Operation Cowboy Daddy. Carla Cassidy
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“Yeah, I’ve arranged with Mary Redwing to watch him during working hours until I get back in touch with Amy. I don’t suppose anyone saw her around here today while I was gone?” Tony’s heart sank as the men all shook their heads.
“What are you going to do, Tony? How are you going to find Amy?” Sawyer asked.
Tony swept his hat off his head and released a deep sigh. “I’ll wait another day or two and then I suppose I might talk to Dillon to see if he has any contacts in Oklahoma City who might help me locate her.”
“Aren’t you afraid she’ll get in trouble if you go to the police?” Sawyer asked.
“She didn’t abandon the baby someplace on the street, so there shouldn’t be a legal issue,” Tony replied. “If I have to, I’ll hire a private investigator to help me find her.” He eased down in one of the chairs that faced the sofa.
What he wanted right now was just a little male small talk. His head had been filled with women all day long. One woman had pulled forth old bittersweet feelings and the other one had evoked new, exciting feelings that he definitely didn’t want.
“Anything new going on around here?” he asked.
“Cassie informed me this morning that she’s going to hire on another ranch hand or two,” Adam said.
“I hope it’s somebody who fits well with all of us,” Sawyer replied.
“We could definitely use more help around here,” Mac added.
“But it’s good news for all of us that she’s hiring on somebody,” Tony replied. “That implies that she intends to stick around here.”
Since the moment the New York artist had taken over the ranch, the fear had been that Cassie would sell it and displace all the men who had called it their home for so many years.
The ranch wasn’t just their home—the men had also formed a family unit based on common pasts and a fierce loyalty to each other that had been branded into them by the tough, but loving, Cass Holiday.
“I still can’t get a feel for if she intends to stay here forever or eventually sell the place and head back to New York,” Adam replied.
“Have you gotten a feel for anything else about her?” Clay asked with a teasing glint in his eyes.
A flush of color rose up in Adam’s cheeks. “Cassie and I have a strictly professional relationship.”
“Who are you kidding? We all know you have the hots for her. When are you going to get up the nerve and ask her out?” Sawyer asked.
“When I feel like the time is right,” Adam replied curtly. He turned to look at Tony. “Have you spoken to Chief Bowie today?”
“Yeah, I saw him right after noon in the café.” A touch of anger stirred in him as he remembered the encounter with the men from the Humes place.
“Did he mention to you that they’ve identified one of the skeletons that was found here?”
Tony sat up straighter in the chair. “No, in fact I asked him if there was anything new on the case and he told me there wasn’t.”
“He must have gotten this news after he saw you,” Adam replied. “He was here at dinnertime asking if anyone remembered a fifteen-year-old boy named Tim Hankins.”
Tony frowned. “We’ve all told him over and over again that there were no other boys here other than the twelve of us.”
“Well, apparently Tim Hankins was here at one time or another, since his bones were found under the shed and his skull was the one Dusty fished out of the pond,” Clay replied.
Tony’s blood chilled as he remembered the day Dusty had brought his girlfriend, Trisha, and her young son to the pond for a day of fishing fun only to have it tainted by the gruesome catch.
When the bones had initially been dug up and studied by Dr. Patience Forbes, it had been discovered that a skull and finger bones were absent. Dusty had found the skull in the pond, but the finger bones had yet to be found.
“Was he a lost boy, too?” Tony asked.
Adam nodded. “According to Dillon he was a runaway from Tulsa.”
“I wonder how he got here from Tulsa,” Tony said.
“I wonder who killed him and all those others with an ax or a meat cleaver to the back of their heads,” Sawyer replied in a darkly somber tone.
The men were all silent for several long moments and Tony knew they were thinking about the seven boys who had been murdered right here on the property so many years ago.
The worst part of it all was the thread of suspicion that had been planted among the men who had basically grown up together, the men Tony considered his brothers. Everyone knew that Dillon suspected one of them of being the potential killer.
Tony had no idea what the others thought, but he couldn’t believe any of the other men who worked on the Holiday ranch were capable of such a heinous act. He definitely didn’t want to believe it.
“Did Dillon talk to Francine Rogers about him?” Tony asked. Francine had been a close friend of Cass’s and was the social worker who had brought all the boys to the Holiday ranch for a chance at a new life.
“I asked him that and he said Francine has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and has no real memories or notes from fifteen years ago,” Adam replied.
Tony sighed in frustration. Everyone wanted this solved to lift the pall that had settled over the ranch since the skeletons had been found.
“I think it’s time for me to call it a night,” Adam said and got up from his chair.
“Yeah, me, too. Morning comes early.” Mac stood from the sofa and grabbed his guitar.
Clay and Tony followed them out of the building and then Adam locked the door. Cord Cully, aka Cookie, would open the dining room door again in the morning when he came in to fix them all their morning meal.
They talked about chores for the next day as they went around the building and then each of them disappeared into their respective rooms.
Tony walked into his and spied a yellow baby blanket that must have fallen out of the suitcase before he’d packed it up to take it to Mary. It was a bright splash of sunshine against his dark brown bedspread.
He picked it up and then sat on the edge of his bed and thought about the baby who might or might not be his. He couldn’t quite believe Amy had gotten pregnant by him, although he supposed she could have lied to him about being on the pill and it wasn’t unheard of for a condom to break.
He’d never wanted to be a father, but if Joey was his, then Tony would man up and try to be a decent parent. It was the right thing to do.
What he didn’t want was in any way to get attached to him without knowing the truth. Amy could reappear at any moment and confess to him that the baby wasn’t his. She could snatch him away and Tony would never see him again.
First thing in the morning he’d make an appointment to take Joey into Dr. Rivers’s for a checkup, and while he was there, he’d have the doctor do a DNA test.
The odds were Amy would be back long before the test results ever came in, but at least Tony would have the peace of mind in knowing the truth.
If he didn’t hear anything from Amy by Tuesday night, then first thing Wednesday morning he’d have a talk with Dillon and see if he knew a private investigator who worked the Oklahoma City area.
He folded the baby blanket and placed it next to his hat and his gun and holster on the top of the chest of drawers, then took off his clothes and got into bed.
He stared up at the dark ceiling as his mind worked to process everything that had happened since the night before, when the frantic knock