Rustled

by BJ Daniels

  “Be careful. We’ll meet in the gully behind the house.”

  “Dawson—” She realized she’d almost blurted out that she loved him. “You be careful, too.”

  He disappeared out the back door, with her right behind him. The saddles and tack had been dumped on the porch of the house out of the rain. She rummaged through it quickly and as quietly as possible.

  Dawson took two halters from Jinx and she watched him cross to the corral between flashes of lightning. It was far enough from the house and the lean-to that she doubted the rustlers would see him. But if the already spooked horses started acting up, one of the rustlers might brave coming out in the rain to check.

  Jinx quickly gathered up what she could carry and took it around to the back of the house out of sight of the lean-to and the men under it to wait for Dawson.

  He appeared a few minutes later leading two horses. They each saddled their horses quickly. The rain was letting up, but her fingers were still red and numb by the time she finished getting her horse ready to ride.

  “I want you to ride up through that gully at the back of the house and meet me on the other side of the hill,” he said.

  She saw that he was still in a lot of pain and his shoulder had started bleeding again. He needed medical attention. Surely he wasn’t still thinking of trying to get his cattle back. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to open the corral and run off the horses, then you and I are headed for Chisholm Cattle Company.”

  “What about the cattle?” she asked.

  “All I care about is getting you away from here to some place safe. If you’re still determined to go after the leader of this rustling ring—”

  “I just want to get you to a doctor,” she said.

  He leaned into her, kissed her quickly and said, “Be ready to ride, then.”

  JUST BEFORE DAYLIGHT, Marshall picked McCall up and brought her to the Chisholm ranch. She was hidden in the king cab seat behind him as they drove in—as per the plan. She could see the mountains in the distance and the tops of the peaks encased in clouds.

  Earlier she’d thought she’d smelled rain in the air, but the forecast for the prairie was warm and dry. The sky was lightening to the east, the sun peeking out from the horizon, promising a clear, sunny day.

  The other Chisholm brothers had stayed at the main house last night and had made sure that anyone listening in would know they weren’t leaving until morning.

  Marshall parked where he could sneak her in the back way. She had her radio and deputies planted out of sight at strategic points on the roads so they could see anyone coming in or out of the ranch. They had been advised to simply report if they saw someone and not to apprehend.

  McCall hoped they weren’t all wasting their time.

  As she slipped into the back of the house, the Chisholms went about their business, making themselves sack lunches as she took a look around. She looked for a comfortable place to wait, since she didn’t know how long it might take.

  There was a good chance that Aggie Wells wouldn’t show, because she was dead and buried somewhere on the ranch. It wouldn’t be the first time McCall had been wrong about a suspect. It took a kind of killer mentality to start from nothing and build an empire the way Hoyt Chisholm had. McCall reminded herself that she could be dead wrong about him and that would make Emma dead wrong, as well.

  Finding a stool in the kitchen, she dragged it into the large walk-in pantry, leaving the door open a crack so she had a view of the kitchen table and the back door.

  A few minutes later the brothers waved goodbye and made a show of leaving to go string barbed wire on the fence they were building too far from the house to return unexpectedly.

  McCall listened as they drove away and a deathly quiet fell over the house. She thought about the way it must have sounded when all six sons and Hoyt and Emma and several hired help had been in this big old place. She also thought about the first time she’d met Emma and how much she’d liked her. It was clear just looking around the house that Emma had made it a home.

  Now the place was empty. The brothers had been staying here to hold down the fort until their father was exonerated. If that happened. They were all old enough that they would soon want to go back to their own places, get on with their lives—no matter what happened with their father.

  But she did wonder what would happen to Chisholm Cattle Company if Hoyt was found guilty. The brothers would try to keep the place going without him, but Hoyt had been the heart and soul of the ranch.

  At the sound of a floorboard creaking, McCall started. She eased her weapon out of the holster, telling herself it was an old house. Old houses creaked and groaned. Another floorboard creaked and then another. The sound was coming from the living room. Whoever it was, was headed this way.

  McCall stood and pressed her body against the pantry wall so she had a good view of the person who was about to appear in the kitchen doorway.

  AS JINX RODE UP through the dark gully, the rain had slowed to a drizzle, but she barely felt it she was so worried about Dawson.

  Her heart suddenly leaped to her throat as she heard shouts behind her, then the boom of gunfire. She looked back, but saw nothing through the rain and darkness. It took every ounce of common sense she had not to turn around and go back. Spurring her horse, she stopped at the edge of the hill. She could see the cattle were huddled in a shimmering sea of black bodies against the first signs of daybreak. No sign of any rustlers.

  Reining in, she turned and stared back into the darkness of the hillside, telling herself Dawson would come riding over the rise at any moment. She saw movement, heard more shouts and gunfire. The cattle began to mill and bawl.

  Jinx blinked as a rider emerged from the rain and darkness. She held her breath. As the figure drew closer, she felt her chest swell with relief. Dawson. Tears burned her eyes. Her heart felt as if it might burst.

  She glanced behind him, expecting to see rustlers coming over the hill as he rode up to her. His face was etched in pain and she feared they would never make it to the ranch. He gave her a smile, even though she could tell it cost him. The rain had almost stopped. A fine mist hung in the air, making all of it seem surreal.

  As they reined their horses around and rode into the new day, she looked back at the cattle. She could smell smoke from the rustlers’ fire. Hear voices. Two rustlers on foot topped the hill as she and Dawson rode into the trees.

  Rifle fire punctuated the wet morning air, but the men were too far away and their shots never reached the trees.

  Jinx thought about the cattle they were leaving and wondered if Dawson would ever get any of them back. Or would the rustlers, after finding Rafe dead, only care about retrieving their horses and saving their own necks?

  Dawson had come for her—not his cattle.

  It filled her heart like helium and yet, as she rode, she couldn’t help the feeling that she’d failed in so many ways. She’d almost gotten Dawson killed and herself as well and she still didn’t know who was behind the rustling ring, who was ultimately responsible for her father’s death.

  She shivered in the cold as water dripped from the dark green branches of the pines and glanced over at Dawson. This wasn’t over yet, she thought, realizing how weak he was. Nothing else mattered, she realized, but getting him to a doctor. She couldn’t let him die. Not after everything they’d been through. She hadn’t even gotten a chance to tell him that she loved him.

  Chapter Eleven

  Aggie Wells came into the kitchen as if she lived there. She carried a small box that she set on the table before she headed back into the living room.

  McCall watched her from her hiding place in the pantry, but lost her when she left the kitchen. She could hear her in the living room and dining room. She seemed to just be wandering around the house.

  McCall wondered if she was pretending she lived here. Her former supervisor had suggested that Aggie might have gotten too involved with Hoyt Chisholm a
nd his case, that she had fallen in love with Hoyt.

  The insurance company Aggie had worked for let her go after they found out she was still working the case on her own time—even after her investigation had been unable to prove anything other than Laura Chisholm’s drowning had been an accident.

  Aggie came back into the kitchen, shoved one of the chairs closer to the table and stood on it. Reaching into the box she’d brought, she took out what looked like a small smoke alarm and replaced the one the Chisholm brothers had destroyed.

  She worked with a single-minded efficiency, making McCall wonder how many other houses she had bugged over the years.

  McCall frowned as she realized she hadn’t heard a vehicle. How had Aggie gotten here? Not by a road, or one of the deputies would have alerted McCall.

  As Aggie finished reinstalling the listening device, she froze on the chair and looked around as if she suddenly sensed she wasn’t alone. She lowered herself off the chair to the kitchen floor, clearly trying to be as quiet as possible, picked up her box and slipped out the back door.

  McCall was ready to pitch the plan. Aggie had been spooked. What would she do? McCall couldn’t bear to think that the woman might just take off and never be seen again. But what if she had taken Emma and was now going back to wherever she’d hidden her?

  Arresting Aggie now might mean never finding Emma. McCall made herself stay where she was, counting to ten before she eased out of the pantry.

  She caught a whiff of perfume as she edged to the back door and peered out. Aggie was a few hundred yards from the house, walking toward a four-wheeler.

  McCall swore. That’s why the deputies hadn’t seen her. She hadn’t taken a road, but had come across country.

  Grabbing her radio, she barked out an order for the deputies to close in. Now! “She’s on a four-wheeler.” She opened the back door, heard the four-wheeler crank over and saw Aggie take off through the pasture.

  McCall realized the deputies couldn’t possibly get there fast enough. Aggie was going to get away unless—

  She raced through the house, slowing at the front door. It was standing wide open. She got another strong whiff of perfume. Why would Aggie leave the front door open?

  McCall didn’t have time to consider what it might mean as she sprinted to the corral. She’d never had a horse of her own, but she’d ridden any horse that would let her since she was a girl. Because of it, riding bareback was the only way she knew how to ride.

  One of the horses came toward her. She grabbed a halter off the post by the gate and, slipping it on, led the mare out of the corral and swung up onto her back. Spurring the horse, she went after Aggie as the wind whipped the cottonwoods, sending dust swirling around her. In the distance she could see storm clouds over the mountains and smell rain in the air. The weatherman had been wrong.

  As she rode the horse over the first rise, she caught sight of Aggie tearing through the open country on the four-wheeler. Dust churned up behind the rig, obscuring the rider. Even if Aggie looked back, she wouldn’t be able to see McCall coming after her.

  McCall leaned over the mare’s neck and galloped across the pasture, keeping her focus on the four-wheeler and where it was headed.

  DAWSON TOPPED THE LAST RISE and saw Chisholm Cattle Company sprawled below him. He reined in his horse. He’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life. Except for the woman who rode up next to him.

  She smiled over at him and he saw her concern. She must see how hard it was for him to even stay in the saddle he felt so weak.

  “You going to make it?” she asked.

  He smiled back at her. “I am now.”

  As they rode down toward the ranch, he saw dust boiling up along the road into the ranch. Two sheriff’s deputy vehicles came racing up the road toward them.

  Jinx rode out to flag down one of the deputies. “Dawson’s been shot by some rustlers. He needs medical attention right away,” she said.

  As Dawson rode up, he recognized the deputy as his future sister-in-law Halley Robinson. She started to reach for her radio, no doubt to call an ambulance.

  “There isn’t time,” Jinx said. “We need to take him in your patrol car.”

  Dawson felt the last of his strength seep out of him. He slumped over his saddle, only to feel someone pulling him down and into the patrol car. He lay back against the seat for a moment before Jinx drew him over, cradling his head in her lap. He felt her fingers brush back a lock of hair from his forehead, heard her say, “Please hurry.”

  The sound of the siren came on and he felt the patrol car turn around and head toward town. He closed his eyes.

  “Listen to me, Chisholm,” Jinx whispered next to his ear. “I didn’t ride all the way off that mountain to have you die on me now.” He heard the emotion in her voice and realized she was close to tears.

  He opened his eyes, looked into her adorable face and tried to smile. That was the last thing he remembered.

  MCCALL SLOWED THE MARE to a trot as she saw the four-wheeler turn onto an old dirt road. At the end of it sat an empty farmhouse. She eased the mare through the trees along the edge of a creek that ran the length of the property as she watched the four-wheeler come to a stop behind the farmhouse and Aggie climb off to disappear inside.

  McCall kept to the trees, working her way to the back of the house, all the time keeping an eye on the dust-coated windows. Was Emma inside? She could only hope.

  She thought about calling for backup as she slid from her horse, but a patrol car could be spotted for miles out here and McCall couldn’t chance what Aggie might do to Emma. If Emma was even in there.

  No, she thought as she drew her weapon and moved stealthily toward the back door. She couldn’t risk Emma’s life by tipping off Aggie they were onto her, and she had a strong feeling that Emma was inside.

  The back door wasn’t locked. It swung open with a creak that made McCall grimace. The old, bare kitchen was empty. She stepped inside. As she moved toward the front of the house, she heard voices upstairs.

  Her heart soared. Aggie wasn’t alone. Someone was with her. Emma?

  Weapon in hand, McCall started up the stairs. Normally she would be thinking about what she was going to find at the top of the steps, but suddenly she had a flash of memory of lying in bed with her husband—and the realization that she could already be pregnant, just as she’d joked with Luke last night.

  The thought of having Luke’s baby made her go soft inside. She hesitated on the stairs, surprised by this sudden well of emotion. McCall had never thought anything could keep her from doing her job.

  And while she wouldn’t let it now, she realized that having Luke’s baby was going to change everything—especially the way she felt about risking her life.

  She shook the thought away as she continued up the stairs, torn between her love for her job and her love for her husband and the thought of their child.

  At the top of the stairs she stopped to listen, afraid the creaking stairs might have given her away. With relief she heard two women’s voices coming from behind one of the closed doors. One of them was Emma’s.

  McCall inched toward the door, fearing it would be locked. Her hand closed over the knob. She took a breath, let it out and tried the knob. It turned in her hand.

  On the count of three. One. Two. Three.

  “I MEAN IT, DAWSON, don’t you dare die on me, you hear me?” Jinx said as she cradled his head in her lap. He looked so pale and yet so handsome. Her heart broke at the sight. She checked his pulse again. He was still alive, but he’d lost so much blood….

  She felt that if she kept talking to him, she wouldn’t lose him. She whispered to him as the deputy drove, talking about anything she could think of, her childhood, her first boyfriend, her dreams, her hopes.

  “I wish we’d met at a community dance, that you saw me from across the room and that you worked your way through the crowd, determined to dance with me,” she whispered. “Our first dance would be a slow one and
you would hold me close and—” her voice broke “—and you would never let me go.”

  She felt tears burn her eyes as the deputy said, “Once we get to the hospital, I’m going to have to get your statement about who shot him.”

  Jinx glanced up and nodded to the deputy looking at her in the rearview mirror, then started as she felt Dawson move in her lap, his voice a hoarse whisper.

  “What’s your real name?”

  She looked down and saw that his eyes were open and he was staring up at her.

  “Brittany Bo Clarke.”

  He smiled. “Easy to see why you go by Jinx.” Then his eyes closed again.

  She didn’t know if he could hear her or if he had passed out again, but she kept talking to him. “I grew up on the Double TT Ranch. It was home even though we lived at the old homestead and my father was only the ranch manager all those years. My father worked for Hank Thompson. When he died his son, Lyndel, inherited the ranch.”

  Jinx couldn’t help remembering her first run-in with Lyndel when they were both kids. Lyndel was only four years her senior, a son born to the older Hank and his young wife, who left him right after Lyndel was born.

  Dawson groaned as if he sensed something unpleasant had happened with Lyndel and that was what had caused her to stop talking to him.

  “My first boyfriend was a neighbor boy,” she said quickly as she stroked Dawson’s dark hair. “We used to swim together in the creek, ride horses, build forts, you know the kind of puppy love best friends have as kids.” She wondered if there had been anyone like that in Dawson’s life and realized how little they knew about each other. That seemed strange since they’d been through so much together and she was in love with him.

  “I went off to college. My first boyfriend married a local girl. They have three children and raise horses. I always wanted to raise horses, live on a ranch, a ranch of my own….” Her voice broke again and she looked up to see that they had reached town.

  Dawson groaned softly and she had to lean in to hear his words. “Why did they change their pattern at your ranch?”