Stranger in My House (A Murder In Texas) Read Online Free

me.”
    “Bobby jumped on you? She must have gone nuts. No pun intended.”
    Kirby smiled anyway. “Did you have a run-in with Bobby?”
    Frankie laughed. “Yes. I was winning until the she-hawk came in on Bobby’s side.”
    “Winning?”
    “It wandered into my sitting room,” Frankie said. “I might have been trying to smash it with a tennis racket when the she-hawk caught me.”
    “That’s what she’s mad about?”
    “She’s a frustrated old maid. She’s always threatening to fire Seth, and whenever things don’t go her way, she blames him. Hell, if she knew that we’d switched places, she’d probably blame him for that, too.”
    “Ah. That makes sense.” So Maguire thought if he could get Frankie to marry him, he’d no longer be under Miss Bea’s thumb or in danger of being fired.
    A muted horn blared on Frankie’s end of line.
    “Where are you?” Kirby asked.
    “Driving around. I took your car. You don’t mind, do you?”
    She didn’t. It felt nice to have family to share with. “Of course not.”
    “Hey, I’m at the mall. One last thing I forgot to mention,” Frankie said. “Keep your gun out of sight. Cousin Eenie’s a hippie or something. No weapons allowed.”
    Kirby glanced around the room. “I guess I could put them in the closet.”
    “Leave everything in the suitcase and leave the suitcase in the closet. I’ve got to go.” The phone went dead.
    …
    From the coach house window, Seth watched the last rays of the sun drop behind the western ridge. Shadows piled up in the valley. At least darkness hid the broken fences and weedy garden, the unpainted barn, the rutted lanes.
    If he owned this spread, it would be kick-ass. He’d bring in fifteen thousand head like they had before Shaw took over from his daddy. Then he’d hire on some cowboys. Open up the bunkhouses year-round. As for plowing under the lavender and damn fruit trees, he’d do that himself and savor every minute of it.
    Shaw thought he could run a fifty-thousand-acre ranch like a crazy hippie commune—treat the animals as friends and the insects as dinner guests. He was farming all of fifty acres at best. And the other 49,950? Awaiting the second coming of Buddha.
    What Seth wouldn’t do to buy a little piece right out from under Shaw. He grimaced. Getting his own spread was going to take a lot more money than he had in the bank.
    So much for dreams.
    His gaze swept across the run-down ranch one last time before night settled. The work was endless, but since Shaw’s lawyers brought Frankie and her momma to the ranch, time had become his enemy. Time and the Swallow women. They’d swooped down on Shaw Valley like a plague of pampered, perfumed locusts, threatening the ranch’s precarious existence with incessant demands for money and attention. It left little time for the business of ranching.
    But Shaw was stuck with them. He was old and sick and childless, and they were his heirs. His daddy—damn him—had fixed his will to favor Shaw blood. Made it ironclad. Unbreakable. Even unbendable.
    A light blinked on in the east wing. Frankie’s room. The curtains were drawn back, which wasn’t like Frankie. Something about her didn’t feel right this evening. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on it, but she was different. Where was the cloud of eye-watering perfume she liked to wear? And the ass-wiggling strut that drove the boys in town crazy? That afternoon she’d wobbled up the path like she’d never worn heels in her life. And the way she’d acted. Approachable…almost normal. He grimaced again. Yeah, right.
    “What are you up to, Frankie?” He meant to keep her close until he figured it out.

Chapter Two
    A sliver of sunlight pierced Kirby’s eyelids. She lifted her head and peered at the bedside clock. Quarter to eight. Then she flopped against the pillows and groaned. Day two as Frankie Swallow had begun. She’d have given anything to be home, sipping coffee as she pulled on her uniform.
    For a