“Better crack this case quick,” she teased, “or I might just beat you to it.” She checked her watch and sighed. “Look, I’ve got to get a move on. I’ve got another errand to run before I go home. Mom’s hanging out with Josh and I said I’d be back by five.” With a wave she was off and she refused to let Jarrod’s warnings give her pause. He was just in a bad mood because this was one case he hadn’t been able to solve. The deputy she’d spoken with at the sheriff’s department hadn’t been any happier with her. He’d taken the note and asked her if she’d touched it, which, of course, she had, though she’d been cautious as she’d figured someone would check it for fingerprints.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” she whispered to herself as she drove away from Jarrod’s hermit’s abode in John Cawthorne’s Jeep. At a fork in the road, she turned toward the hills and angled away from town. As she passed Isaac Wells’s ranch she thought fleetingly of the mystery surrounding him, but didn’t turn off until she reached the Sorenson place. Her heart thudded with painful memories as she wheeled through an open gate where wildflowers and brambles grew in profusion. The smell of dust, dry grass and Queen Anne’s lace hung in the late-summer air as the Jeep bounced over the ruts and potholes of a lane that was once familiar to her.

How had she let the years roll by without once trying to contact Dave, to tell him about Josh? Why had she let pride—always her enemy—come between her and the truth? She swallowed back a lump in her throat as she angled the Jeep around a bend in the lane and the Sorenson cabin came into view. A rambling single-story with a loft, it sprawled between thickets of pine and oak.

Wearing only worn jeans that looked as if they might fall off his hips at any second and a pair of weathered rawhide gloves, Luke was straining against a wayward post in the fence near the barn, trying to push it into an upright position. His booted feet were planted solidly in the dry earth, one muscular shoulder braced against the graying post. Jaw set, lips pulled back with effort, he glanced in her direction, then gave one final shove. The post slowly inched upward and Luke, muscles straining, sweat rolling down his face and back, moved one leg and kicked a pile of stones into the widening hole at the post’s base.