Chapter 8Waking to the beauty of a clear, bright morning, Melissa could almost pretend the fright of the two calls was only a bad dream. The prospect of spending another day with Lawton made it easy to push those less pleasant incidents to the back of her mind. Again, Lawton’s arrival found her ready and waiting.
They ate a hearty breakfast at a truck stop on the north edge of Linda Vista before driving on out to the Whetstone Ranch. About ten miles up the highway north of town, the gravel-surfaced ranch road took off to the east, crossed one wash, and followed a ridge down toward the river. Roughly a mile short of the river, the road dropped into a small valley.
There, in a grove of massive cottonwood trees, a small, neat house of burnt adobe nestled. Surrounding it was the hay barn, se
