Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  They drove toward the main house. The West residence was a huge, rambling ranch that made Kate’s house look quaint. Of course, it had only been Kate and her father living at Bent Tree Ranch, while the West place had been home to Zack, his father, Smokey, Zack’s four brothers and his sister.

  A stab of ancient resentment stirred inside her and she consciously tamped it down, knowing the worst thing she could do was allow it to take hold.

  They pulled up and immediately the front door opened and Smokey Johnson and Red West stepped out onto the front porch. Red was a big man, with the same broad shoulders as his sons and an easy warmth that made people immediately trust him.

  Smokey was shorter, with gray hair and bushy eyebrows pulled together in a perpetual frown. Kate wasn’t put off by the frown. She knew Smokey possessed a heart of gold beneath his gruff exterior.

  Red embraced Kate in a quick hug, then looked at his son with open curiosity. “Awful early for a visit. Let’s head inside and you can tell me what’s going on.”

  Minutes later they were seated at the kitchen table being served coffee by Smokey. Kate knew that years ago Smokey had worked as ranch manager for Red, but a fall from a horse had left him with a limp and a new job helping to raise Red’s kids.

  Zack had just begun to fill them in on what was going on when Dalton entered the kitchen. Two years older than Zack’s thirty-one years, Dalton shared the West green eyes and dark hair, but his features were softer, less sculptured than Zack’s.

  Dalton took the file folder Zack had carried in with him and agreed to get to work right away on the background checks, then Zack excused himself to go into the office to make a call to Sheriff Ramsey and get Katie a pair of shoes.

  “Hell of a thing,” Red said when Zack had left the room. “We’re losing the good men and women of Cotter Creek right and left, first Joe Wainfield in that terrible tractor accident, then your father and now this … somebody trying to hurt you.”

  “If anyone can figure out who’s behind this, it’s Zack,” Smokey said, his affection for Zack apparent in his gruff voice. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders.”

  “Anything you need, Kate, anything we can do, you just let us know,” Red added. “We’re always here for Zack and we’re here for you, too.”

  Her heart filled with a combination of gratitude tempered by a renewed flare of old resentment. The love and support Zack received from his family was evident on their faces, in their words, in the very air of the room.

  So why hadn’t that been enough for him? Why had he felt the need to steal her father’s love and respect from her?

  Chapter 7

  By the time Katie and Zack returned to her ranch the sheriff and the fire chief were waiting for them.

  “We’ve already questioned the ranch hands who are here,” Sheriff Ramsey said. “Unfortunately nobody saw or heard anything. It’s also going to be tough to check alibis. Most of the men will tell me they were in bed at the time the fire began.”

  “There’s no question arson was involved,” Chief Buddy Norval said. “From the fire pattern it’s easy to see that the fire was set directly beneath the bedroom window.” He looked at Kate. “You were lucky, little lady, that your men saw the fire and came to the rescue.”

  “There will be a full investigation,” Jim promised as he got into his patrol car. He pulled away from the ranch, the fire chief following behind him.

  “Golly, that was a lot of help,” Katie said dryly.

  Zack grimaced, knowing that the odds of them discovering the guilty party were negligible. Somebody had almost gotten away with murder the night before. It had only been a stroke of luck that had kept Katie alive.

  In the early morning light the full extent of the damage was visible, although not as devastating as Zack had feared. The exterior plywood had burned away to reveal the 2×4s beneath, but at least they and the roof had been saved.

  “Half a day’s work and we’ll have the plywood replaced,” Zack said as they stood side by side surveying the damage. “We’ll just board up the window for the time being. Let’s go inside and take a look at the bedroom.”

  He followed behind her as they entered the house. She’d been unusually quiet since they’d left his place and he wondered what thoughts whirled around in her head.

  She continued to surprise him with her composure, her calm in the midst of a storm. She had to be frightened, but she’d displayed little of that emotion.

  He found himself wondering what life experiences in the past five years had transformed her from the out-of-control wild child into a reasonable, rational woman facing apparent danger with a calm, steely resolve.

  “Looks like I won’t be sleeping in here anytime soon,” she said as they stepped into her bedroom. The walls were smoke-damaged and the floor and furnishings were wet from the fire-extinguishing water that had been sprayed through the broken window.

  He watched as she walked to her closet and opened the door. The clothing inside appeared fine, but he knew each article would retain the smoky scent of the fire.

  “Everything will have to be washed,” she said, as if she’d tapped into his thoughts. She grabbed several pairs of jeans from a shelf, a handful of shirts and two pairs of shoes.

  “Need some help?” he asked.

  “No thanks, I’ll just take what I need for the next couple of days and get a load of laundry started.” Although her voice remained calm, her features radiated the first cracks in her facade. She appeared pale, a small wrinkle danced across her brow and her lips were compressed in a taut line.

  He followed her from her bedroom into the laundry room just off the kitchen. He watched as she put the first load into the washer and started the machine, then she turned to him, her frown deepening.

  “Are you going to follow me around like a shadow all day long?”

  “Depends on where you go and what you intend to do,” he replied. “In case you’ve forgotten, somebody tried to kill you last night.”

  Her lips thinned as she clenched her jaw for a moment. “I’m not likely to forget anytime soon.” She leaned back against the washing machine, her eyes holding a whisper of haunting.

  Before he could reply, Jake’s voice called from the front door. “Kate?”

  Zack stepped aside so she could leave the laundry room, then followed her to the front door. He stood back and watched as Jake took Kate’s hands in his.

  “Are you all right? I was worried sick about you all night.” The handsome blond cowboy cast a quick glance at Zack, the brief eye contact managing to radiate a wealth of resentment.

  “I’m fine,” she assured him, and didn’t seem in a hurry to reclaim her hands from his.

  “The sheriff and Chief Norval said the fire was intentionally set. What’s going on?” Jake asked.

  “I wish I knew,” Katie replied, and finally withdrew her hands from his.

  Jake stepped closer to her and Zack felt every muscle in his body tense. He told himself that it was a protective response, that he wanted to make sure Jake did nothing to harm Katie.

  “What can I do to help, Kate?” he asked. “I’m not talking about feeding cattle and cleaning horse stalls. I’m talking about you personally, what can I do to help you get through this?”

  Zack wanted to tell him to step back from her and give her a chance to breathe. For crying out loud, the man stood so close to her he had to be stealing all the oxygen in her immediate area.

  “What I need most from you and the other men is to keep the ranch running smoothly and help get the side of the house repaired before nightfall,” she said.

  Zack could tell Jake didn’t like her words, would have preferred something more personal from her. Maybe he wanted to rub her feet or stroke her brow, he thought irritably.

  “Of course.” He finally stepped back from her and Zack relaxed a bit.

  “And tell Sonny I need to speak with him,” she added.

  He nodded. “I’ll go find him right away.”
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br />   “Thanks, Jake.”

  He flashed her a big grin, shot Zack another quick glance filled with simmering resentment, then left.

  “That boy has got it bad for you,” Zack observed as she closed the front door.

  She sighed and worried a hand through her long, shining hair. “Too bad romance is the very last thing on my mind. In fact, I haven’t had time for romance since I left college and came back here.”

  “What about before then? In college?” He had no idea why he’d asked the questions. It had nothing to do with his job in finding her father’s murderer and keeping her alive. It fell under the heading of useless information he didn’t need to know.

  “In college I had time for romance,” she answered succinctly, and offered no more details. “So, what’s the plan for the day?”

  “If you’re going to stay inside and do laundry, then I’ll go outside and help the men with the house. But the rules are that nobody comes inside unless I’m in here, too. No exceptions.”

  “That’s not a problem. I’m not in the mood for company this morning. In fact, if I thought about it real hard, I could probably work up a case of crankiness.”

  “Maybe you need a nap,” he offered, although he was feeling a bit cranky himself. “Neither one of us got a good night’s sleep.”

  A knock on the front door interrupted the conversation.

  She opened it to Sonny, whose features showed the same worry Jake’s had worn. “I’m ashamed to say I slept through the excitement last night,” he said, a hangdog expression on his face.

  Kate placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Sonny. All’s well that ends well. The men from the bunkhouse rose to the alarm and thankfully managed to put out the fire before I got cooked.”

  “Hell of a thing,” Sonny said, and shook his head. “The sheriff and Chief Norval spoke to all the men about the fire,” he said. “I just want you to know that I can’t imagine one of my men being responsible for something like that.”

  “I know. I don’t want to think that one of our men could be responsible,” Katie replied.

  As the two spoke about what needed to be done for the day, Zack watched the old man carefully, knowing that from this moment on every single person in Katie’s life was a potential suspect.

  Still, it was difficult to think of Sonny as a viable suspect. The man had worked for Gray for years, had been a trusted right-hand man to Katie’s father. That didn’t let him off the hook entirely, but as far as Zack was concerned, there were others of more interest.

  He thought about Jake. It was obvious the man desperately wanted a relationship with Katie. Was it possible the handsome face hid a devious mind?

  Was it possible he’d killed Gray to get closer to Katie? Then had set the fire and planned to be the hero? As Zack remembered the night’s events, Jake had been only a step behind him in getting through the front door and into Katie’s bedroom.

  Was it possible Brett Cook, who had been fired and rehired by Gray more than once, harbored such a hatred for his boss that killing him hadn’t been enough? His hatred demanded more … the death of Gray’s daughter?

  Zack had nothing but speculation and even he recognized that this kind of speculation was wild and that he was reaching for answers. The truth of the matter was, he didn’t have enough information on which to base any speculation.

  When Sonny and Katie had concluded their conversation, Sonny left and Zack was once again alone with her. “I want you to lock the front door and don’t let anyone inside. I’ll work on the house and keep an eye on the men. Later this afternoon we’ll figure out where we go from here.”

  He left her inside and went out to join the men. Besides the cowboys who had been his bunk mates for part of the night, there were others, as well.

  Sonny introduced him to the five men who lived in town but worked the ranch each day. As Zack took stock of each of them he thought how much easier life would be if the homicidal tendencies in some men’s hearts shone visibly from their eyes. Unfortunately, killers rarely wore their mask of evil on the outside.

  The work on the house went on through the morning. Zack worked beside the others, not talking but listening to the conversations swirling around him. Later he would make notes of his impressions of each of the men who worked for Katie.

  Zack had worked as a professional bodyguard for the family business since the time he was twenty-one years old. He knew through experience that much of the personal protection business wasn’t just about muscle and guns, but rather crawling into the mind of a suspect and keeping logs and notes about those who might be potential suspects.

  He welcomed the physical labor that made it difficult to think about Katie in that skimpy nightgown, Katie in his T-shirt, Katie in his arms. His sleep the night before had been almost nonexistent as he lay on the sofa with thoughts of Katie filling his head.

  At noon Doc Edward’s lumbering van pulled up. The middle-aged veterinarian greeted all the men like old friends.

  “Zack, I heard through the grapevine that you’d taken up ranch work,” he said.

  Zack nodded. “Got tired of the family business and all the traveling I was having to do for that job.” He was aware of Jake standing nearby, eavesdropping on the conversation. “I got a hankering for the smell of hay and the feel of a few calluses on my palms.”

  Mark Edwards smiled. “Nothing like a little physical labor and ranch life to set a man’s world right.” He looked at the new plywood on the side of the house. “What’s all this?”

  “Had a little trouble last night, seems we’ve got a firebug in the area.”

  Edwards frowned. “Kate okay?”

  “She’s fine,” he replied.

  A small smile curved the vet’s lips. “I’ll bet she’s madder than a wet hen. Kate’s never been one to let somebody step on her toes without stepping back. I know that from the town council meetings.”

  Anything else he might have said was cut short by Sonny who motioned toward him. “Well, I’d better get to work. It will take most of the afternoon to tag the cattle.”

  As Zack got back to work with the rest of the men, Mark’s words played and replayed in his head. Obviously the temper he remembered Katie possessing was still there, she just hadn’t displayed it to him yet. But apparently she’d displayed it to others.

  Now all he had to figure out was if Gray had died because he had made somebody mad at him or if perhaps he’d died because Katie had made somebody mad as hell at her.

  Kate sat at the kitchen table, listening to the washing machine agitate, her thoughts doing the same thing. She wanted to be outside, watching the cattle being tagged, overseeing the day’s activities and interacting with the men.

  But she knew she’d be too stupid to live if she just arbitrarily decided to go about her business as usual knowing that somebody had tried to kill her the night before.

  So she had to be content following Zack’s rules, remaining in the house alone while life went on as usual around her.

  She spent the morning doing loads of laundry. While the washing machine washed and the dryer dried, she sat at the kitchen table making a list of things she wanted to do when life returned to normal.

  Mostly it was a list of chores, things that had needed to be done for the past several years but had never been accomplished. The spare bedroom needed to be repainted, the root cellar on the side of the house needed to be cleaned out and she needed to pack up her father’s clothing and donate it to one of the charities in town.

  Her heart ached as she thought of this particular task. It would be the final goodbye to the father she had never really felt had given her the respect she’d hungered for, the unconditional love she’d sought from him all her life.

  By noon she had changed out of the clothes she’d borrowed from Zack and into one of the newly washed sundresses that had been hanging in her closet.

  As she sipped a glass of iced tea she thought about what Zack had said about Jake. Even though
she had feigned ignorance of Jake’s obvious interest in her, she’d been aware of the cowboy’s subtle overtures of romance.

  Jake was handsome and nice and most any girl would probably be pleased to catch his eye, but Kate wasn’t any girl. There was no electricity when Jake gazed at her, no tingles of pleasure or excitement when he touched her. There was no breathless anticipation when he came near.

  She was still thinking about her lack of interest in Jake when Zack came inside at noon. He was shirtless, his T-shirt slung carelessly over one shoulder. His muscled chest glistened with sweat from his labor outside. Instantly, Kate’s stomach muscles tightened at the compelling physical picture of utter masculinity he presented.

  “We finished up the side of the house and Doc Edwards is here tagging your calves.” He went to the cabinet next to the sink and withdrew a glass.

  As he filled it with water Kate tried not to notice the breadth of his tanned back and the snug fit of his jeans over his buttocks.

  She stared down at the paper where she’d been listing chores that she hoped to take care of when things got back to normal, but his half-naked image was burned into her brain.

  Why, with everything that was happening in her life, did her hormones choose this moment to kick into high gear? And why, oh, why, did every hint of desire she’d ever felt always center around Zack West, a man she wasn’t at all sure she even liked?

  “Katie?”

  The impatience in his tone made her realize he must have said something before her name. She looked up with a frown. “What?”

  “I said we need to talk.” He set his glass in the sink, then sprawled into the chair across from her at the table.

  “Didn’t your father and Smokey teach you any manners? It’s not proper to sit at a table without a shirt.” She couldn’t concentrate with his beautiful bare chest staring her in the face.

  “Gosh, a lecture on proper from Katie Sampson, what a concept,” he said dryly, but to her relief he pulled on his shirt, covering the object of distraction.

  He leaned back in the chair and studied her for a long moment. Her cheeks warmed beneath his scrutiny. “What?” she asked. Once again she felt not in control and that feeling provoked a touch of irritation inside her.