Page 52 of Rawhide and Ransom

Miley turned pink, but that didn’t keep her from teasing back. “Josh who?”

Annalee went back to plopping geraniums in urns for the front porch of the cabin. They were red geraniums, Hawk’s favorite color.

Yeah, he had every reason in the world to be content. Every. Last. Reason. The love of his life had brought color and joy to every part of his existence. She cooked. She planted. She decorated. She made friends out of everyone who crossed her path. She canned jars of vegetables and sent them up and down the road to their neighbors. She baked cookies and cupcakes for the kids who flocked to the new playground, not for anything in return. Just because.

She always gave more than she took. Her heart overflowed with charity. What she didn’t have in the bank she made up for in elbow grease. Quite simply, she gave of herself, which was the finest level of giving. Those who lived around her had long stopped seeing her as blonde and fair-skinned. When they looked at her, they saw one thing only — a friend.

Some of the old-timers had taken it a step further and claimed she possessed the heart of a Comanche, and Miley was just like her. Younger kids swarmed to her like bees to honey, begging her to play tag with them or go bike riding on the track, which she often did. Boys her age flirted mercilessly with her. Girls her age imitated everything she did, from the way she wore her high-topped sneakers unlaced to the number of bracelets she always had circling her wrists. Most of them were leather, her own creations.

Annalee dusted her hands over the first completed urn and stood back to eye it critically. “How does it look?”

“Hold on a sec. I’ll ask the expert.” Miley bent down to consult with Rex, who’d hopped off her lap to rub against her legs. She pretended to whisper in his ear and got an affectionate head butt in return. Then she straightened. “He says it looks like you have a master’s degree in horticulture.”

“Ooo! Thank you for bringing up another topic I’ve been meaning to discuss with you.” She twirled energetically toward her daughter. “College.”

“Still not interested.” Miley returned to her carving. “Next topic.”

“Sweetie, I only want what’s best for you,” Annalee protested.

“Good.” Miley’s lips twisted in mutiny. “Then you won’t insist on me snoozing my way through a dusty degree that won’t get me any further in my chosen field.”

“Which is,” her mother prompted gently.

“Leather carving, of course,” Miley supplied. “I’m good at it, too. That’s how I bagged over two hundred dollars in profit on Saturday. I have plans, Mom. Big plans. Like opening an online shop and expanding our sales across the country, maybe even across the world.”

“Our sales?” Hawk raised his eyebrows at her. This was the first he was hearing about an online shop.

“Yes, boss man.” She gave him an exasperated look. “As my mentor and trainer, you’ll be stuck with me for every step of this amazing journey.”

“What do you know about running a business?” Annalee sauntered closer to observe the design Miley was etching into the coaster. It was a cluster of roses. No big surprise there. Miley’s signature design was roses. Always roses.

“What I don’t know, I’ll learn.” Miley didn’t look up from her carving.

“How?” Her mother reached out to tweak one of her daughter’s braids.

“Lots of ways.” Miley waved a hand impatiently. “By talking to other business owners on the rez. By watching video tutorials. Maybe taking an online class.”

“Exactly!” Annalee pounced on her last statement like a cat pinning down a plump mouse. “I’m sure there are degrees in everything from web design to bookkeeping.”

Miley scrunched her nose incredulously. “I said take a class, not pursue a whole degree. It would be different if I wanted to be a doctor or lawyer, but I don’t. I want to stay on the rez and do exactly what I’m doing right now.”

Annalee sighed, looking Hawk’s way for support. “Hawk, would you care to weigh in?”

No, not particularly.He didn’t possess a college degree and probably never would, so he doubted he would say what she wanted to hear. To stall for time, he brought his hand down on the television remote and pretended to hit the volume button by accident.

The voice of the news anchor filled the room.“Messages in rawhide are appearing all over Clarendon. It’s the strangest thing. One showed up at a gas station counter this morning, and another one at a grocery store.”

Messages in rawhide? Hawk met Annalee’s gaze, frowning. Then they both turned toward the television screen. He hit the volume arrow a few times to turn it up even louder.

“Zoom in on one of these beautiful works of art, will you?”The news anchor gestured impatiently at someone on her tech crew.

A hand-carved leather coaster popped up on the screen. Hawk immediately recognized it as one of Miley’s masterpieces.

Her gasp told him she’d seen it as well. “Oh, wow, Hawk!” She pointed excitedly. “My stuff is on TV!”

“I see it, kid.” As the TV anchor instructed her tech crew to zoom in even more, he also saw the word that had been carved into one of the petals on the rose. The letters were in all caps: GUILTY.

“There’s something else written there. Do you see it?”The news anchor leaned closer to the other anchor, who was sitting next to her, and they squinted at it together.

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