To my right was a massive barn loaded with hay bales and farm equipment, including a tractor. Behind the barn, beyond the buildings that faced onto the farmyard was another barn.
Opening the door of my vehicle, I was assaulted by the smell.
Well, it was a farm.
I’d just closed my door when a young man appeared out of the darkness of the hoop house and sauntered toward me. He looked to be in his early twenties and had a stocky build. Dressed much like Collum McCulloch, including mud-splattered work boots, I guessed the man was a farmhand.
Hadn’t Mac said he wasn’t aware of anyone working with McCulloch that fit the description of his attacker?
And as the young farmer neared me, my suspicions grew. He had the most beautiful, piercing green eyes I’d ever seen.
Eyes that were hard to forget.
Eyes someone might use colored contacts to mask?
“Can I help?” he asked abruptly, coming to a stop just a couple feet from me.
I studied him. He wasn’t overly tall. Perhaps five ten, five eleven. Broad shouldered.
He fit the attacker’s description to a tee.
“I’m Robyn Penhaligon. I just came to ask Mr. McCulloch a few questions. You are?”
The man crossed his arms over his strong chest, eyes narrowed. “Jared McCulloch. What do you want with my grandfather?”
Say what?
“Grandfather?” Sarah had a brother? “You’re Sarah’s brother?”
“Cousin. Now what do you want?”
“What do you do here, Jared?”
“I work—”
“Don’t say another bloody word!” Collum McCulloch’s voice boomed across the farmyard like thunder. I physically jerked with the surprise of it.
Apparently, Jared was used to it because he didn’t flinch. He did, however, shut up.
I braced myself as McCulloch marched across the yard, face red with fury. “You get off my land!”
What had I done? “Excuse me?”
He reached us and jerked his chin at his grandson. Understanding the silent communication, Jared strode away without a backward glance. I glowered at McCulloch. “Hello to you too.”
“Ach, don’t give me that, lass.” He scowled ferociously. “You can’t come onto my land, interrogating my grandson with no right to do so. I know why you’re here, and the police have already interviewed us. We’ve got nothing to do with whatever mess that man has landed himself in. Now get off my land.”
“What have I done to deserve such a welcome?”
“No Adair interlopers are allowed on McCulloch land.”
I flinched. “I’m not an Adair.”
“You’re as good as.”
“Because I’m Mac’s daughter?”
McCulloch curled his upper lip. “No, because you succumbed to that prick like every other bloody woman does.”
My cheeks grew hot. He didn’t mean what I thought he meant.
He nodded knowingly. “Oh aye, everyone watched the two of you at the ceilidh, and you were spotted leaving Gordon’s office seconds before Adair.”
Oh my God.
“And gossip travels fast.”
The thought of Gordon knowing Lachlan and I hooked up in his office was mortifying, but I pushed through it. “You listen to gossip?”
“Sometimes … when it’s true.” He pointed to my car. “Now get gone before I make you get gone.”
Something in his tone made me think he’d have no qualms manhandling a woman into her car, and I bristled in outrage. However, facts were facts. This was his land, and I was trespassing.
“I think you have something to do with what happened to my father,” I stated, expression hard. There was no way I’d let this man think he scared me. Once upon a time, he’d had my sympathy, but not now. “And you can try to mess with me and my trailer, but you should know I’ve faced bigger and badder things in this world than a troubled old man who can’t let go of the past.”
His eyes flashed dangerously. “Get the hell off my farm.”
Anger simmered in my gut as I got into the SUV. Driving away from the farm, my fingers curled tightly around the wheel with impatience.
Because there was no one else who fit the profile of the stalker and attacker better than McCulloch and his grandchildren.
Like I said: Occam’s razor.
The simplest explanation is usually the right one.
Now I just had to prove it.
25
Robyn
The noise broke into my dreams.
My eyes flew open, and I saw nothing but dark. Heart pounding, I struggled to hear over the rush of blood in my ears.
Something had woken me.
A crash.
My pulse leapt in my throat as realization dawned.
The suitcase. The suitcase I had stacked against the door of the trailer had been knocked over.
My ears pricked. It might have just been part of my dream. My subconscious—
Footsteps tapped softly across the trailer floor.
Blood whooshed in my ears.
Someone was here.
For a moment, fear paralyzed me as I heard the gentle creak of the floor moving.
Someone who didn’t want me to know they were here.
Move, Robbie, I hissed inwardly. Robyn, MOVE!
Escaping the cage of terror that imprisoned my limbs, I thrust off the bed covers, got onto my haunches, and waited as I listened through the thundering beats of my heart to the intruder’s movements.
They’d stopped outside the bedroom door.
The edge of the bed was less than a foot from the door.
The door was made of cheap wood, but more importantly, it swung outward into the trailer, not into the bedroom.
Balanced on the bed, hands holding the walls at either side of the doorway for support, I took a deep breath, pumped myself up, and then swung my knees up with force so I could drive my legs out into the door.
I threw my whole weight behind it and the door blasted open, hitting the resistance of the body behind it. A muffled but masculine curse preceded a clatter and then a thud.
Pushing out through the door, I almost tripped over his feet.
I’d knocked the fucker on his ass.
Slamming my palm into the light switch on the wall,
