Page 11 of Fatal Deception
“But all those fields out there. Someone came in, damaged your fence, left, without you having any clue.”
Audra tried not to shift in discomfort. She didn’t like to think of it like that, though admittedly the past few years had brought home just how…vulnerable they were out here.
But that wasn’t just because she was a woman alone. Natalie and Norman had dealt with amurderon their ranch that had taken a while to solve. It was more the realization that no one was really eversafe.
“Yes, it’s impossible to secure a ranch this size. But there’s not much I can do to change that. It is what it is.” She sighed, frustrated with the entire situation. “I don’t understand why anyone would want to mess with me. I run my ranch. I help with the agricultural society. If I’m not doing that, I’m helping the Kirks, or hanging out with my family. I don’t date. I don’t party. I don’t stomp around town pissing people off.”
He’d stopped with his sandwich halfway to his mouth. Slowly, he put it back down on the plate. Something in his gaze was a little too…intense for her to hold.
“You don’t date? Ever?”
She wouldnotread in to that perfectly reasonable question. She would simply answer it. While staring very hard at the mangled bread that made up the top of her sandwich. “I did. Before my father died and my mother moved away. There was more time, more money, more…everything. I had a life back then. But not much of one since.”
“And how long has that been?”
“Four years.” She wouldn’t feel embarrassed about it. She was too tired to feel embarrassed.
“So angry ex-lovers are likely out. Unless you think someone would have held a grudge?”
She laughed, maybe harder than she should have. “I did not leave a string of bitter, broken hearts in my wake, Copeland. I tended to be the dumpee over the dumper.” Which sounded justpathetic, and so beside the point. She really needed to change the subject. “Maybe someone Rosalie did a case against is targeting me to get to her?”
“Then why is it your name on the urn and the gravestone?”
“I’m her sister. Hurting the people someone loves might hurt them?”
“If she was still living with you, I might look into it. But she’s not even in the country. If someone wanted to get to her, they’d wait until she was around to do something about it.” Copeland shook his head. “It doesn’t add up, Audra. This is about you, and we’re going to have to do some digging to figure out why.”
COPELAND FINISHED OFFhis sandwich, surprised at how much better it was with her fancy bread—even if he had botched slicing it. Growing up, his father had held pretty old-fashioned views about where a son belonged—and the kitchen wasn’t one of them.
Copeland had grown up and rebelled in his own way, he supposed, by adopting a modern sensibility about gender roles and the like. Hilariously, it backfired, because his parents had only followed suit, and had evolved themselves, along with him.
Still, Copeland had never felt like learning his way around a kitchen more than to survive.
Tonight wasn’t abouthimthough.
He asked her more questions about people who might have something out for her. Ranching rivals. Someone in her agricultural group she’d slighted.
She was adamant she didn’t make anyone mad.
And he just kept going back to her saying she hadn’t dated or essentially had a life outside this ranch forfour years. It should have sounded pathetic, but instead it stirred some long-buried sense of sympathy for her.
He knew all too well what it was like to feel so beaten down that life just became going through the motions to survive.
Once they were done eating, and he’d run out of questions, he helped her clear the table, then figured he’d overstayed what little welcome he had. She walked him to the front door.
“I’ve got some next steps,” he told her, shrugging on his coat. “I’ll be in touch.”
She nodded and opened the door for him. He stepped out into the cold night.
“Thanks,” she offered, leaning there against the doorframe. It was dark outside, but cozy light spilled around her from inside. Then she smiled, and he realized just how little she’d been doing that. Understandable, but it was a pretty smile and she should do it more.Feelit more.
“You’re not so bad, Copeland,” she said, with some humor.
But since she still looked a little sad behind it, he found himself trying to poke that sad away. “Hell, Audra, stop trying to flirt with me.”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but she didn’t seem quite so desolate. Not that it was any of his business what she felt. Not that hecared.
He started to make a move for his car, but something ate at him. Mostly how damn secluded this little place was. He’d been out to plenty of ranches over the course of the two years he’d lived here, and they were all like this. Felt like tiny islands of complete and utter isolation. Nothing but mountains and sky and animals, and the potential for danger in every lurking shadow.