Or did he first see her on her porch scantily dressed one night as she searched for a cool breeze?

In the days that followed when he tried to work his magic in the pasture near her farmhouse, he watched both the sky and the woman.

How different things might have been if the rainmaker had resisted her. Or if the rain hadn’t come too late.

How lucky though that the little girl had a friend she met at the creek. He was older, one of those lost souls who had seen too much in his young life and expected to see much worse before it was over.

He liked the girl, felt protective of her. He watched the farmhouse and he knew what went on there. That’s why on that horribly hot day he lured the little girl away from the house. Not to help the killer, but to save his friend.

If only he could have kept her from going back to the house, from finding her mother like that, from seeing the killer—and the killer seeing her.

“I take it you didn’t have any better luck this morning than you did last night?” Grayson Corbett asked as Russell stalked into the main house, scowling.

“That woman is impossible,” he muttered as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the carafe behind the bar.

Kate was smiling at him. “How was supper at Northern Lights?”

“Fine.” He didn’t want to talk about his date. “She’s going back over to the house today. If she doesn’t break her fool neck, maybe I’ll go over and try to talk some sense into her.”

“You might just want to keep it strictly business,” Grayson suggested.

“Or you might want to ask her out again,” Kate said.

Russell shook his head. “I doubt either will do me any good. Maybe I should just leave it to you,” he said to his father. “You might have better luck with her.”

Grayson shook his head. “Kate’s probably right. A woman likes to be courted—even in business.”

“Flowers are always a nice gesture,” Kate suggested.

Russell scoffed inwardly at that. He’d already done too much courtin’ of Dulcie Hughes when he’d kissed her last night in front of her motel room.

No wonder she’d gotten angry this morning at breakfast. She thought that kiss was about getting her land when her property had been the last thing on his mind.

“I’ve got work to do,” Russell said. “I’ll go over later and see what I can do to rectify things.”

“It’s no big deal if we don’t get the property,” Grayson said. “I understand if you want to forget it.”

What he wanted to forget was Dulcie Hughes.

“Any word from that rainmaker?” his father asked.