Before Buckhorn Read online

  Vi had stepped closer and seen the shattered vase on the floor. But it was the baseball beside it that made her eyes widen in alarm and her heart drop. She and her friends had been playing baseball outside earlier. Her gaze went to the open screen-less window next to the dining room table.

  She knew at once what must have happened. She and her friend Karla had gotten into an argument. Vi had thrown the ball at her as hard as she could and then stormed off in anger. She’d thought that she’d heard the ball hit the side of the house near Karla, but apparently it had ricocheted into the open window.

  Her mother hastily wiped her tears, reached down and picked up the ball from the floor among the pieces of broken blue crystal. With heartbreak in her face, her mother had handed her the ball. The only thing Vera Mullen had said was, “Clean up this mess.”

  Vi had taken the pieces to her room and tried to glue them back together. But there was no saving the vase. It was ruined and she had never forgiven herself.

  Rushing inside the house now, she put the package down gingerly on the table her mother had left her and carefully unwrapped the new vase. She knew it couldn’t make up for what she’d done all those years ago. Her mother had been dead for some years now, but Vi still felt that somehow this new vase made amends for the past.

  As she placed the vase in the center of the dining room table in the spot where the other one had always sat, she felt her heart lift. She’d needed this. Last year had been awful. This, she told herself, was a sign that her luck had changed. From now on, things would get even better.

  But as she went to throw the tissue paper and bag away, Leviathan’s business card fluttered to the floor. She doubted she had any reason to go back to the shop, but still, she bent down to pick it up. As she did, she saw the words neatly printed on the back side of the card.

  She read the words twice, her pulse a deafening roar in her ears. Her vision blurred bloodred. Her hands shook. She stumbled back, hitting her hip on the edge of the table. The vase rocked for a moment before tumbling over, then rolled toward the edge of the table and dropped over the edge. It hit the floor and shattered, the sound as loud as a gunshot.

  But Vi Mullen hardly noticed. She stormed toward the door with only one thing on her mind. Murder.

  * * *

  AT THE SOUND of someone at the door, Karla Parson wrapped her robe around her and stumbled out barefoot. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the bedroom door was closed before she opened her front door to find Vi Mullen standing there.

  She blinked. Vi was the last person she expected to see. They hadn’t been close in years. Neither traveled in the same small circles in Buckhorn nor had they said two words to each other the few times they’d crossed paths. Karla knew that Vi wouldn’t spit on her if she was on fire, so what was the woman doing on her doorstep at this time of the morning?

  Before she could ask, Vi lunged at her, going for her throat. Bony, strong fingers closed around her neck. Karla was so surprised that she didn’t even try to protect herself. She fell back, stumbling and falling to the floor, landing hard. Vi fell with her, those hands still clutched around her throat, the nails digging into her flesh as Vi screamed something unintelligible in her face.

  Karla’s first thought was that Vi had finally gone bonkers. Everyone in town had been expecting it. The woman had been teetering on the edge for years. But nuttier than her grandmother’s fruitcake or not, Vi was cutting off all her air supply. Unable to breathe, Karla realized that the woman was going to kill her if she didn’t do something to stop her.

  She fought to pry the woman’s hands from her throat, surprised at just how strong Vi was. Stars sparked in her eyes as darkness began to leak in at the edges of her vision. As the words the woman was screaming in her face finally registered, Karla felt a start. This was over that ugly blue vase Vi’s mother thought was worth something?

  As the darkness shouldered its way in, Karla realized she was going to die over some old broken vase. Wouldn’t her mother be surprised that her death came at the hands of her former childhood friend and not one of Karla’s loser boyfriends.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JASPER HEARD ABOUT Vi Mullen’s arrest for assault the next morning at the café. The news had swept through town. But it wasn’t until Bessie sat down to join him in his booth that he heard the whole story.

  “Everyone is saying that Vi lost her mind and attacked Karla Parson and would have killed her if Karla’s latest boyfriend, AJ something or another, hadn’t pulled her off,” Bessie said.

  “When did this happen?” Jasper asked.

  “Yesterday morning. Not long after you were in the café. Apparently, it had something to do with her mother Vera’s crystal vase that Karla had purposely broke when they were kids—but that Vi had been blamed for breaking all these years.”

  Jasper thought about seeing Vi that morning going into the new shop and coming out with a package. It made him wonder if the attack had anything to do with what she’d bought in Gossip’s yesterday.

  Bessie voiced the same thought a moment later. “Why would Vi suddenly decide to settle the score now after all these years?” She shook her head. “The marshal had to be called for a half dozen other disturbances as well since yesterday. Fistfights in the street, people threatening to shoot each other, husbands and wives getting thrown out on their ears.”

  He was surprised to hear this. There was always something going on in Buckhorn, but never to this extent.

  “You’d think there was a full moon or something got into the water.” Bessie leaned toward him and dropped her voice. “Anita Berg took a baseball bat to her husband. Almost killed him before he got away. Heard she threw all his things out in the yard and set them on fire. Volunteer fire department had to be called. The woman is almost eighty. The rumor is that she found out he’d had an affair fifty years ago with one of her bridesmaids.”

  “It is strange,” Jasper agreed and glanced across the street at the new shop. Whatever Leviathan Nash was selling, it seemed to have gotten the whole town riled up. “Been to Gossip yet?”

  Bessie shook her head. “Nothing I need. Not that I got an invitation. You?”

  “Me neither.” He was curious about the man since all this seemed to have started with his arrival, but not curious enough to want to see the shop or the man. “Have you seen him yet?”

  “Only a glimpse when I ran over to drop off his to-go order at about five,” she said. “He barely opened the door. He looks harmless enough from what I could see of him. He’s small for a man, gray and wrinkled.” Short and old had been the description Jasper had heard so that pretty much matched it.

  “It’s funny, though,” Bessie continued. “There was almost something familiar about him. But I can’t put my finger on it. Makes you wonder why he chose Buckhorn for his shop. You think maybe he has kin around here?”

  “Don’t remember anyone named Nash. Have you heard what he sells?” Jasper asked.

  “Not much from what I’ve seen of those coming out after their ‘special showing.’ Can’t see anything with the windows covered like that.” She grinned. “Okay, I was curious. I might have tried to peek in, if there had been even a little space between the black paper and the window frame. There wasn’t. What do you make of the name? Gossip?”

  “It certainly has people talking so I suppose that’s the purpose.” But if Leviathan was behind the latest incidents in town, then he was apparently dispensing the gossip. But why would anyone believe him since he’d only just arrived in town and wouldn’t know all the scuttlebutt unless like Bessie said, he was related to someone in the area.

  The timer went off in the kitchen. “That will be my apple coffee cake,” Bessie said as she took her coffee and left. Her baking was legendary and clearly she enjoyed it and running the café. People knew what day of the week it was by what Bessie was baking.

  He glanced at his plate and his half-eaten breakfast and realized that he’d lost his appetite. It didn’t improve when Buckhorn’s new newspaper owner, editor and reporter slid into the booth across from him.

  Darby Prudence Fulton dropped her notebook on the table, flipped it open it to a blank page and picked up her pen. “I’m doing a piece on the new shop,” she said without preamble.

  “Good morning to you too, Darby,” he said. She had a cute button nose with a sprinkling of freckles that always made him smile against his will.

  She mugged a face before motioning to the teenaged waitress that she was good, waving off both breakfast and coffee. Energy radiated from her. Darby had only recently moved to town to start a weekly online newspaper that would cover the county. Most of the locals were already laying odds as to how long she would last.

  “So, Jasper, what do you think of Gossip?” she asked, pen poised above the paper.

  “Gossip in general?” he asked. “I don’t encourage it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Help me out here. I’m having trouble getting anyone to talk who’s been inside the shop.”

  “Well, don’t look at me,” Jasper said. “I didn’t get an invitation.”

  “Me neither,” she said and glanced around the café. It was still early so the place was almost empty. Apple coffee cake was good, but didn’t pack residents in early. Also, the frenzy of staring out the window at Gossip with its blacked-out windows was apparently beginning to wane some. Though he did notice that the town’s worst gossip, Marjorie Keen, was sitting by the window where she couldn’t miss who came and went. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was taking notes.

  He turned his attention to the woman across from him, remembering the party at Montana State University in Bozeman where
they first met. It had been a night he’d never forgotten. So, imagine his shock when she turned up in Buckhorn—and acted as if they’d never met before.

  He’d mentioned that they’d met in college, but she’d said she didn’t remember him—or what they’d shared that night, for that matter. He didn’t bother reminding her since apparently it hadn’t been that memorable for her, which had been a direct hit to his ego. Worse, he’d been disappointed since he’d never forgotten her or that night.

  But at the same time, he was relieved. The last thing he wanted was a trip down memory lane. He wasn’t interested in seeing if the chemistry he’d felt that night so long ago was still there—or worse that it had never even been real.

  Darby was still too appealing as it was. Her blond hair was shorter now, cut in a tousled pixie that made him want to run his fingers through it. Her brown eyes were still that warm honey he remembered. Everything about her was the girl next door, the one you wanted to protect at the same time you wanted to ravage.

  Good thing he wasn’t in the market. But whatever it was about Darby, she was the first woman in a long time to even tempt him. The thought did nothing for his appetite. He pushed his plate away.

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that anyone who got an invitation doesn’t want to talk about the shop or what they bought? Or maybe more to the point, what they did once they left the shop?” she asked.

  “Haven’t really given it any thought.” Which wasn’t quite true, he knew. But he didn’t want to see any speculation on his part in the newspaper.

  The waitress came to take his plate. Darby snatched a slice of his uneaten toast before it was taken away.

  “You have to have heard about the strange things that have been happening around town,” she said between bites. She lowered her voice. She was sexiest when she wasn’t trying. “Everyone involved in the ‘incidents’ received an invitation to Gossip. Even you have to admit that’s odd.”

  “Even me?”

  She finished his toast and borrowed his napkin to wipe her mouth. “I would think a former homicide detective would have more of an interest in what was going on than you seem to.” She eyed him speculatively. “But maybe that’s why you retired before forty. You just weren’t cut out for it.”

  He smiled, aware of what she was trying to do. He thought about the night they’d met in college. Had she challenged him that night too? Was that why he’d kissed her? Or was kissing those bow-shaped lips just something he felt he had to do? She’d looked surprised, shocked actually, by the sudden kiss. She’d opened her mouth, closed it, and then their gazes had met and that had been his downfall.

  He was graduating the next day, but still he’d tried to find her. She’d left campus and without a number or even her last name... He’d told himself it wasn’t meant to be even as he’d wished he was wrong.

  Now here she was, messing with all his instincts that told him this woman was trouble. She threw him off balance. Worse, she made him wish for things he refused to even consider.

  “Are you trying to bait me, Ms. Fulton?” Even as he deflected her gibe, he worried about the look in her eye. The last thing he wanted was her digging into his past. He knew that she’d been a damned good reporter, having won numerous awards for investigative reporting at several prestigious large newspapers. It crossed his mind that she might have a past she didn’t want dug into as well. Why else had she quit a good job to strike out on her own here, of all places?

  “Why Buckhorn?” he asked, hoping to get that gleam out of her brown eyes—and throw her off him as the subject—especially if there was something in her past she didn’t want him to know. “You worked at some good papers. Just curious what would make you give that up?” He laughed, seeing something cross her expression before she covered it. “Don’t like having the shoe on the other foot, do you?”

  He could see that she got his point. He liked that about her. She was smart and quick witted and tenacious, all things he admired. But even as he returned her jab, he knew he was also curious about her and the years since he’d last seen her.

  “Well? You like to ask people personal questions. How about answering mine?”

  For a moment, he thought she would tell him it was none of his business.

  “I wanted my own business. I needed a new challenge. What about you? What’s your excuse for being in Buckhorn?”

  “I’m from here so not unusual to return home. Also, I like ranching.” He saw that gleam in her eye again. “Which reminds me. I’ve got cattle to feed.” He slid out of the booth and stood. What had made him think he could throw her off the scent? This woman was much better at jousting than he was.

  Darby slowly closed her notebook, picked it and her pen up and rose as well. He was momentarily distracted by how well her sweater and jeans fit her curvy petite frame. This, he reminded himself, was why he did his best to avoid her. The woman seemed to be awakening something in him. He’d been perfectly happy with it hibernating. But spring had come in more ways than one. He was beginning to feel again and he hated it.

  “Something weird is going on in this town, whether you want to admit it or not,” she said with a shake of her head. “What do we even know about Leviathan Nash?” she asked as she followed him to the counter.

  “I’m assuming you’ve dug up his past from birth to present, leaving no stone unturned,” Jasper said, just wanting to get home. “You tell me.”

  She shook her head. “That’s the thing. I haven’t been able to find anything on him. No social media, no last known address, no nothing. It’s as if he doesn’t exist. At least not as Leviathan Nash.”

  That surprised him as he dug out his wallet and dropped a twenty on the counter with his bill. Bessie was in the back so he had to wait for her to take it. The man had lied about his name? Jasper just hoped he didn’t stiff Melissa on the rent.

  “Clearly the man has something to hide,” Darby said as a slow smile curved those irresistible lips. She had his attention and she knew it. “I need his prints or his DNA to prove that he isn’t the man he claims to be. I thought that if you’d gotten an invitation, you’d help me.”

  Jasper shook his head. He didn’t want to get involved. Not with Darby. Not with the mystery of Leviathan Nash. He’d come back to Buckhorn to avoid everything about his old life. “More than likely he’s exactly who he appears to be, an old man just trying to make a living.”

  She looked at him as if she had expected as much from him. The disappointment he saw in her expression hurt, though, even as he told himself he didn’t care what she thought of him. She didn’t even remember the kiss and what they’d shared that night. Even if he got the chance to kiss her again...

  “I have to go,” he said to her. “Bessie, I’m leaving my money here on the counter,” he called through the pass-through. She nodded in answer as she took a large pan from the oven.

  “Something is wrong,” Darby said defiantly as she started to follow him.

  He stopped and she collided with him as he reached back and picked up the keys she’d left on the counter. “Here, you might need these.”

  She rolled her eyes and snatched them from him. “I’m always losing my keys, believe me it’s no big deal—unlike what is going on in this town.” She shook her head as she dropped the keys into her purse. “I shouldn’t have expected any help from you. Don’t worry. I’ll get to the bottom of it without you.”

  He saw the stubborn determination in her jutted jaw and fiery glint in those brown eyes. Suddenly he felt real concern for her. She was right. The man was probably hiding something or he wouldn’t be using a fake name. Add to that, a lot of weird things had been happening since Gossip had opened. Jasper was suddenly reminded of the crows he’d seen the evening Leviathan had come to town. He realized that he hadn’t seen them since.

  He stopped on the sidewalk in front of his pickup, not surprised that she’d followed him out. “Just be careful, okay?”

  She brushed a lock of blond hair back from her forehead and settled those honey-brown eyes on him. “Don’t tell me that you’re worried about me. Why would you be if Leviathan Nash is merely some old man just trying to make a living?”