Desert Heat (31 page)

Shari wrote back.
Me, too.

Patience typed.
Why did they have to be cowboys?

The reply came back.

Patience hoped Shari was right. It was good to talk to a friend, but she still wasn’t sleepy. Instead of lying there tossing and turning, she spread out the research material she had collected on the two young women who had been murdered and the printout of the old
Gazette
newspaper article Constance Foster had sent.

Both murdered women had died during the summer, three years apart. The attack on the third woman happened—again when the rodeo was in town—three years after that. The miles between the three crimes required lengthy travel, which, by transportation modes of the day, posed a definite problem. Thinking back to the remarks in her great grandmother’s journal, she figured most of the female contestants would have been traveling by train.

For the next half hour, Patience scanned the Internet, searching until she found records of old train routes across the western United States. She printed the map, then set it on the table in front of her. As she marked the location of each incident—Cheyenne, Denver, Colorado Springs—she noticed a dotted line connecting the towns. The map showed the Cheyenne and Rio Railroad made a stop at each of the towns.

Perhaps the man was also a contestant who followed the rodeo circuit by train. Whatever the truth, it was a connection. Tomorrow morning, she would continue checking things out.

Patience yawned, beginning to get sleepy at last. She shut down the computer, padded across the room, shrugged out of her terry cloth robe, and tossed it across the foot of the bed. The sheets felt cool and clean as she slid between them.

Still, as tired as she was, she couldn’t fall asleep.

Patience was groggy Sunday morning when she awakened to a pounding at her door. Dragging herself out of bed, she pulled on her terry cloth robe.

“Just a minute! I’m coming!” It was only eight o’clock, she saw, as she reached the door. After last night, she could have used a few more hours sleep. Wondering who it could be, she checked the peephole, recognized the man with the salt-and-pepper hair and square-framed glasses standing outside the apartment, and turned the knob to let him in.

“Hi, Dad. This is a surprise. You and Tracy usually go out to breakfast on Sunday mornings.”

“She’s waiting in the car. I just rushed up to drop this off. It came in the mail for you yesterday afternoon. I guess your cousin didn’t have the address of your apartment.”

“My cousin? You mean Betty?”

“No, this is from Irma, one of Betty’s sisters. According to the return address, she lives in Louisiana.” He handed her the package and shoved his glasses up on his nose. “Got to run. You’ll be over for supper, right?”

Patience nodded, her gaze roaming over the small, brown, paper-wrapped box.

“Good,” her father said. “We’ll see you then.”

Patience closed the door behind him and carried the package over to the dining room table. She tore off the paper and opened the box. When she lifted the lid, her heart jumped to life. It was a leather-bound volume with Adelaide Whitcomb’s name stenciled in gold letters on the cover at the bottom. There was also a card inside the box.

Patience tossed the letter back into the box with a mental note to write Irma a thank you. Hurriedly, she pulled out the leather-covered volume. The book was in far better condition than the earlier volume, since this one covered a period beginning some sixty years after the first.

Apparently, Adelaide Holmes Whitcomb had continued her writing throughout the years of her life. Though the middle volumes seemed to have disappeared, the one Patience held was the final work, written in the waning years of Addie’s life.

Patience carried the journal over to the camel-back sofa and settled down to read, the few plans she had for the day flying out the window. Tucking her legs up beneath her, she made herself comfortable and cracked open the book.

She noticed the penmanship first, how much Addie’s writing had changed in these later years. Unlike before, the pen strokes weren’t smooth and efficient but thin and shaky, revealing her fading health and strength.

Still, it felt good to resume her friendship with a great-grandmother she would only know through the woman’s written words. Patience read for several hours before she realized how much time had passed. She set the book aside and went in to shower and dress for the day, but the pull of the pages brought her back as soon as she was finished.

Addie was now a woman in her eighties. She had lost her husband some years back, but still lived there on the Whitcomb family farm. Suddenly curious whether Addie might have discovered anything more about the disappearance of Lucky Sims, Patience skimmed ahead, searching for any sort of reference.

Instead, toward the very end of the journal, Sam Starling’s name leapt up from the page.

Patience straightened on the sofa, her gaze riveted to the shaky blue letters scrawled in Addie’s hand.

The letters went hazy as Patience’s eyes welled with tears. Her hands started trembling, her chest squeezing. She read the lines again and fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. Addie loved Sam. At eighty years old, Addie still loved him. She loved him and she had given him up, and she had regretted it every day of her life.

Patience’s throat ached as she set the book away. Her chest felt so heavy it was hard to get enough air into her lungs.

There were times she had wondered why she had wound up with the journals. Now she thought that the books were a rare and precious gift. Perhaps her distant grandmother was acting as her guardian angel. Perhaps the journals were a warning not to make the same mistake that she had made as a girl.

Sheer luck or blessed fate, reading Addie’s words had opened the door to Patience’s heart as nothing else could have, and now that it was open, there was no more doubt what she should do.

Taking a courage-building breath, she picked up the telephone, called her dad, and told him she wouldn’t be there for supper. She was leaving town, catching the first flight west, going after Dallas. She just hoped Dallas had meant what he said and that he missed her half as much as she missed him.

Her father said he loved her and told her he would look after Snickers while she was gone. He said he looked forward to meeting her cowboy. Patience’s nerves kicked in at the thought. What if she was wrong and Dallas didn’t want her? What if he was already over her, maybe even dating someone else?

She felt sick to her stomach.

Remembering Sam Starling and the words in Addie’s journal bolstered her courage. She dialed Shari’s Oklahoma number and Shari told her Dallas and Stormy were at a rodeo in Pendleton, Oregon. Stormy had a friend who lived there and they planned to get together after the final performance. Shari didn’t think the guys would be leaving for at least another day. Once they did, they were headed for the rodeo in Dillon, Montana.

Relieved to know where Dallas was, Patience booked a flight over the Internet. It cost a minor fortune for a last minute ticket, but she still had some savings and Dallas was worth it.

Her last call went to the home of Barry Weinstein, Dean of Faculty for Evergreen Junior College. She was sorry, she told him, but he would have to find a teacher to replace her. Something important had come up and she was resigning her position.

Weinstein said he was sorry to hear she would be leaving, but said it shouldn’t be difficult to find someone to take her place. In the meantime, he knew several good substitute professors who would be willing to take over her classes.

On a shaky breath, Patience hung up the phone, waiting to feel the heavy weight of regret. Instead, she felt as if a thousand pounds of despair had been lifted from her shoulders. Her father was right. She and Dallas loved each other. They wouldn’t make the same mistakes his father and mother had made. They would find a way to make it work.

Unless, of course, Dallas didn’t really love her.

Forcing back the thought, she glanced at the clock. The only flight she could find for Pendleton left at five-seventeen that afternoon. She packed two bags, one that included several pairs of jeans and boots, called a cab to take her to the airport, dropped her dusty white straw cowboy hat into a shopping bag, and headed for the door. She wouldn’t be back until she knew where she stood—one way or the other.

Boston’s Logan International Airport teemed with travelers. Patience climbed out of the cab, paid the driver, and wheeled her luggage through the glass doors into the terminal. After standing in the ticket line for what seemed hours, she finally reached the front counter where a pudgy clerk punched out the one-way ticket to Pendleton via Portland that she had reserved on the Internet and checked her black canvas suitcase.

The clerk pointed her in the direction of the B Terminal and she picked up her carry-on and the shopping bag with her hat in it and set off in that direction. If for some reason she missed Dallas in Pendleton, she would rent a car and catch up with him in Montana.

She would find him, no matter what it took.

She just prayed he’d be glad to see her when she got there.

Sliding the strap of her leather purse over her shoulder, Patience hurried along the corridor, heading for gate B-17. At the security checkpoint, she tossed the carry-on, shopping bag, and her purse up on the conveyor belt. As the articles passed through the x-ray machine, she walked through the scanning door, fortunately without a beep, went over and retrieved her luggage.

The corridor was filled with people, most of them coming off morning flights just arriving from the West Coast. Lost in thought, she bumped into a short, Asian woman hurrying the other way, pushing a baby stroller with a tiny black-haired child inside. Patience apologized. The woman said something in Chinese and kept on walking.

It was still a ways to the gate. Leaving this time of day, she wouldn’t get into Pendleton until nearly midnight. She would have to rent a car, drive to the rodeo grounds, and hope that Dallas and Stormy were parked there for the night.

Her stomach instantly knotted. She tried not to think what she might find when she arrived and prayed once more that Dallas’s feelings for her ran as deep as hers for him.

Another planeload of passengers began disembarking, travelers of every shape and size streaming into the long, wide corridor. The walkway filled with people eager to get back to their homes and she wove her way through them, being more careful this time.

It was the cowboy hat that caught her attention, an expensive black felt twenty X beaver with a cattleman’s crease just like Dallas’s. The man who wore it was tall, dressed in a dark blue western-cut suit and polished black ostrich boots.

Her heart punched to life as her gaze swung to his face.

Dallas!

His hat was pulled low, his eyes fixed ahead, his mind somewhere else. He kept on walking, almost passed her before she could manage to force out his name.

“Dallas! Dallas, wait!”

He turned at the sound of her voice. The instant he saw her, the bag he was carrying slid from his hand and clattered onto the floor. He stood there staring as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, then he took a step toward her, caught her up, and crushed her in his arms.

Patience clung to him, her cheek pressed to his, her eyes filling with tears. She was trembling, her throat clogged, and she could feel him trembling, too.

“Patience…I can’t believe it’s really you. God, I’ve missed you so much.”

She swallowed past the lump in her throat and tried to blink back the wetness spilling down her cheeks. “I-I was coming to see you. I was hoping…I thought…if you meant what you said…if you really love me—”

Dallas kissed her. “I love you. God, I love you so much.” Capturing her face between his hands, he slid his fingers into her hair and kissed her until she felt dizzy. People surged around them, parting to make room for them, creating an island, then closing ranks on the opposite side. Both of them were breathing hard by the time he let her go.

“What…what are you doing here?” Patience asked, unable to stop looking at him.

“I was on my way to find you. I left Pendleton on the morning flight. What are you doing here?”

“I was coming to find you. I was leaving for Pendleton on the evening flight.”

Dallas’s mouth curved up in the sweetest smile she had ever seen. Grabbing her bags and his own, he led her to an area of empty seating. “I came to talk to you. I’ve got everything all worked out.”

Patience slid to a halt. “Worked out? What are you talking about?”

“Look, darlin’, I only need one more year of medical school, right? I figure I’ll change my focus, get my veterinarian’s degree, like you said. Hey, they’ve got cows and horses in Massachusetts, right? Or small animals, maybe, if you’d rather stay in the city. At any rate, I’ve got enough saved to finish my schooling and provide for both of us until I get my practice up and running.”

Her throat closed up again. “You would do that for me? You’d give up everything you ever wanted? Give up rodeo? Your dream of owning your own ranch?”

“I love you. I don’t care about those things if you aren’t there to share them with me.”

“Oh, Dallas…” She went into his arms and stood there trembling, clinging to his neck.

“Will you marry me?” he said against her ear.

A sob escaped. Fresh tears spilled onto her cheeks. “Of course, I’ll marry you. I love you. More than anything in the world.” She shook her head. “But I don’t want you to change your life for me.”

She drew away from him, wiped away the wetness, managed a wobbly smile. “I quit my job at Evergreen. I thought you could rodeo for a few more years, till we get enough saved up to buy some land down in the Hill Country. They’ve got colleges there. I can find a teaching job somewhere in the area. With two incomes we can save even faster. In the summers, I can travel with you, and the rest of the year, you can come home as often as you can manage.”

Dallas stared down at her. She had forgotten how small he could make her feel. “You quit your job for me? You gave up your career?”

“I love you. I don’t care about my career if I can’t be with you.”

Dallas dragged her against his chest, kissed her and kissed her and kissed her. “I hope you still have your apartment.”

“I didn’t have time to sublease it.”

“Good. Let’s go back and figure all this out.”

Patience smiled up at him. Dallas had come for her. He was willing to give up everything important to him—for her. There would never be another man like him. “That sounds good. And now that you’re in Boston, tomorrow night you can meet my parents. My dad’s really going to like you.”

“You think so?”

“He loves the West. You’re a cowboy. How could he not?”

They went up to the gate to let airport personnel know she wouldn’t be boarding the plane, and the woman there told her she could reclaim the bag she had checked a little later. Tomorrow would be soon enough, Patience thought.

Tonight, she had other plans.

It was nearly noon the following day that Patience lay next to Dallas in the queen-size bed in her apartment, their arms and legs entwined, her head nestled on Dallas’s bare chest. The sun blazed in through the bedroom windows and they still weren’t up yet. Or actually, they’d gotten up twice and somehow wound up back in bed.

She felt Dallas’s fingers, sifting gently through her hair. Beneath her cheek, his heart beat strong and steady. The muscles in his shoulders tightened as he shifted her a little, tilted her head up, and kissed her. It felt so good, so right to be with him. She wondered how she ever believed she could live without him.

“When are we getting married?” he asked, nibbling the side of her neck.

Patience smiled. “How about this afternoon?”

“Good answer.”

She laughed. “I was kidding.”

“I wasn’t.”

“All right, how about the end of the week in my parents’ backyard? That’s assuming we can get them to let us use it.”

He smiled down into her face. “Can Charlie and Annie come?”

“Sure. How about your parents?”

“Them, too.”

“Perfect.” Patience snuggled closer against him. Her eyes widened as she felt his hard length pressing against her hip. “I thought we were getting up this time.”

He nuzzled the side of her neck and lifted her a little, adjusting her so that she was lying on top of him. “I thought so, too. Seems there’s been a change of plans.”

It was nearly two o’clock by the time they had finally showered and dressed for the day. Dallas sat on the couch absently stroking Snickers beneath the chin while Patience phoned her father and Tracy, who insisted the two of them come over for supper. Tonight she and Dallas would announce their plans to get married. Once her parents got to know him, she had no doubt they would approve.

Next, she called Charity and Call in Seattle. “I’m hoping Dad and Tracy will let us use their backyard on Sunday.” With Tracy’s love of gardening, the lush green shrubs and beautiful blooming plants, it would make the perfect setting. “I can’t wait for you to meet him, but I don’t expect you to come all this way on such short notice.”

“Are you kidding?” Charity said. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world! We’ll pick Hope up in New York on the way.” Meaning Call would be flying east in one of his fancy chartered jets. Maybe having them there wasn’t too much to ask after all.

She phoned Hope next and smiled at her shriek of delight. “I’m thrilled for you, little sister. A cowboy in the family. That’s gonna be hard to top.”

“Impossible,” Patience said, and Hope laughed. Patience told her that Charity would be calling to make arrangements to pick her up in Call’s chartered jet.

The last person she phoned was Shari. “It’s a long story. I can’t wait to tell you. I feel a little guilty when I think of you and Stormy, but I love Dallas, Shari. I don’t want a life without him.”

“You know I love you both,” Shari said, “and I wish you all the happiness in the world.”

“Thank you.” Patience found it hard to ignore the sadness in her friend’s voice, but Shari had her own choices to make.

While Dallas called Charlie and Annie, his father and Rachael, then phoned Stormy, Patience padded over to her computer and flipped it on. Earlier she had told Dallas about Constance Foster’s phone call and the man named Barton Purcell who had been killed in 1918 when he attacked one of the women relay riders.

On impulse she typed in www.google.com, then typed in Cheyenne and Rio Railroad. There was all manner of archive information on the site. Working on an idea that popped into her head, she punched up yearly employee records and was amazed to discover they went back to the early 1880s, when the railroad line first went in.

The Cheyenne and Rio was only one branch of the bigger, Southwest Central Railroad, she discovered, but the records included employees who worked for the various lines. She clicked on the year 1912 and skimmed the alphabetical list of employee names.

“Oh, my God!”

“What is it?” Dallas asked, walking up behind her, resting his hands lightly on her shoulders.

“The guy who got killed in Colorado Springs—Barton Purcell? He worked for the railroad.”

She moved the mouse and clicked on the year 1915. The name appeared in the rolls again. He was still employed there in 1918, the year he was shot and killed.

“I can’t believe this, Dallas. See these little letters,
con/CR
after his name?”

“Yeah, what do they mean?”

“According to the ledger at the bottom,
con
means conductor. The letters CR signifies the railroad line—in this case, Cheyenne and Rio. The route goes from Cheyenne south across the state line, through Denver and Colorado Springs, all the way to Santa Fe. Purcell probably took time off whenever the rodeo was in one of the towns along the line.”

“I wonder why he waited three years between murders…or at least before he tried it again.”

“I guess we’ll never know. But this has got to be the same guy in all three cases. She turned and looked up at him. “And Bea Crandall killed him.”

Dallas reached down and lightly traced a finger across her cheek. “I guess Lucky and Gracie can rest a little more peacefully now. Thanks to you, they know the guy who killed them got what he deserved.”

“I think Addie will rest easier, too.”

Through the pages of the journal, her grandmother had given her a precious gift—the courage to make the most important decision of her life. Patience hoped that in some small way, she had returned that gift.

Reaching down, she clicked off the computer. “Come on. You’ve never been to Boston. Why don’t I show you around?”

“Okay, on one condition.”

“Which is?”

“While we’re at it, we shop for a ring.”

Patience grinned. “Two rings. You don’t think I’d let you go running around the country without a wedding band?”

Dallas laughed and pulled her into his arms. “Two rings,” he said, and then he kissed her.

By the end of the week they would be married. A professor married to a cowboy. Before her summer adventure, she wouldn’t have believed it could happen.

“I love you,” Dallas said, kissing her softly one more time. “Now, before you come to your senses—let’s go buy those rings.”