Agitated, Desiree began to swing the leg she’d thrown over the arm of the chair. “You should have told me. This isn’t your first visit since Josey was found.”
“Slipped my mind. I’m thinking about other things when I’m here.”
“Laurel Beth Morrison. That’s sick, Carter. You’re sick. A nice lady like her wouldn’t have you, but I guess you know that. I can’t think of another reason you never called on her.”
“I figured she wasn’t interested in men.”
“Because she never flirted with you? That’s not a good yardstick.”
“And I say it is. Young women and widows sashay bymy window at all hours of the day. All of them respectable. Don’t forget, Laurel Beth had nothing to do with Pye either, and women liked him, too. You sure did.”
Desiree’s leg stopped swinging. “Shut up.”
Carter shrugged. “I think she’s got her eye on Landry. I can’t decide if he’s pokin’ her or not. I’m pretty sure he wants to.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Got a feelin’, that’s all. I was out at the Morrison Station this morning.”
Well, that explained his cockstand when he came through the door. She kept that to herself. “What provoked you to go out there?”
“The two of them—him and her—visited my office yesterday. I was out,” he said. It was true after a fashion. Hewasout. Out cold. There was no reason for Desiree to know that. She was already out of sorts with him. “When I came around, I noticed a couple of things were out of place. Looked for a note, but there wasn’t one. I went over to Theo’s and asked him if he’d seen anything.”
“There’s a man who likes to watch.”
Carter’s eyebrows kicked up as he realized Desiree’s comment had another meaning. “Really?”
“Uh-huh. That’s what he pays for. No touching, just watching.”
“I’ll be darned. You never know what a person gets up to.”
“So I take it he saw Miss Morrison and Landry.”
“Right. She came into town on her buckboard. He followed later on horseback. My sense is that he was coming after her, but I still don’t know what she was up to. Theo described what she was wearing right down to the white bows on her red leather shoes.”
“Fancy,” said Desiree. “Did she have other business in town?”
“What are you saying? You don’t think she was dressing up just for me?”
“Forget it.”
“As it happens,” said Carter, “she didn’t have other business. I asked.”
“What did she say when you asked her why she was there?”
“Just what I expected. She said she came by to ask me if I’d learned anything new about Pye’s murder. I didn’t believe her but I let it sit. It bothers some that she thinks I don’t know better, but I figure I can use it. Landry was around. Seemed to me that when he showed himself, it was to protect her.”
“A regular hero.”
Carter’s eyes narrowed as he regarded Desiree with more consideration than he usually did. “You don’t like him, do you?”
“He rubbed me wrong the first time I met him.” McCall Landry saw too much. She never felt so naked as she did when she sat with him. That did not endear him to her.
“Hmm. Hard to know what Stonechurch saw that prompted him to hire Landry. As far as I know, they only met the one time.”
“Maybe that’s exactly the reason Landry got the job. He’s an outsider. He’s had to learn everything for himself. No old notions to sway him one way or the other.”
“Could be. He asked after my rifles. Struck me as odd, but then Laurel Beth said she’d like to buy my Enfield so he might have been looking it over for her. When I told her it wasn’t for sale, Landry asked about the Springfield. I agreed to think about it.”
