by Holly Rayner
She had believed him when he’d told her he was a rancher. But what if he wasn’t? Or what if he did live on a ranch, but he had a second occupation that required him to keep his identity a secret?
Like what? You think he’s a federal agent?
He didn’t strike her as the type. As a police officer, she was pretty adept at recognizing fellow law enforcement officials.
Well, whatever his secret was, he didn’t have to worry. It seemed very unlikely to Gwen that she would ever see Clay again.
Chapter 8
Clay
Clay spent the entire plane ride home lost in thought.
It had been harder to say goodbye to Gwen than he had anticipated, especially when she had begun to beg for a way to keep in touch with him. He had wanted badly to give in, to give her his phone number or to connect with her on social media.
He knew that he had made the right choice. But still…
How long had it been since he had met a woman he’d admired the way he did Gwen? She was beautiful and kind and smart. How long had it been since he had connected with somebody that quickly? And now, to be forced to leave her behind, to put an end to their connection when it had only just begun…it was painful. He wanted to keep her in his life.
It was hard not to get lost in daydreams about what might have been, especially when he had landed and retrieved his car and was driving back toward the ranch. Gwen had never been to Texas. How exciting would it have been to be able to bring her here for the first time? How much fun would he have had driving her through these wide-open vistas, where the horizon seemed as far away as the moon?
And showing her the ranch for the first time—that would have been a real treat. He had so rarely brought anybody home to see the ranch. It was something that, for the most part, he had shared only with his father.
But having told Gwen all about the ranch and his experiences here, he found that he badly wanted to show it off to her.
As he drove up the winding dirt path that led from the main road to the large house in which he lived, he imagined telling her about his childhood and the times he’d spent riding his bike along this very path. When the house came into view, he imagined telling her about how he and his father had built the extra wing one fall. How it had felt like a race against time to finish before winter.
It felt massively disappointing to him that she wasn’t here. He had been looking forward to getting home, but now that he was here, he wondered what he had been so excited about. He had seen this place a million times. What was that, compared to sharing it with someone new?
He pulled the car to a stop and put it in park, allowing his head to fall back against the headrest. What was he getting so worked up about? He had never felt the urge to share the ranch with anyone else before. If anything, it had been the opposite. This was his place. Even on the rare occasion when he had met a girl in town who interested him, he had never considered bringing her back here.
There was something different about Gwen.
The time he had spent with her had been the best he’d had in years. He wanted to show her his home. He wanted her to know him better.
But what else could he have done?
They had known their relationship was temporary. He had known that when he left the Bahamas, he would leave her behind. She would go back to her life in New Orleans, and he would come back here. Neither of them was willing to consider leaving the life they knew behind—that much was clear—and especially not for someone they had known such a short time. He could never abandon his ranch. And she had an important job, one he could never ask her to give up. So what was the point in pretending they had any future?
And that was the other thing. Her job.
It still made him anxious to think that he’d spent the last several days with an officer of the law. He didn’t think he had ever known a police officer personally before, and what a strange and random thing to have happen right now, of all times—now, when he had just learned that he might be liable for a serious crime.
How he had gotten through that last evening with her, he would never know. He had been nervous and jumpy the whole time, and he was sure she had noticed something different in his behavior. But she hadn’t said anything about it, and Clay didn’t know how she could possibly make the connection between his nervousness and an illegal real estate deal.
She probably just thought I was stressed about the idea of going back home.
He got out of the car, went around to the trunk, and pulled out his suitcase. The sun was beginning to sink low in the sky, but Clay wasn’t feeling tired at all. His mind was still going a mile a minute. He had hoped that being back at home would help him to relax, enable him to figure out what his next steps ought to be, but that wasn’t happening.
And it really didn’t help matters that he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Gwen.
Did I really need to cut ties with her altogether? he wondered as he let himself inside. Maybe that was a little overdramatic. There must have been some way for us to remain friends. Maybe I should have accepted her request to be friends on social media.
No, he couldn’t allow himself to think like that. She was a cop, and he was guilty of a crime. If she found that out, it wasn’t going to matter that she had liked him. It wouldn’t matter that they’d had a good time together in the Bahamas. She was a professional. She would do what needed to be done. He was sure of that.
He dropped his suitcase and went into the kitchen, suddenly feeling an urge to pour himself a drink. There was a bottle of whiskey on top of the fridge. He twisted off the cap and pulled a glass down from the cupboard.
As he poured out a few fingers of whiskey, a thought occurred to him.
What if meeting a cop just as this information about his deal with Dave had come to light hadn’t been a coincidence at all?
What if she had been there because of him?
The idea made him shudder, and he set down the bottle of whiskey a little more forcefully than he had intended. That couldn’t be true, could it?
She was from New Orleans. She wouldn’t have been tapped to investigate a crime that had taken place in Texas.
She said she was from New Orleans. That could have been a lie.
But if she had wanted to lie, she could have just not bothered telling him that she was a cop at all. She could have said she owned a bakery. He would have believed her. If she was undercover, investigating him, why confess to the fact that she was a cop?
No. The thought was stupid. He was being ridiculously paranoid. Besides, she hadn’t even asked him any questions pertaining to his real estate dealings. He had told her about his work on the ranch, but they hadn’t discussed the house flipping he and Dave had been doing at all. If she’d wanted to know about that, she would have steered the conversation in that direction. Cops knew how to do that.
He had been intending to add a splash of soda to his whiskey, but instead he threw it back straight and poured out a little more. He needed to slow his mind down. He was becoming overwhelmed.
He picked up his drink, took it into the living room, and sat down on the couch, reflecting on the fact that just a few hours ago he had been miles away, on an island paradise in the Bahamas. Even though his ranch was home, and the place he felt most comfortable in all the world, he couldn’t help longing for the warm tropical breeze and the smell of coconut oil in the air.
He shook his head. He had come home early because there was a problem he needed to solve. He had to set his fantasies aside and focus on what was in front of him, and that was the legal trouble Dave had gotten the two of them into.
He wished he had the contracts from the properties they had purchased. Unfortunately, Dave had everything. They had agreed that he would keep all the paperwork, mostly because Clay hadn’t wanted to worry about anything difficult when it came to these transactions. He had wanted to give his friend the money and then see the profits returned to him. He hadn’t wanted to involve himself directly.
He was seriously regretting that choice now. If only he’d taken a little more interest in what was going on. If only he had bothered to read the contracts, insisted on signing them himself rather than allowing Dave to sign on his behalf.
He was going to have to get his hands on them and see what they said. It was the only way he could be sure how much trouble he was really in from these deals.
He picked up his phone and dialed Dave.
The phone rang several times. For a moment, Clay thought he wasn’t going to be able to reach his friend. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost nine thirty. Would Dave have gone to bed already? That didn’t seem likely—but he supposed it was possible. Maybe he would have to wait and speak to him tomorrow.
That sounded like torture. He wanted to get some answers now.
Someone answered the phone. “Hello?”
It wasn’t Dave. It was a woman’s voice.
Clay frowned. Had he called the wrong number? He held the phone away from his ear and looked at the screen—no, it said Dave, all right.
“I’m calling for David Fischer,” he said.
The woman hesitated. “Mr. Fischer isn’t available,” she said.
“Who is this?” Clay asked.
“I’m his assistant,” she said. “Ivy.”
“Ivy, this is urgent. I really need to speak to Dave.”
“Is this Mr. Murray?”
He breathed a sigh of relief. Dave must have told his assistant to expect Clay’s call.
“Yes, that’s me,” he said. “I’m sure he’s been waiting to hear from me.”
“He did tell me you would probably try to get in touch,” Ivy said. “He left a message for you.”
“A message?” He frowned. “What do you mean? Where is he?”
“I’m afraid I can’t say.”
“You can’t say, or you won’t?”
“I can’t,” she said, a bit of a hard edge creeping into her voice. “Mr. Fischer didn’t tell me where he was going, and I didn’t pry.”
“Well, did he tell you when he would be back?” Clay asked.
Ivy hesitated. “I wasn’t to expect him back,” she said. “He told me to go ahead and look for a new position. He left me his phone so that I could continue to take his phone calls for a week or two—he gave me an advance on my salary so that I would have time to find a new job. But my understanding was that he wouldn’t be returning to Texas.”
“He’s left Texas?”
She hesitated again. “That isn’t for me to say, Mr. Murray,” she said. “Would you like the message he left for you?”
“I suppose you’d better give it to me,” Clay said.
There was a pause, and Clay could hear a piece of paper rustling. Then she began to speak.
“Clay, I’m sorry to be leaving you holding the bag like this, but I did try to warn you. If you’re getting this message, that means you decided to try to contact me. I’m hoping you followed my advice and stayed at your vacation destination—I won’t name it here in case this call isn’t secure. If for some reason you decided to come back, I’d recommend getting back out as quickly as you can, before this mess hits the fan. That’s what I’ve done.
“You won’t be seeing me again. I’m sorry about the money, and I wish you the best, truly. I hope you don’t catch any heat for this. I’m sorry it went down this way.”
Ivy fell silent.
“That’s it?” Clay asked. “That’s the whole message?”
“That’s it,” Ivy said.
“And he didn’t leave anything else?” Clay pressed. “An envelope? Anything?”
If Clay’s math was right, Dave ought to have still had some of his money in his possession—and he was due the profits from the sale of the first property as well. It wouldn’t be much, not compared to what Clay had lost in this debacle. But it would be something.
“There’s nothing else,” Ivy said.
“Can I leave a message with you?” Clay asked. “In case he calls to check in?”
“He won’t be calling,” Ivy said.
“It won’t hurt you to take a message,” Clay insisted.
Ivy paused. Clay could almost hear her gritting her teeth.
“Fine,” she said. “What’s the message?”
“Tell him that he owes me money,” Clay said. “He can wire it to me if he wants to. Whatever’s convenient. But I’m not going to just forget about it. He had thousands of dollars of my money, and I guess he’s just used it to skip town.”
“Mr. Murray,” Ivy said. “You know I can’t comment on that.”
“Just write it down,” Clay insisted.
He heard a pen scratching. “All right,” she said. “If he calls in, I’ll get this message to him. But Mr. Murray, I have to tell you that I don’t think it’s very likely.”
“I understand that,” Clay said. “Thank you.”
He hung up the phone and stared at the wall opposite him.
So Dave had run.
He had taken the rest of Clay’s money and he had run. No doubt he had fled the country entirely. That’s what he had suggested Clay should do.
Which meant that Clay had no way of dealing with what had happened. He didn’t have the contracts, so he couldn’t review them. He didn’t have the contact information for the realtor Dave had used, so he couldn’t get in touch and try to get answers there. He didn’t even know the addresses of the properties they had purchased.
There was nothing he could do.
And it seemed very likely that eventually the law would catch up with him. Someone would trace the money that had been spent on the illegal purchases and it would lead back to Clay. Then he would have to answer for what Dave had done—and he didn’t know any of the answers.
He had no idea how he was going to handle that.
He picked up his glass of whiskey absently and took a sip.
Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe they would never find him.
He would have to hope.
Chapter 9
Gwen
The rest of Gwen’s last day at the resort had been a drab disappointment. She ate the cold leftovers from last night’s feast, watching a movie she had seen many times before and doing her best not to think about Clay.
He doesn’t want me to be thinking about him, she reminded herself over and over. He doesn’t want any further contact between the two of us. He’s ready for this to be over.
But she couldn’t seem to set aside the fantasies. Would it have been so much to ask to become social media friends? They could have contacted each other every December and reminisced about the Christmas they had spent together. For the first time in her life, Gwen would have been able to say that she had a standing holiday tradition with somebody, even if it was something as minor as a phone call.
But he hadn’t wanted that.
He had made it clear that he never wanted to see her again.
Well, that was fine. She didn’t need him.
Now if only I could bring myself to actually believe that.
Eventually, she couldn’t put off the chore of packing up her things any longer. She turned off the TV, pulled her suitcase out of the hotel room closet, and began to gather up the clothes and personal belongings that had found their way to various corners of the room during her stay.
At least her room was smaller than Clay’s. She only had to worry about the bedroom and the bathroom, and that made it easy to gather up her things and to be sure that nothing had been missed. But packing a suitcase at the end of a trip was always more difficult than packing at the beginning, even though she hadn’t acquired any new possessions. She did her best to roll her clothes as tightly as she had back at home, but they seemed to have expanded. She had to sit on her suitcase to make it close.
Packing had taken a little bit less time than she had expected. She decided to go ahead and check out, then visit the resort gift shop before catching a cab to the airport. Even though the little shop sold mostly tour
isty junk, it would be nice to have something to remember this trip by.
She went out into the lobby, returned her keys at the front desk, and thanked the receptionist for a pleasant holiday. Then she crossed the lobby toward the gift shop.
“Miss? Excuse me! Miss!”
She turned. A maid was rushing across the lobby toward her.
“Can I help you?” Gwen asked, puzzled.
“I’m so glad I saw you,” the maid said. “You were with the gentleman in room 108, weren’t you? I saw you there when I delivered room service to you last night.”
“Oh,” Gwen said. “Yes. That was me.”
“I was just cleaning up the room, and I found this.” The maid held out a cowboy hat, a really nice-looking one. “He must have forgotten it.”
“Thank you.” Gwen accepted it automatically.
“Have a good journey home,” the maid said and hurried away.
Gwen looked down at the hat in her hand, only now realizing that she had probably made a mistake in accepting it. She wasn’t going to be able to get this hat back to Clay. How could she? She was never going to see him again.
She looked down at her suitcase and thought about trying to fit it inside, but she knew immediately that was a bad idea. It would be crushed. At a loss for what else to do, she pulled it onto her head. At the very least, she could get the hat back to the States. Maybe she would be able to locate Clay after all.
In fact, if anything, didn’t this give her a justifiable reason to look for him? She was a police officer. She did know a thing or two about finding people with minimal information.
She wouldn’t have been able to bring herself to try to look him up just because she wanted to see him again. That would have been a misuse of police resources. You couldn’t look up someone just because you had feelings for them.
But having a piece of his property—that was something else. And the hat looked as if it might be valuable. Certainly it must have sentimental value to him, if nothing else. Cowboys took their hats seriously, didn’t they?