He twisted the rim of his hat between his fingers, his thoughts on the woman he’d just left. Katie Sampson, all grown up. She had turned twenty-three years old a month ago and was as pretty as any woman he’d ever seen—not that he cared.
He was just surprised that the wild-haired, skinned-knee brat had become a lovely young woman. Lovely to look at, he reminded himself, but still Katie Sampson.
As he waited, he thought about what little information Katie had given him. He dismissed the idea that somebody had intentionally spooked the herd in an effort to kill her. She’d always been given to melodrama and although unusual, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of reality for a storm to cause a herd to stampede.
A loud boom of thunder crashed overhead, but still no rain peppered the glass. Looking toward the windows, he wondered why he’d agreed to wait around, what else she could possibly want to tell him.
She entered the waiting room on crutches, her ankle cloaked in a bright purple wrap. Once again he was struck by the physical changes that had occurred since last time he’d seen her.
Her scrawny neck was now a graceful, slender column. Her grass-stained jeans clung to curvy hips and long, lean legs. That palpable tension again filled the air and he watched as she walked over to the window and stared out.
For a long moment she said nothing and he merely watched her, waiting for her to explain what she wanted, why she needed to talk to him.
“You didn’t even come to his funeral.” Her voice was low, but vibrated with a rich bitterness. She turned to face him, her pretty features twisted into an angry mask. “He loved you like a son, but you couldn’t even show up to pay your last respects.”
Grief ripped through him as he thought of her father. Gray Sampson had been far more than a neighbor to Zack. The older man had been like a second father to him. During Zack’s turbulent teenage years, Gray had been the voice of wisdom and unconditional love.
But he wasn’t about to explain himself to her. “You call me down here to talk about what I should or shouldn’t have done in the last two weeks or is there something else on your mind?”
Some of the anger left her face and for just a moment a raw vulnerability shone from her eyes and her shoulders sagged as if she carried the weight of the world on them. Zack preferred her anger, it was familiar.
“I want to hire you. Whether you believe it or not, somebody tried to get me killed this afternoon.”
He frowned. “Haven’t you heard? I’m not working for the family business anymore. I’m not for hire. Call Dalton, he’s in charge of the business while Tanner is on his honeymoon. He’ll assign somebody to you if that’s what you want.”
Zack’s father had semiretired a year before and Zack’s eldest brother, Tanner, had taken over the reins of running the company. However, Tanner had gotten married a week before and was now on his honeymoon, leaving Dalton, Zack’s second eldest brother in charge of the business.
Zack had worked as a bodyguard for the past ten years, since his twenty-first birthday, but a month ago he’d quit the family business when his last assignment had gone bad.
“I don’t want anyone else. I want you.” Whatever touch of vulnerability he’d thought he’d seen earlier in her was gone. Her eyes were steely, reminding him of when she’d been a young girl and had wanted her own way.
“I just told you, I’m not for hire anymore.”
To his surprise, she leaned toward him and placed a hand on his arm. “You’re the only person I really trust in this town and it’s not just about what happened to me this afternoon.”
Her blue eyes suddenly radiated an emotion he’d never seen in them before. Fear. Her fingers tightened on his arm. “Zack, I think somebody murdered my father.”
Chapter 2
She’d forgotten the raw masculinity that radiated from him. It was there in the simmering depths of his moss-green eyes, in the shadow of whiskers that darkened his jaw and the broad shoulders that strained at the confines of his navy T-shirt.
She dropped her hand from his arm, all too aware of the heat of his skin and her nearness to him. His scent surrounded her, the smell of the wind and the approaching storm and the underlying hint of maleness that might have stirred her if she’d allow it.
Taking a deep breath, she took a step backward as he stared at her in disbelief.
“What are you talking about?” His deep voice radiated skepticism. “From what I heard, Gray fell off his horse and hit his head. A senseless tragedy but hardly murder.”
“Dad was a championship bronco rider. There wasn’t a horse alive that could throw him. And he wasn’t riding some spirited mount that morning, he was riding Diamond, the same horse he’d been riding for the past seven years.”
The words bubbled from her like smoke from a boiling cauldron. All the fears she’d fought for the past two weeks suddenly seemed too close to the surface.
She needed somebody to listen to her. She needed somebody to really hear her. Another rumble of thunder boomed overhead.
“Katie, accidents happen, even to the most skilled riders. You should know that. All it takes is a moment of inattention, a snake on the path, anything can make a horse rear and throw a rider.” He raked a hand through his shaggy dark hair and she knew she was losing him.
“But we aren’t talking about some greenhorn, Zack. We’re talking about my father.” She turned around to stare out the window at the dark, angry clouds, despair eating at her.
“Something bad is happening at my ranch, Zack,” she continued. “And it started before my father’s death.”
“What do you mean?”
She turned back to face him and again felt the jolt of his physical presence. Damn, she’d hoped that four years of college and an additional year of wisdom and growth and life experiences would somehow kill the intense physical attraction she’d always felt for him.
If she lived to be a hundred, she’d never understand the contradiction of disliking him and being physically attracted to him. Even when she’d been young, the eight-years-older Zack West had excited her in ways she hadn’t understood.
When she’d heard he was back in town a month before, she’d steeled herself for a visit, but he hadn’t come around. She’d been relieved and yet oddly disappointed by his absence.
Then, at her father’s funeral she’d looked for him, appalled by the fact that he hadn’t been there. But she tamped down the simmering resentment about that and instead focused on what she needed to tell him.
“A month ago Dad was going up to the hayloft in the barn and he fell through one of the rungs of the ladder. If he hadn’t managed to grab on to the step above, he would have fallen to the floor. We discovered that it looked like the rung had been partially sawed through.”
Zack frowned, the gesture pulling together his thick dark eyebrows. “Have you talked to Jim Ramsey about these things?”
Kate sighed as she thought of the sheriff of Cotter Creek. “I spoke to him a week after dad’s death. He seemed to think I was making mountains out of molehills, that I needed to go home and grieve and stop looking for boogey men at the ranch.”
At the look on Zack’s face, she wanted to cry. She saw his disbelief and knew that he was probably thinking the same thing as Sheriff Ramsey had, that her grief was making her somehow delusional.
“Look, Katie …”
“It’s Kate,” she corrected, and saw his jaw clench. “I outgrew Katie when I stopped wearing pigtails.”
“Kate, just answer me one question.” He gazed at her intently. “Why on earth would anyone want to kill your father? Everyone liked Gray. He didn’t have any enemies in the world.”
“If I knew why somebody wanted him dead, then maybe I’d know who is doing these things.” She moved over to one of the orange chairs and lowered herself into it. She noticed he hadn’t asked why anyone would want to kill her.
He probably thought she deserved whatever came her way. Certainly he’d never hidden his dislike for her. “Look, I
know we haven’t exactly had a stellar relationship in the past, but I need you to come work at the ranch and to find out what’s going on. Don’t do this for me. Do it for Dad. He loved you like a son.”
Funny, after all this time the thought of Gray’s love and adoration for Zack still had the capacity to wrankle her heart just a little bit. But she didn’t have time to examine old baggage and resentments. As much as she hated it, she needed Zack.
“Katie—Kate,” he corrected himself. “I already explained to you, I don’t work for Wild West Protective Services anymore. I quit a month ago.” He set his hat back on his head and she couldn’t believe he was going to walk out on her.
She struggled to her feet, cursing the ankle that forced her to move across the floor on crutches as he started for the door. “I guess my father was one poor judge of character,” she said to Zack’s back.
He slowly turned to face her, his eyes flat and emotionless. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”
As the events of the afternoon replayed in her mind, it wasn’t just anger that built inside her, but also fear. “Dad believed you hung the moon and stars. He thought you were a man of honor and he’d turn over in his grave if he knew you were turning your back on him.”
He stood frozen, his features utterly devoid of emotion. In the long pause of silence, her anger outweighed her fear. “Get out,” she exclaimed, overwhelmed by so many emotions she thought she might explode. “I must have been out of my mind to call you in the first place. Just get out, get out of my sight.”
He didn’t wait for her to tell him again. He turned on his heels and left the waiting room. Kate walked back to the window and looked out with regret.
If only she could call back the last three minutes of their conversation. Whenever she was stressed or feeling powerless, she had a tendency to respond with anger. It was a curse and a habit she’d worked hard to change, but ten minutes with Zack and she’d reverted to old form.
She watched until he pulled out of the lot and out of her sight. It was only then that an unexpected sob rose up in her throat. She swallowed hard against it.
Other than tears spent upon her father’s death, it had been years since she’d cried. In fact, the last time she remembered crying had also been the last time she’d seen Zack. Of course, she’d been a headstrong almost-eighteen-year-old at the time and he’d been the very bane of her existence.
She had promised herself a long time ago that she would never again cry over Zack West. She angrily wiped at her eyes as she limped out of the hospital and toward her truck.
The storm was passing, without a drop of rain having fallen. Early June and already they were suffering a drought. But the weather conditions were the last thing on her mind as she left the hospital behind and headed back toward the ranch.
Instead she focused on the stampede, worrying about the damage that had been wrought by the out-of-control herd. New fencing cost money, dead cattle were a loss and, for a moment, she felt overwhelmed by the choice she’d made to take over the reins of the ranch after her father’s death.
They were supposed to have been partners, she and her father. After college, when she’d decided to return to the ranch, she’d hoped that the two of them would work side by side on the land they both loved. She’d hoped to have the time to make her father proud of her. But time had been stolen from them.
He’d been murdered.
Nothing and nobody would ever be able to convince her otherwise. And nothing and nobody would be able to make her believe that the stampede that had nearly taken her life hours before had been an accident.
Something bad was happening at her ranch and the one man she’d believed might be able to help her had walked away, leaving her alone to face whatever evil had come to stay at the Bent Tree Ranch.
It was just after seven the next morning when Zack drove toward the Sampson place. Nightmares had driven him out of bed at a few minutes before five and for the last two hours he’d been sitting at his kitchen table, drinking coffee and thinking about Gray and his daughter.
The nightmares had been a part of his life for the past month, but the thoughts of Gray and Katie were new and confusing. He didn’t believe that Gray had been murdered, nor did he believe that somebody had tried to kill Katie by stampeding her herd the day before.
As a girl, Katie’d had a penchant for finding drama and creating trouble. Zack certainly knew what grief could do to somebody, how it could work in the brain and create all kinds of crazy scenarios. He’d learned that the hard way over the past month.
But the fear he’d seen in Katie’s eyes had been very real and his love and respect for Gray weighed heavy in his heart.
Gray had been his sanity through the insanity of adolescence. Gray had been his family when he’d felt isolated, invisible in his own. As one of six kids, Zack had gotten lost amid his siblings and if not for Gray’s love and counsel, Zack had no idea how he might have survived those years of seeming isolation.
He’d decided to give Katie a couple of days, to sniff around the ranch to see if anything nefarious was going on. He wasn’t doing it for her. He’d do it in the memory of the man he’d loved like a father.
Dammit. He’d do it even though he didn’t want to be anywhere around her, have anything to do with her. Besides, in the past month he’d grown tired of his own company, tired of not knowing what direction his life would take.
He turned into the entrance of the Sampson place and saw the tree that had given the ranch its name. Bent Tree Ranch. The tree was an old oak bent at the waist like an old woman with a short cane. Many times as a teenager he’d arrive at the ranch to see Katie sitting in the limbs, a mutinous glare on her face.
This morning there was no sign of Katie in the tree, but Zack did see the signs of trouble in the overgrown lawn and the fact that he didn’t see a single ranch hand working anywhere on the property.
He pulled up in front of the house and before he could cut the engine, the door opened and she stepped out into the early-morning sunshine.
Her hair caught the fire of the sun and glistened as her pretty features radiated surprise at his appearance. Clad in a pair of worn, tight jeans and a light blue T-shirt that only enhanced her attractiveness, she stood motionless.
Zack shut off his truck, already regretting the impulse that had brought him here.
“What do you want?” No hint of friendliness or relief in those blue eyes of hers. There was also no sign of the crutches.
“I didn’t think this was about what I wanted, but rather what you wanted,” he replied. “You said you needed my help. I’m here.”
She hesitated, and for a moment he wondered if she would send him away again. Fine by him. He was here under duress, haunted by the memories of her father, tormented by the trauma he’d suffered on his last assignment.
“Come in,” she finally said, and opened the screen door to allow him entry. He nodded and walked past the two redwood rockers on the front porch, trying not to remember the hundreds of nights he and Gray had sat on the porch and solved world problems.
Although it had been almost a year since Zack had been inside the house, he felt embraced by the familiarity as he walked through the door and into the living room.
Gray’s wife had died when Katie had been a year old and the absence of a feminine touch had always been present in the house. The furniture was sturdy, in neutral earth colors.
The focal point of the room was a large television. On either side of the television were shelves that held trophies and ribbons, ornate buckles and photos of Gray’s years as a professional bronc rider.
The room smelled of furniture polish and an underlying remnant of cherry pipe tobacco. The familiar scent shot a wave of sorrow through him. He should have visited Gray when he’d arrived home from his last assignment.
He should have taken the time to come talk to the old man. But he’d been so wrapped up in rage, in despair, he hadn’t wanted to visit anyone, and now Gray was
gone.
“Come on into the kitchen,” she said.
He swept his hat from his head and followed behind her, trying not to notice the slight sway of her hips in her tight jeans. Maybe the sway was because she was limping slightly.
He touched his cheek, in the place where a faint scar had remained, to remind himself of their history. Kate. Not Katie, he reminded himself.
Papers strewed the round oak kitchen table and she quickly gathered them up as she gestured him into one of the chairs. “I was just going over some figures, trying to see what the stampede is going to cost me.”
“Damage bad?” he asked, and eased into the chair.
“Bad enough.” She walked over to the counter where a coffeepot was half full. “Want a cup?”
“All right,” he agreed. This all felt far too civil and every muscle in his body tensed as if in anticipation of some kind of explosion.
She set a cup of coffee in front of him, then carried her own to the chair next to his and sat. “I lost three cows, six calves and half a fence line.”
“I also heard you’ve lost a number of your ranch hands in the last couple of weeks.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Where did you hear that?”
“Smokey mentioned it to me.” Smokey Johnson wasn’t just the cook and housekeeper for the West clan. When Zack’s mother had been murdered years ago, Smokey had been working as the ranch manager. He’d moved into the house to help Zack’s father with the six motherless children, all under the age of ten.
She shook her head. A faint smile curved her lips, there only a moment, then gone. “That man seems to know everything about everyone in this town. And yes, about half the men walked off in the week following my dad’s death. I’m not sure whether it was because they didn’t want to work for a woman or they assumed I’d be selling the ranch. They ran like cockroaches in the light of day. But I’ve got some good men left.” A frown lowered her perfectly arched eyebrows. “At least, I think they’re good men.”
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