“Pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” he said. “Maggie sure does enjoy your company.”
Hazel warmed inside. “As I enjoy hers. Thank you for coming by, Mr. Trenton.”
Without a word to Wade, Mr. Trenton joined his men. And as they rode back south, Hazel turned to Wade.
“What was that about?” she demanded.
“Your dear friend Mrs. Trenton didn’t tell you?” Irritation slid off his words, rankling Hazel.
She threw up her hands. “I don’t know what you mean. All I saw was a man being inexcusably rude toward a neighbor who was offering help.”
“Trenton was an outlaw.Isan outlaw, for all I know.”
She blinked at him, disbelieving.
“Told me himself, though I doubt many others know. Said he’d only done it to help his brother, and he’d given it up. All he wanted was to build a ranch.” Wade relayed the tale as if he didn’t believe a word of it.
“All right,” Hazel said slowly, still hardly able to wrap her mind around the friendly Mr. Trenton being an outlaw. “Everyone has made mistakes, some worse than others. But I thought we were to forgive, not judge.”
“I would, if he had given it up like he said.”
Hazel tilted her head, that awful suspicion she’d held earlier growing. “You think he’s behind everything that’s happened here.”
It was impossible, and yet he nodded. “Who else could it be?”
Hazel stared at him. “A hundred other people! Drifters or . . . or anyone! Why would Mr. Trenton want to steal from his neighbor?”
“Because if he drives me off, he can buy my land. And taking what isn’t his is something he’s had experience with.”
Hazel couldn’t believe it. Shewouldn’tbelieve it. Maggie’s husband wouldn’t come sneaking into their house in the dead of night, frightening her half to death. And the cattle . . . “Why would he steal your cattle and then drive them clear up to Cañon City? And didn’t you say the brands were poorly done?”
“He wouldn’t take them and put them in his own pastures. And he likely hired men to do the branding.” He was growing exasperated with her. It was evident in the way he tapped his hand against his leg as he glanced over at the fire, which finally seemed to be burning itself out.
“If you can’t trust your closest neighbor, then who can you trust?” she asked in a last-ditch effort to make him understand that what he was thinking was so very unlikely.
Those green eyes found their way back to her. “I hardly trust my own men right now.”
Hazel’s heart plummeted as he strode away, back toward the men watching the fire.
The fire, the man in the house, the awful note. When Hazel thought about it all, it frightened her to her very core.
But nothing was more terrifying than watching Wade grow aloof and cold again. She hugged herself as she watched him, not talking to anyone, simply standing there watching a part of his livelihood burn to the ground.
And she had the terrible feeling that she was losing him. Not to rustlers or troublemakers, but to himself.
