Wyoming Tough by Diana Palmer

Morie was suddenly aware thattheir love for each other had only intensified since they’d been married. They were still like newlyweds, often lost in each other and unaware of anything around them. She’d hoped for that sort of romance in her own life, and she’d never found it. Cort, too, remarked that their parents were exceptionally suited to each other and that he envied that relationship.
    Cort, of course, was sweet on the daughter of King’s neighbor and friend, Cole Everett, who had a son and a daughter and lived nearby on the Big Spur Ranch. They frequently traded seed bulls and went to conventions together. Odalie Everett was blonde and blue-eyed like her beautiful mother, and although she wasn’t really pretty, she had a voice that was soulful and clear as a bell. She sounded just like her mother, except that Heather had been a famous contemporary singer before she married her stepbrother, Cole, and Odalie was being groomed for an operatic career. Her parents were dead set against her forming any sort of relationship with a man because of her musical aspirations. It would be difficult for her to pursue such a demanding career and have a family. She had a voice that had been hailed by critics from California to New York and she was training at the Met already. Cort, unsurprisingly, had never made his feelings for her known. In fact, he pretended thathe had none. He’d been Odalie’s enemy for years, for reasons that no one understood. Least of all poor Odalie, who adored him.
    Morie snapped back to the present. She had her own worries. Her brother would have to find his way to love all by himself. She turned her attention back to the television as the commercial ended and her grandmother came back onto the screen, larger than life.
    After the movie ended, Morie looked in the mirror and was surprised to see that she was almost the image of her grandmother. If she’d used makeup and had her hair styled properly, she could have been mistaken for Maria Kane. So it was just as well that she’d neglected her hair and packed away her cosmetics to work on the Rancho Real, she decided. It would never do for people who watched old classic movies to notice that resemblance and start asking questions.
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    D ARBY PRESENTED HER with a cell phone the next morning. “Boss said to get that for you and make sure you carry it when you’re out alone. Still got that pistol I gave you in your saddlebags?”
    â€œI do,” she replied. “Have they caught that escaped killer yet?”
    He shook his head. “He’s a hunter. Knows these woods like the back of his hand, and is able to liveoff the land. It will take them a long time to hunt him down. He’s got kinfolk around here, too, and the sheriff thinks some of them may be helping him hide.”
    â€œI don’t know that I’d help a killer escape the law,” she remarked.
    â€œWhat if it was your brother or your father?” he asked simply.
    She sighed. “That’s a harder choice.”
    â€œKiller’s got a cousin that they think might help him. They’ve got his place staked out. They’re sure Bascomb is getting food and shelter somewhere.” He shook his head. “But the cousin’s place is miles from here. I don’t think Joe Bascomb would turn up on the ranch.”
    â€œHe doesn’t have anything against the Kirks, does he?” she asked a little worriedly.
    â€œNot that I know of,” Darby told her. “In fact, Tank testified as a character witness for him during the trial. Tank still thinks he’s innocent.”
    â€œWhat did he do?”
    â€œKilled a man that he said was beating up his girlfriend. Said he didn’t mean to do it. He hit the man and he fell into a brick wall, hit his head and died. Would have probably been ruled accidental except the girlfriend suddenly testified that he banged the man’s head against the wall and killed