Love on the Range (Brothers in Arms #3)(31)
“You go on. I’ll tell you what—”
“I’m not leaving until you’re safely back here. And while you brew tea, I’m going to go back and search that safe.”
He slipped past her and was gone. She couldn’t exactly yell after him.
“Molly, I asked you to bring the tea to my room last night.” Mr. Hawkins had a chiding way about him.
Shallow charm and the chiding always sounded like he was so sad, so disappointed.
“He wants you to do as you’re told, and if you don’t, he expresses displeasure, first mildly . . .”
“As I did, Mr. Hawkins.” Molly had gone up, set the tray on the table, knocked, and left.
“But you left it outside my room. I find it helps my sleep much more if I’m settled in bed, and the tea is poured and handed to me. I expect my housekeeper to provide such a small service for me.”
“Mr. Hawkins, I was glad to make the tea, but it would be the height of impropriety for me to enter your room at night.” Molly did her best to sound like a scandalized maiden lady, when she wanted to whack him over the head with the teapot. “If going into your room while it is occupied by you is a requirement of this job, then I will have to leave your employ immediately.”
He was eating a cinnamon roll she’d just pulled hot out of the oven. And she’d hit him with her special custard with the crispy caramel topping last night. She had cherry cobbler baking for the noon meal, and the smell filled the kitchen, along with the yeasty, cinnamon scent of his roll.
He might start looking for a new housekeeper, because she was quite sure his intentions weren’t honorable, and if she had no interest in him, then he needed a housekeeper who was, but he’d never fire her until her replacement was at hand.
Molly might be here to investigate, but the house was a shambles, just as Wyatt said the ranch was. She’d been working hard to clean it, all the while wondering why. To pass the time and because she had a longing for order. That was the best she could figure. Wyatt said it offended him to see such a poorly run ranch, and the animals were being neglected, which he couldn’t abide, so he was trying to run it right, but he, too, wasn’t sure why he cared—beyond the livestock. They’d be gone as soon as they got into Hawkins’s second safe.
The first safe had held nothing much of interest, except stacks of account books. Wyatt had taken them to her room and gone over them for most of the night. He started with the most recent ones before it occurred to him that information about how Hawkins got the money from Win’s mother and how he spent it would be near the beginning.
Molly saw days, even weeks, of work to go through them all.
Wyatt said Hawkins had started with a fortune, but after twenty years of spending it down hard with a loss each year, the large balances in the accounts were dwindling.
It also looked as if Ralston had stolen a nice chunk of money, but Wyatt hadn’t gotten to the bottom of all that yet. With serious misgivings, he ended up putting the account ledgers back in the safe, afraid their absence might be noticed. He wanted to come back tonight, but Molly insisted he needed a night’s sleep between his investigative forays.
As these thoughts raced through her mind, she saw the way Hawkins looked. His gaze troubled and frustrated.
And beneath that, he was calculating. He didn’t like the line she’d drawn, and now he had to decide whether to fire her on the spot or find a new way to get what he wanted.
She hoped he at least gave her time to find and break into his second safe.
Molly had searched his bedroom when she’d gone in daily to make the bed and sweep, dust, whatever was required. She’d looked behind all the pictures and in the closet. She thought the only place it could be was the floor. But she’d started her search with the floor, and there was nothing. Rachel had believed strongly, based on the type of safe he purchased and the blueprints she’d studied of the house, that there was a safe concealed somewhere, and she’d said the floor was a strong possibility, so Molly had to look again. And she was wary of staying in there for too long. Mr. Hawkins was almost always just downstairs, and he’d notice if she lingered. And he’d absolutely notice if she went to the third floor—if she could get into it. For a time-consuming, detailed search she had to wait until he went away.
All of the searching was overwhelming. She hoped Hawkins didn’t take her demand to fire her or behave to heart. She needed more time in this house.
Hawkins scowled, then relaxed his expression, back to the charm. It was so easy after a week in his presence to see how false that oily charm was. She shuddered to think of the man being married to Win’s poor mother.
He eased back in his chair. She could see he wasn’t going to push this now. Not because he knew he was behaving badly, but because of his belief in his own powers of persuasion.
She could also really see him as a man who might have killed someone. Someone who frustrated him, who didn’t give in. Or maybe that wasn’t even right. Maybe he killed women whether they frustrated him or not.
Maybe he just killed women he had access to.
Molly thought of her father. She knew firsthand that men existed who hurt women, and no one much interfered. At first, she wasn’t sure that was Hawkins, who had seemed lazy more than evil. Now she could see a man who would strike out if he was challenged by someone who was inferior to him. And in his twisted mind, that would be every woman. But she’d joined this fight, and she would stop him from ever hurting anyone again.