freckles on his hand, a lot of freckles, and hiss kin was pale.”

  Wolf got to his feet, and though Mary knew she never had anything to fear from him, she fell back a step at the expression in his eyes. He didn’t say anything; he didn’t have to. She had seen him angry before, but this was different. He was enraged, but it was an icy rage, and he was in perfect control of himself. Perhaps that was what alarmed her.

  Then Clay said, “Sorry, but I don’t think it’ll wash. Once we had all thought about it, it didn’t make sense that Wolf would have attacked you, of all people. You’ve stood up for him right from the beginning, when the rest of the people in town—”

  “Wouldn’t spit on me if I were on fire,” Wolf finished.

  Clay couldn’t deny it. “Exactly.”

  The coffee had finished brewing, and Mary poured three cups. They were silent and thoughtful as they sipped, all of them turning things around in their minds, trying to make the pieces fit. The truth was that no matter how things were arranged, something was always off, unless they went with the idea that a criminal had chosen Mary and Cathy at random, and had perhaps used a long black wig for disguise by pure co