Page 53 of Rawhide and Ransom

“I’m not sure it’s a word.”Her fellow anchor spelled it out for her.“A-M-U-N-D. Amund?”He repeated the word a few times.“I don’t know what that means. Do you?”

“I do.” Miley laid down her carving tools, practically vibrating with excitement. “Rose. Amund. Guilty,” she intoned. Then she said the words again more quickly. “Rosamund is guilty. Don’t you get it?” Her gaze darted animatedly between her mother and Hawk. “Those are the coasters I sold to Aunt Mirabelle, and she’s using them to tell the world that Rosamund Dakota is guilty.”

“Could be.” Annalee frowned thoughtfully.

“I think she’s on to something.” Hawk nodded in approval at Miley, making her grin in triumph.

“Oh, she’s definitely on to something.” Tucker Pratt breezed through the open door of Hawk’s workshop.

Hawk scowled at him for showing up unannounced. “You don’t write. You don’t call.”

“Nope. I never do,” Tucker returned cheerfully, pausing as he crossed the threshold to send Annalee a welcoming salute.

She gave him a flutter wave in return, looking as curious about the reason for his visit as the rest of them were.

“How long have you been eavesdropping?” Hawk asked suspiciously.

“Long enough to hear Miley unravel the puzzling message about Rosamund Dakota’s guilt.” Tucker sent her a thumbs up, making her grin widen. “I never interrupt genius at work.”

“Genius,” Miley breathed to no one in particular. “Did you hear that?”

“I heard.” Hawk continued to glower at his friend. “She’smyrawhide assistant. Go recruit your own talent!”

Looking ready to burst from whatever news he had to tell, Tucker moved to the end of the room where Hawk was working. “Remember how I said I felt like we were missing something?”

“I remember.” Hawk laid down his mallet.

Both Annalee and Miley grew motionless, waiting, but Tucker didn’t immediately plunge into his news. He angled his head at Miley, looking pained.

“Miley?” Hawk hated doing this to her, but the look Tucker was giving him told him it was necessary. “I think it’s time for Rex’s next bubble bath. How about you do the honors?” He was hoping to get a smile out of her.

Her shoulders stiffened. “If you wanted me to leave the room, you could’ve just asked.”

“Pretty sure I did, kid.” He met her gaze, allowing his eyes to do the apologizing.

“Quit calling me that,” she sputtered as she stood. “I’m legally an adult now.” She stomped his way, purposely bumping his shoulder with her shoulder. “Your future business partner, in case you’ve forgotten.”

He hooked an arm around her and drew her into a side hug. “I haven’t forgotten.” He ducked his head closer to mutter quietly in her ear, “Don’t go far.” He suspected Tucker wanted her out of the room to protect his job, since he’d been coloring outside the lines again. He was also aware that Miley had long since perfected the art of eavesdropping. It was his way of telling her that it was okay this time. If Tucker overhead them, he would assume Hawk was telling his future stepdaughter to stay close enough for him to continue watchdogging over her.

Miley pulled back to glare at him, but the usual glint of humor was back in her eyes, telling him she’d gotten the message. In true Miley style, she played up the moment by grumbling as she left the room, “Gonna find myself a different job!” Man, but he loved that kid!

Annalee’s worried gaze followed her daughter. For a moment, Hawk thought she was going to follow after her, but she didn’t.

Tucker didn’t even wait until Miley was out of sight before hitching his backpack higher on his shoulder and shoving his electronic tablet in front of Hawk. “Check this out.”

Hawk scanned the document he had on display. It was an enrollment application for Edward Hardy, who’d since become Ace Dakota’s stepson. “Little Ed was enrolled at the Stepping Stones Preschool at the same time as Annalee and Mirabelle.”

“Little Ed,” Annalee said quickly, moving across the room to join them. “As in Edward Dakota?”

“One and the same. Now swipe left to look at the next document,” Tucker instructed Hawk.

Hawk swiped left and found himself staring at an incident report.

Annalee pressed closer and started reading parts of it rapidly beneath her breath. “Edward Hardy was injured at the hands of a violent student. Ambulance called. Police notified.”

The report went on to describe in horrific detail how Edward had become injured on the playground after being tossed over the side of a sliding board by a fellow preschooler. Most unfortunately, his lower back had slammed into the handlebars of a tricycle parked half beneath the slide, causing a severe spinal injury that had left his legs partially paralyzed.

Hawk had read a few incident reports over the course of his career, but he’d never read one like this. It was as if the writer had opened a thesaurus and purposely stuffed as many emotion-evoking adjectives into her report as possible. He scanned the write-up again, mentally earmarking the most visceral verbiage:

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