Fatal Ranch Reunion

by Jaycee Bullard

  Tacy turned and walked toward the truck. She climbed into the passenger seat and pulled the door closed. Should he offer to drive her to see a doctor? It didn’t seem likely that she would take him up on it, but it was worth a shot. He poked his head through the open window. “I have to take Steven’s bike home, but how about I pick you up in a half hour and take you to the clinic?”

  Something changed in her countenance, and her eyes clouded with wariness. “That won’t be necessary. I can ask my grandfather for a ride.”

  Her grandfather. Right. Of course, she’d chosen a Tolbert over a Hunt. So that was it, then. Except for the one last question tugging at his brain. “You said something about hearing a gunshot right before the stampede?”

  Her forehead wrinkled. “I did?”

  “Yeah. Could you tell where it came from?”

  She fixed her glance on him, and his heart somersaulted in his chest. He had forgotten that her brown eyes always gave away whatever emotion she was feeling. Joy. Sadness. Anxiety.

  Right now, they were dark and guarded. “Why does it matter?”

  He didn’t have a good answer, just a gut feeling that there were too many odd factors at play to chalk up to coincidence. “I’m not sure it does, but I’m going to check the perimeter of the pen to look for shells and maybe figure out where the shooter was standing. In the meantime, you should ask for a drug screen at the clinic. Just in case you accidentally ingested something that could be making you groggy.”

  Tacy nodded. He half-expected her to ask how he thought she might have “accidentally ingested” something strong enough to cause her to fall asleep at the wheel of the ATV. When she didn’t, he was glad. For the moment, he’d keep his concerns under wraps, at least until he had the chance to inspect the area around the gate. He stepped away from the truck as Len revved the engine and cranked the wheel.

  He waited for the dust to settle before heading on foot across the pasture. Before him, the field stretched like a dappled carpet under a canopy of blue, the variegated grasses giving way to the purple and yellow wildflowers along the edge of the hill.

  But he couldn’t allow the beauty of the land to distract him from his mission. He wanted to see the open gate and empty enclosure for himself and draw his own conclusions. It all came down to the question of whether someone had deliberately tried to harm Tacy. And if so, why? But on that particular subject, he wasn’t sure where to start. He didn’t know anything about her life in Colorado. After she left Chimney Bluff, she had ignored all of his attempts to reach out and discuss what had happened between them. He had sent dozens of letters and made hundreds of calls, but she had never replied. Until she sent him the paperwork for the divorce.

  Enough. His MP training had taught him to compartmentalize his feelings, to concentrate his focus on the task before him. When he reached the top of the hill, he trained his glance on the bison enclosure. Sure enough, the gate was open. He studied the ground, but the grass was too dry to reveal footprints. He walked a few paces. It didn’t add up. Could Tacy be wrong about the gunshot? She said that the blast woke her up. But maybe it was some other sound that she mistook for the crack of a gun firing.

  Still, he wanted to talk to his brother. If Steven had left the gate open, that was just plain carelessness. Someone needed to remind him that he was almost thirty now, not some immature teenager obsessed with riding bulls. Seb clenched his jaw. The fact that Steven could be so reckless made his blood boil. Because of his mistake, Tacy had almost been killed.

  He turned and began to walk toward the spot where he had left the motorcycle. As he passed by the gate, his eye caught the glint of metal on the ground. He bent down and reached for it, his fingers rummaging in the dirt before locking on a small cylinder. A rifle shell, fresh and shiny. And recently fired, if he could believe the telltale gunpowder tang still clinging to the metal.

  Once again, instinct kicked in, causing him to consider the possibility that the open gate had been something more than a careless mistake. And maybe—just maybe—his gut was right, and Tacy was the intended target of a near-deadly attack.

  TWO

  Tacy’s visit to the clinic had gone just as she had expected. The doctor had stitched the gash on her arm and administered the injection with speedy precision.

  Better safe than sorry, her father used to say. But did getting a tetanus shot ensure that she was safe? Seb had asked a lot of questions about her state of mind leading up to the accident. And he had seemed awfully interested in the gunshot she had heard right before the stampede. But why would anyone want to hurt her? This was Chimney Bluff. The only people who even knew that she was home were her grandfather and Lois and a handful of workers at the ranch. If only her father was here to help her understand what was going on.

  Oh, Dad. I miss you so much.

  She took a deep breath. She felt so much better now that she had gotten checked out at the clinic. And while she was there, she’d asked for—and received—a drug test as Seb had recommended. The results would take a while to process, but the doctor had tried to ease her concerns by pointing out that the fatigue she had experienced earlier might be just a normal reaction to months of exhaustion and stress. It was a plausible diagnosis, especially after she explained that she’d had hardly a minute to relax between finishing her course work, studying for the bar exam, and caring for her dad. Add guilt and sadness to the mix, and there were no margins left to keep things in perspective.

  No wonder she kept fixating on the strange coincidence that Seb had been the one to ride to her rescue. A blush of heat rose in her cheeks at the memory. When he took off his helmet and she saw his face, a familiar jolt of attraction had surged through her veins. She had forgotten how she used to feel when they were together. But those emotions needed to remain tucked away in the deepest part of her heart.

  She paused in the shade of the building to allow her eyes to adjust to the white-hot glare of the afternoon sun. Typical late summer in western North Dakota. Hot and dry.

  “Tacy!”

  She looked across the parking lot and saw Seb heading toward her. He placed a dusty boot on the curb where she was standing. “Everything okay?”

  “I got the shot.” She twisted her arm to show him to bandage. “And they took a swab of my saliva to do a drug screen as well.”

  “How long before you get the results?”

  “The nurse said it might take a couple of days. What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you. I called the ranch, and Len told me that you had gone to the clinic. I wanted to fill you in on what I found when I checked the buffalo enclosure. The latch on the gate was intact—someone opened it on purpose. And I found a spent shell in the grass about ten feet away. The powder residue smelled fresh, so I assume it came from a rifle that was recently fired.”

  Tacy’s heart sank. She’d hoped she’d been wrong about that. “I was pretty out of it when I woke up, but it’s good to know that I didn’t imagine the gunshot.” A shiver of fear ran up her spine as she recalled the sight of the buffalo approaching. What if she had died right there? Who would raise Timmy?

  At the thought of her son—enrolled at a camp in eastern Wyoming, less than a hundred miles away—a knot of anxiety coiled in her gut. Seb was Timmy’s dad. If she had been killed in the stampede, would he have stepped in to care for their son?

  She hoped so. But she couldn’t be sure.

  “Tacy?” Seb raised a brow. “You okay?”

  “I’m good. I was just thinking about what might have happened if you hadn’t come along when you did.”

  “Yeah, well. It all worked out, didn’t it?” His dark eyes crinkled as he smiled, and her heart jumped in her chest. It was almost as if...

  Stop it, she told herself. He abandoned you, remember? Left you crushed and heartbroken, and then he filed for divorce. She wouldn’t let herself go all moony-eyed and soft. She pus
hed back her shoulders and stood a little straighter.

  “Right,” she said as she turned away from him. “I better go. Thanks again.”

  She barely heard his hesitant goodbye. She fumbled through her purse for her sunglasses, slipped them on and swiveled around just in time to see Seb climb into a green truck parked only a few spaces away from her Nissan.

  “Bye, Seb,” she said as she reached for the handle of her vehicle.

  Even though the sunroof was open, her car felt like an oven when she climbed inside. She flipped on the air conditioner and opened the windows. As soon as the temperature cooled down, she’d close everything up and be on her way. But as she reached behind her to click on her seat belt, an unsettled feeling pulsed across her chest. She craned her neck to check the empty back seat and then looked up through the sunroof at the branches of the tree overhanging the space. She shifted her right foot onto the gas petal, and something brushed against her leg.

  A scream stuck in her throat as a rattlesnake slithered out from under the seat and raised its head to stare back at her, its dark, beady eyes calculating and alert.

  She blew out a long, silent breath. She needed to stay calm and ignore the fact that a thick, scaly tail was loosely coiled inches from her ankle.

  Memories from ten years ago cascaded through her brain. Hadn’t she survived for five hours trapped on a narrow ledge three hundred feet above the ground? That day on the cliff, there had been snakes among the rocks. But she hadn’t flinched or panicked back then. She had stayed strong.

  It was time to summon that same courage again.

  A desperate scheme took shape in her head. If she could get her legs off the floor, she could push herself through the sunroof and out of the snake’s range. Lifting herself through the opening would be difficult, but not impossible.

  She leaned back against her seat and lifted her right leg one inch at a time until her foot was level with the seat. Her heart jackhammered as the rattler’s tongue slipped in and out of its mouth, teasing and threatening. She closed her eyes and prayed for fortitude. Help me, God. You were there for me on the rocky ledge. You gave me strength that I never knew I possessed. And You created me to be smarter than any old snake.

  Now the easy part. She raised her right arm and looped her fingers around the rim of the sunroof. Once she secured her grip, she did the same on the opposite side with her left hand. Now all she needed to do was lift her left leg onto the seat and boost herself through the roof without triggering the snake to strike.

  A movement on her left caught her attention. Seb was out of his vehicle, his eyes dark and questioning.

  “Rattlesnake,” she mouthed.

  He shook his head.

  “Rattlesnake,” she repeated, desperate to make him understand.

  A second later, his face appeared at the window. His eyes flickered to the snake knotted on the floor.

  “Okay. I see it,” he said.

  She shifted her body against the back of her seat to make space for her other leg. Terror seeped down her spine as the rattler’s triangular head pulsated on its neck, charting her every move. Don’t look at it. She forced herself to stare straight ahead as her foot dangled inches from the floor. Don’t look. Her muscles began to quiver. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the snake’s forked tongue stab the air and hear its tail’s deadly rattle.

  Don’t look.

  But she couldn’t resist one quick glance at those flickering eyes and that yawning open mouth that seemed ready to...snap.

  The rattler struck.

  * * *

  Seb wrenched open the handle, yanked Tacy from the driver’s seat, and slammed the door behind them. She went limp in his arms as he carried her to the curb and set her down.

  “Stay calm. I’ll get help.” He pulled his cell from his pocked, punching in two numbers before she stopped him with a touch of her hand.

  “I’m okay. Its fangs didn’t penetrate my boot.”

  He let out a long breath. Maybe the rattler hadn’t shot its venom into her system, but the close call must have set her heart racing.

  His heart was racing. He needed to get a grip on his feelings and stay focused.

  “You can wait in my truck while I call someone to get the snake out of your car.”

  He offered her his arm and she accepted it as she pulled herself up, but then she released it immediately. He opened the door and waited until she was settled in the passenger seat. Then he walked around to the rear of the vehicle and placed a call to the sheriff. By the time he climbed into the driver’s seat, his shirt was damp with perspiration. He inserted his key in the ignition, and the whir of the air conditioner pulsed through the vents.

  “It should cool off in a few minutes.” He glanced at Tacy, who was sitting ramrod straight, her eyes fixed ahead. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  She didn’t look fine. Her face was pale, and her arms were trembling. “The dispatcher said they’d have a truck here in the next half hour. So, all we have to do is wait.”

  “Thank you again for coming to my rescue.”

  “From where I was standing, you were doing a good job of handling that rattler yourself. I can’t believe how calm you were.”

  “Calm? I didn’t feel calm. I felt desperate.”

  “Yeah, well, that was an extremely scary situation. Like what happened this morning with the buffalo. Has it occurred to you that the two incidents might be connected?”

  Tacy’s lips pursed. “It’s not that strange, is it? I left the sunroof open and parked under a tree.”

  “Rattlesnakes don’t climb trees.”

  “Sometimes they do.”

  She folded her arms, and nostalgia panged in his chest. For a moment it felt like they were ten years old and arguing about whose horse won the race across the pasture.

  “Okay. Fine,” he conceded. “Maybe it’s possible for a snake to fall out of a tree and through an open sunroof into a car parked underneath. But isn’t it also possible that something more serious is going on? In the last six hours, you’ve already had two near-death experiences.”

  Tacy shook her head. “I understand what you are saying, Seb. But it’s a huge leap to assume that someone is trying to kill me.”

  “But what about the shell I found in the grass?”

  “You know as well as I do that it could have been on the ground for weeks.”

  Hadn’t he told her that the powder smelled fresh? But she clearly didn’t want to hear it. “All I’m saying is that you need to be careful. Because in all the time I’ve spent on the ranch, no one has ever left the gate to the buffalo enclosure open. No one. Ever. And I have never heard of a rattler falling from a tree.” He reached over and picked up the notes he had scribbled on the back of an envelope. “While you were inside the clinic, I did an online search to see what I could find out about your grandfather’s new wife. It took a bit of digging, but I all I discovered was that her maiden name was Cloverfield and that she used to live in Reno.”

  Tacy’s eyes widened. “Why did you do that? What does Lois have to do with any if this?”

  “I haven’t figured out that part out yet. But think about it, Tace. A long-lost granddaughter arrives in town and threatens the status quo. It’s pretty weak as a motive, but if the tox screen comes back positive for a sedative, it might be something worth considering.”

  A shadow of anxiety passed over her face. “Look, Seb. I should have mentioned this earlier, but I’m headed home tomorrow. This was only a short visit to give my grandfather a letter from my dad.”

  What? Seb turned his head to hide his dismay. Tacy only planned to stay in Chimney Bluff for one more day? He had been hoping that at some point they could have a real conversation. Not that he expected them to look into each other’s eyes and decide that the divorce was a mistak
e. No. That was water under the bridge, as his mom liked to say. But this could be his only chance to talk.

  “I’m surprised your grandfather didn’t convince you to stay longer.”

  Tacy hesitated. “I actually haven’t told him that I’m leaving yet. He’s not going to like it, but I need to get home. I have a lot going on.”

  Life seemed to be pulling her in a couple of different directions. He got it. He had options, too. Six weeks ago, when he resigned his military commission, working the land and running the ranch had seemed like an ideal respite from the uncertainty of life in war-torn countries across the globe. But an unexpected job offer with the FBI in Washington, DC had given him pause. The agency had allowed him ample time to make a decision, but, at this point, the six-week grace period had dwindled down to two.

  He looked at his watch. “The snake removal guy should be here shortly.”

  “Chimney Bluff has a snake removal guy?”

  “They’ll probably send the lowest ranking deputy from the station.”

  Sure enough, when the blue-and-white squad car pulled into the lot, the officer in charge looked like a kid excited about his first real case as he began to unload his equipment from the trunk.

  “So,” Seb said after a minute passed in silence. “You like being a lawyer?”

  Tacy shot him a look. “I don’t know yet. I just took the bar exam, so I have to wait and see if I passed.”

  “You’ll pass.” No doubt about it. Tacy had been top of her class in high school with a bright future ahead. Until he had messed everything up with his crazy idea that they should get married and run away. “You’ve always been smart as a whip,” he continued.

  “Maybe I wasn’t so smart, all things considered.”

  Wow. Her zinger hit its mark. He looked away, fighting to gain control. Was she insinuating that marrying him had been a bad decision? Even though it was true, the implication hurt. And it served the intended purpose and shut him up.