Men to Trust: Boss Man / The Last Good Man in Texas / Lonetree Ranchers: Brant

He hesitated. “I have to talk to you and your mother. It’s important. May I come over?”

Violet’s mind raced. The house was a mess. She was a mess. She was wearing jeans and a shirt that didn’t fit. Her hair needed washing. The living room needed vacuuming…!

“Who is it, dear?” Mrs. Hardy called.

“It’s Mr. Kemp, Mama. He says he needs to speak to us.”

“Isn’t it nice that we have some of that pound cake left?” Mrs. Hardy wondered aloud. “Tell him to come right on, dear.”

Violet ground her teeth together. “It’s all right,” she told Kemp.

“Fine. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” He hung up before Violet could ask him what he wanted.

She turned worriedly to her mother. “Do you think it might be something about me coming back to work for him?”

“Who can say? You should wash your hair, dear. You’ll have just enough time.”

“Not to do that and vacuum and pick up around the living room,” she wailed.

“Violet, the chores can wait,” her mother replied amusedly. “You can’t. Go, girl!”

Violet turned like a zombie and went right to the bathroom to wash her hair. By the time she heard Kemp pulling up in the driveway, she had on a nice low-cut short-sleeved blue sweater and clean white jeans. Her hair was clean and she left it down, because she didn’t have time to braid it. She was wearing bedroom shoes, but that wasn’t going to matter, she decided.

She opened the door.

Kemp gave her a quiet going-over with his pale blue eyes. But he didn’t remark about her appearance. He was scowling. “I have something to say that your mother needs to hear, but I don’t want to upset her.”

There went her dreams of being rehired. “What is it about?” she asked.

He drew in a sharp breath. “Violet, I want to have your father exhumed. I think Janet Collins killed him.”

Chapter Three

Violet wasn’t sure she was hearing right. She knew there was something going on with Janet Collins. Curt had come by her office when he carried a note to Duke from Jordan Powell, his boss. He’d told her that he and Libby were going to have to have their father exhumed because there were suspicions that Janet, their stepmother, might have killed him. She was suspected of killing at least one other elderly man by poison. Violet and her mother knew about the waitress Mr. Hardy had had his fling with. But they’d never questioned the cause of death. And they’d never found out who the waitress was. Now, a lot of questions she hadn’t wanted even to ask were suddenly being answered.

Her lips parted on a husky sigh. “Oh, dear.”

Kemp closed the door behind him and tilted Violet’s chin up to his eyes. “I don’t want to do this,” he said softly. “But there’s a very good chance that your father was murdered, Violet. You don’t want Janet Collins to get away with it, if she’s guilty. Neither do I.”

“You’re right,” she agreed. “But what about Mama?”

He drew in a long breath. “I have to have her signature. I can’t do it on yours alone.”

They exchanged worried looks.

His eyes suddenly narrowed on her oval face in its frame of dark hair. Her skin was clean and bright. She wasn’t wearing makeup, except a touch of pink lipstick. And that sweater…His eyes slid down to her breasts with quiet sensuality. They narrowed, as he appreciated how deliciously full-breasted she was. She had a small waist, too. The jeans emphasized the nicely rounded contours of her hips.

“I’ve lost weight!” she blurted out.

“Don’t lose any more,” he murmured absently. “You’re perfect.”

Her eyebrows arched. “Sir?” she stammered.

“If I weren’t a confirmed bachelor, you’d make my mouth water,” he replied quietly, and the eyes that met hers were steady, intent.

Her heart began racing. Her knees were weak. He wasn’t blind. Any minute, he was going to notice her helpless, headlong reaction.

“But I am a confirmed bachelor,” he added firmly, as much for his own benefit as for hers. “And this isn’t the time, anyway. May I come in?”

“Of course.” She closed the door behind him, unsettled by what he’d said.

“I planned to come by your office and tell you,” he said, his voice low, “but I got caught at the last minute and by the time I finished with an upset client, you’d already left Wright’s place. I’d hoped to have a little time to prepare you for what we have to do.” He glanced toward the living room door. “How is she?” he asked.

She bit her lower lip. “She’s had a slight spell this week,” she told him worriedly. “She thinks she’s stronger than she really is. Losing Daddy and finding out about his affair ruined her life.”

He bit back a harsh reply. “Should we have the doctor here while I tell her?”

She sighed wearily. “I don’t think it will matter.” She looked up at him. “She has to know. I don’t want Janet Collins to get away with murder. Neither will she. We both loved Daddy, in our way.”

“All right then.” He nodded for her to go ahead of him and he followed her into the room.

Her mother looked up and smiled. “Mr. Kemp! How nice to see you again!”

He smiled, pausing in front of her to shake her hand gently. “It’s good to see you, too, Mrs. Hardy. But I’m afraid I may have some upsetting news.”

She put down her knitting and sat up straight. “My daughter thinks I’m a marshmallow,” she said with an impish look at Violet. “But I’m tougher than I look, despite my rickety blood vessels.” She set her lips firmly. “You just tell me what I need to know, and I’ll do what I have to.”

His blue eyes twinkled. “You are a tough nut, aren’t you?” he teased.

She grinned at him, looking far younger than she was. “You bet. Go on. Spill it.”

His smile faded. Violet sat on the arm of her mother’s chair.

“It must be bad, if you’re both expecting me to keel over,” she said. “It’s something about Janet Collins, isn’t it?”

Violet gasped. Kemp’s eyebrows arched over the frames of his glasses.

“I’m not a petunia. I don’t just hang on the porch all the time,” Mrs. Hardy informed them. “I get my hair done, I go to the doctor’s office, I see a lot of people. I know that Libby and Curt Collins are up to their ears in trouble about their stepmother, and there’s a lot of talk that she’s been linked to the death of an old man in a nursing home. They said she took every penny he had. And then she went on to cheat Arthur and me out of our savings, a quarter of a million dollars. It wasn’t ever proven that it was her.”

“I’ve found an eyewitness who thinks she can place Janet Collins at the motel with Arthur the last day of his life,” Kemp told her, “just before the ambulance came to take him to the hospital. She ran out the door and was seen. At the hospital the doctor, not aware of any foul play, diagnosed a heart attack from the symptoms. There was no autopsy.”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Hardy said. She gave her audience a knowing look. “And you think she killed him, don’t you?” she asked Kemp.

He was impressed. “Yes, I do,” he told her honestly.

“I didn’t want to think about that, but I’ve had my doubts,” she said. “He never had heart trouble. There had been some mixup at a clinic in San Antonio and he ended up getting a heart catherization that he didn’t really need. What it showed was that his heart and arteries were in fine shape, no blockages at all. So it came as something of a surprise when he died only a month later of a supposed heart attack. But I was far too upset at his affair and his sudden death to think clearly.”

“If it’s any consolation, Janet Collins had a way with men,” Kemp replied. “She was known for playing up to older men, and she isn’t a bad-looking woman. Most men react predictably to a head-on assault.”