Westin Family Ties by Alice Sharpe - Open Sky Ranch 03 - Westin Family Ties

Author:Alice Sharpe - Open Sky Ranch 03 - Westin Family Ties [Sharpe, Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Suspense, Contemporary, Romantic Suspense
ISBN: 9780373695829
Google: 7PuJK6BTQV8C
Amazon: 0373695829
Goodreads: 12258023
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

The pregnancy made sleeping difficult. Hard to find a comfortable position that supported her ponderous middle, hard to stretch out when she was afraid of waking Cody, hard to stop thinking.

That was the real problem. Random thoughts skittered around in Cassie’s head like startled ants. What had Deputy Tucker meant when he said that was all they were arresting Emerson Banner for now? Were there more charges in the offing? Did they suspect him of murdering Mrs. Priestly?

Was that why he was hurling accusations and threats at her—to take the attention off of himself? Had he gone so far as trying to blow up a pregnant woman or gun her down in her sleep?

And could anyone prove anything against him? If he’d been stealing from Mrs. Priestly, there must be some kind of tangible money trail, right? He couldn’t schmooze his way out of that….

She got out of bed, stepped into her slippers and robe, and left the bedroom as quietly as she could, making her way down the stairs carefully. Slinking through the large, dark house in the middle of the night reminded her of the night less than two weeks before when she’d gone to check out what Mrs. Priestly claimed she saw through her bedroom window.

A murder. By the river. And that reminded Cassie of that article she’d seen in the paper about the body recovered downstream from Cherrydell. She’d all but forgotten about it until now, and she vowed to find out in the morning if the police had identified the man yet.

She walked through the dark house with the encouraging sensation of being home, of belonging. Bonnie greeted her in the kitchen, nuzzling against her legs, her eyes sleepy looking. But when Cassie opened the outside door and flipped on the electricity, the dog tore off into the night on some secret mission.

More memories of that night. The light hadn’t worked. Well, it hadn’t worked many times before that, either. The mansion was old. Cassie had overheard a couple of conversations where Emerson and Victoria had tried to coax Mrs. Priestly into spending money on upkeep, but the old woman hadn’t seen the decay. Maybe her memories were more vivid than the present.

It had stopped raining, but it was cold. As Cassie stepped outside, she drew her robe as close as possible and moseyed around the deck, pausing when she got to the pond, loving the darkness, loving the quiet and, most of all, loving the thought of Emerson Banner behind bars.

She sat on the bench carefully, rubbing her stomach as she so often did now, and leaned back just a little to give the baby room. “No offense, but you are going to be a bruiser,” she whispered, as she stared at the reflected moonlight in the pond that Cody had built for her.

How she had missed this pond. Oh, the Priestly fountain was much larger and grander perhaps, but it was like an old Victorian lady in a shabby dress. This pond was the essence of classic.

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