Page 49 of August’s Cowboy Braxton

“I got that message. What I didn’t get was an explanation for why five thousand dollars showed up in my account with a warning not to touch it.”

She studied me for another second before holding out her hand. “Kaycee Harper. Independent forensic accountant.”

I shook it. Her grip was firm and brief.

“The committee brought me in to follow the financial trail connected to Cedar Draw. I’m reviewing anything that might matter—livestock transactions, land leases, old accounts, modern transfers.” She pulled her hand back and reached for the folder nearest her. “Including yours.”

Cedar Draw.

The name had been everywhere for weeks. Old cattle records. Family secrets. Roy Pritchard and those forged livestock papers. Now everybody suspected Margaret Whitaker was the love child of a Kincaid and a Hollister, and apparently that had only given Mustang Mountain another hundred questions to argue over.

None of them had a damn thing to do with me. At least not until yesterday.

“What exactly did you find?”

Kaycee opened the folder and slid a page toward me. “The deposit hit your ranch business account three weeks ago. Five thousand dollars from a source account we’re still tracing.”

My own account number sat halfway down the page. Under it was a memo line I’d never seen before.

CEDAR DRAW — COLE LEASE PARCEL 17-B

The amount wasn’t enough to change my life. But it sure was enough to make it look like I’d taken money I shouldn’t have.

“I didn’t authorize this.”

“I know you’re saying that.”

I looked up. “You don’t believe me.”

“I didn’t say that either.”

Those blue-gray eyes stayed on me, sharp and annoyingly unreadable. She wasn’t accusing me, but she also didn’t seem inclined to believe me.

Kaycee pulled another sheet from the folder. This one was a copy of an old handwritten page, the edges dark and uneven.

“The parcel reference is what caught my attention. Seventeen-B is part of the hundred and sixty acres you currently lease from the Kincaids.”

“Correct.”

“And nobody has ever called that land Cedar Draw?”

“No.”

“No side agreement attached to the lease? Grazing arrangement? Shared access?”

I shook my head. “I pay the Kincaids for the land. I run cattle on it. That’s the entire arrangement.”

She made a note in the margin.

I leaned closer to the old page. One line had been enlarged enough to read.

Cedar Draw account — Walker to continue until Margaret’s line is established.

I’d heard about the notebook after the mess with Evie Mercer—hell, everyone in town had—but seeing the words in front of me was different.

“Margaret Whitaker?” I glanced up at Kaycee.

She nodded. “They found her in the historical records once they knew who they were looking for. She was raised under the Whitaker name. That part isn’t especially mysterious anymore.”