by Karen Rock
And avoid getting too close to Dani again.
What had he been thinking last night when he’d kissed her?
That it might be your only chance.
That you didn’t want to say goodbye.
Fool.
He gave the ride operator a thumbs-up and leaped off the wooden platform. The world melted into green, brown and blue flashes of color as he hurtled through the air. When his hat lifted, he snatched it, and a shout swelled in the back of his throat, his adrenaline firing through every nerve.
A bump in the line slowed his momentum; Dani and the Clarks, who’d gone first, appeared, waiting as he stumbled to a stop on a second wooden platform.
“Wooo-hooo!” Dakota held out one arm to the side and strummed the air with his other hand, mimicking a guitar. “You rock, Jack!”
He waved away the operator, unhooked himself and returned the kid’s fist bump. “You went first.”
“I’m not afraid of heights anymore!”
“Knew you could do it.”
He met Dani’s approving gaze and it felt as though something warm dropped into his heart.
“I want to ride again!” Dakota clamored, tugging on his father’s long shirtsleeve. The man was entirely too dressed up for the humid weather. Was there truth to Larry’s speculation about Mr. Clark’s ties to organized crime? He looked polished in his designer clothes, yet sitting behind a desk didn’t mean you never dirtied your hands.
Mr. Clark squinted at his phone and made a shooing motion. “I’m getting a signal. I’ll meet you all down there in a minute.”
“Let’s go,” Dani urged, her wide smile brightening the day several shades, her natural, relaxed way with the kids making Jack, strangely, long for home. “I’ve brought some fresh lemonade and magic bars for us.”
“Can I stay, Dad?” wheedled Cheyenne. She shook back her dark hair. “I want to post some selfies.”
“I think the world can go a few days without more pictures of you,” snapped Mrs. Clark, hustling her daughter down from the platform.
Surreptitiously, Jack nudged off his hat, followed the group, then turned back to the stairs as if he’d forgotten it. The topic of Mr. Clark’s private conversation could yield some clues on the man who raised his suspicions.
He’d ascended halfway when Mr. Clark’s thunderous voice clapped overhead, making him pause. “What do you mean you can’t meet me?”
Jack eased up another step and cocked his head, eavesdropping.
“No. You listen to me. We had an arrangement. You were supposed to be here and...”
Jack’s pulse picked up steam.
Boots clomped on the platform as the man paced. “Well. That’s not my fault. I knew I shouldn’t have worked with an amateur on this.”
Was he working on something with Smiley...if it was Smiley...?
“Look,” Clark bellowed. “You’ve got to take care of this, Sam. Got it? Good. I’ll contact Jim and stall him. But no more screwups.”
Sam? Sam Perkins?
Silence descended and Jack cleared his throat as he noisily climbed the last few steps.
Mr. Clark jumped when Jack’s head appeared. “You shouldn’t be sneaking up on people.”
“Just getting my hat,” he said easily. He grabbed his Stetson and followed a grumbling Mr. Clark down the stairs. He needed to keep a close eye on him in case he had a tie to Smiley, and suddenly he was glad to have the irascible man in his tour group. It put him in the perfect position to spot anything amiss.
Later that evening, Jack polished off a plate of crispy fried chicken in the outdoor eating area beside the main house. He hadn’t eaten in hours, not stopping for a break as he’d finished searching the southwestern quarter of his grid. He was exhausted. Not physically...just with the wear and tear, the grinding work of unrewarded effort. He didn’t need instant gratification, though it’d be nice for a change.
Larry lowered himself onto the bench seat opposite Jack. “How’s it going?”
“Cleared the southwest of your property. No sign of Smiley. Heading out again in the morning. Thought I’d do some desk investigating in the meantime, if I could borrow a computer.”
“Sure. Why?”
“There’s a database I’d like to look through to see if any faces on composite sketches or names on warrants match your guests or staff. Some might be using an alias or have a record you’re not aware of.”
“You can use the one at the main house, though Dani’s got one, too, don’t you?”
Jack turned around and spied Dani. Her eyes met his and dropped. Her teeth appeared on her bottom lip, worrying it. Did he make her nervous? He should never have kissed her, yet he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Not one bit.
“Go on ahead, Blake,” she said to the tall guy Jack had met at breakfast the other day.
Larry waved her over, then gestured for her to lean down. “Jack’s finished his ground search for the day and needs to look up some files this evening. Composite sketches. Warrants. Would you lend a hand and give him the guest list and employee names?”
“No problem,” she said, though her closed-off expression suggested it was a problem. Why? She looked as jumpy as a black cat on Halloween.
“Follow me,” she said, and he walked beside her, conscious of some distance between them despite her shoulder brushing his, their hands bumping.
“Dani, I—” he began, once she’d logged him in to her computer. He was ready to apologize for the kiss, but she’d already disappeared through the doorway and into the equipment barn.
He wanted to go after her. Explain... Explain what? That’d he’d been unable to resist kissing her last night, even though he knew full well nothing could come of it? Normally, he’d never behave like that, but Dani had a way of making a man forget his shadows.
And then there was her behavior. Even if he was in a position to offer a woman his heart, Dani’s secretiveness reminded him of his brother. Jesse had acted like that when he lied and covered things up. Did Dani have something to hide?
A part of him mistrusted her.
He shook his head and got to work. A couple minutes later, after inputting his parameters—gender, age, ethnicity, coloring—he scrolled through pictures, his gaze drifting to Dani as she sorted horse blankets and organized gear, her movements jerky, her back straighter than he’d ever seen it.
An hour ticked by. Then two. Dani had moved on to paperwork in a corner of the office. She was sitting in a wooden chair, which she had pulled as far from the desk as possible, and her knees were tucked beneath her chin, her arms wrapped around them, her eyes drifting over a printout.
He gazed at her, wanting to watch her forever, knowing that when she noticed, she’d probably leave. They hadn’t exchanged more than a word or two all day and it bugged him. A lot.
The heck with it.
She glanced up, fast, when he pushed to his feet, ready to hash it out, but a high-pitched whinny stopped him.
A second whinny got Dani out of her chair and a third made them shoot out the door. They raced to the pasture, where the sound of rushing horses and thundering hooves grew louder and louder.
They pulled up short to see several horses sprinting out of an open gate. Dani grabbed her walkie-talkie and urged all wranglers to report to her.
“What’s going on?” A few workers ran up, including Jori Lynn and the guy he’d seen Dani with earlier. Blake.
“Horses are out. Let’s saddle up and herd them back. Blake, you stay here and inventory. Jori Lynn, bring in as many as you can that are close. Jack and I will ride out and get the outliers. Update us as the horses return.”
For the next hour, he and Dani rode the property, herding, roping and communicating effortlessly through eye signals and hand gestures. There was a kind of graceful rhyth
m to their movements that reminded him of herding cattle with his siblings, memories returning sharp and pressing so that he realized how much he missed it, missed them, missed home.
Bella and Beau joined in, running at the horses’ heels, their playfulness replaced with the same intensity he witnessed in Dani. Gone was his sparring partner, and in her place was a driven horsewoman who would have made his hard-to-impress mother nod in approval. She doggedly retrieved horse after horse, circling her rope overhead and dropping it with impressive accuracy around horses’ necks, pinpointing the leaders that other horses would follow, causing the least amount of stress to the animals.
A couple of hours later, the light completely gone and thunder rumbling in the mountains, Dani’s walkie-talkie crackled to life.
“Head home, Dani. Weather’s approaching.”
“But we’re still missing Cher and Pokey.” She pulled her hat off and wiped her brow with her sleeve.
“We’ll keep looking in the morning.”
“Got it.”
Back at the pasture, they untacked their mounts and turned them loose. Larry met them just as the sky opened up and threw down its first volley of rain. They ducked back inside the barn. “Can’t see how this could have happened.”
“Who came in last?”
Blake stepped up, his expression woeful. “Me. I secured it.”
Dani put a hand on the young man’s arm and smiled kindly. “Thanks, Blake.”
Jack waited until Blake left before he spoke. “Thieves?”
“Could be. Had a couple of reports today of guests missing wallets and jewelry.” Larry shoved his hands in his pockets. “Stuff like this just doesn’t happen out here, but Blake’s a good wrangler. He wouldn’t make a mistake like leaving the gate open.”
“Well. We know Smiley’s still in the area, probably on foot.”
Dani shook her head at the same time Larry said, “No.”
“Could be he got spooked when Dani stopped by and he wanted to head deeper into the back country.”
“But why two horses?” Larry wondered out loud, then his face fell even further. “Two hit men, right? You said there might be someone with him. Helping?”
“Right. Tanya’s accounted for. Who’s seen Sam?” Jack shook out his wet hat.
“I did,” Larry said, “early this morning when he was taking down a dead tree, but not since.”
“Would you mind if I use the phone? I’d like to let the sheriff know about this.”
“Sure.” Dani plucked the handset from the cradle. Their fingers brushed as he took the phone.
“Tell the sheriff I’m going to hold off on filing a report on the horses or the missing items for now. Want to wait just a bit to see if they turn up,” Larry said, before ushering Dani out and closing the door.
Jack cradled the phone with his shoulder and studied a picture of a grinning Dani, her smile so effortless it was hard to imagine her wearing any other expression. It made him smile, too.
“Any evidence this could be more than just an accident?” Lance asked when Jack finished relaying the day’s events.
“The last wrangler to bring in horses swears he shut it and Larry seems to trust the kid. It’s storming here, but if it clears, I’ll head back out to search. If they were stolen, the thieves did a good job of covering their tracks since there are lots of hoofprints.”
Swearing came through the phone, followed by, “What about Smiley?”
For the next few minutes, they caught each other up. A safe-deposit box key had been found in the Denver victims’ home, and Lance was working to locate which bank it belonged to. Meanwhile, he was a bit skeptical regarding Reginald Clark’s involvement with the case. The guy had been thoroughly investigated before and nothing illegal was found.
As he listened, Jack studied the large number of show-jumping ribbons that covered one of the walls. Many were for first place. Why had Dani given up what looked like a promising career in competitive show jumping?
“The guy’s a jerk, but like I said...” Lance concluded, breaking Jack from his thoughts about Dani.
“If that were a crime, we’d have to bring in half of Colorado,” Jack finished for him, smiling. “And what half am I in?”
“Haven’t decided. Are you going to the family reunion?”
“Lance...”
“I still need a date.”
“Can we stop talking about your love life? It’s depressing.”
“That it is.” Lance sighed. “Anyway. Better get some shut-eye. Only have about a hundred-and-fifty-three more banks to canvas tomorrow.”
Jack ran a hand through the damp hair at his brow. “Don’t get discouraged.”
“Me?” Lance spoke through a yawn. “I’m just getting started.”
Dial tone.
Jack put down the phone and steepled his fingers. His cousin had the right attitude. Detective work wasn’t easy. You didn’t have to be the smartest. You just needed to be more stubborn.
He had plenty of that to go around when it came to getting what he wanted.
And, he realized, that included Dani.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
JACK SMOOTHED A brush over Milly’s coat the next afternoon after tying her up in the pasture. Shoals of blue-and-gray clouds swam through the sky. The grasses tossed and shimmied. It had been a beautiful day, but clouds were moving in from the west in a dark, forbidding line.
Milly arched her neck and munched the apple he’d given her, ears forward, her stance relaxed. Every spare minute had been spent doing things to gain her trust, from grooming, petting and feeding her treats, to progressive training. Earlier this morning she’d finally accepted a blanket on her back and was following his direction signals.
The musky scent of her rose around him as he stroked the brush across her face and forelock. Warm breath rushed over his fingers. When she pranced lightly, her hooves struck one of the puddles left over from last night’s storm, spraying his boots with muddy water.
She was starting to show promise. Seeing her improvement filled him with pride, a transformation he sensed happening in himself, too. Lately he’d become more at ease with people and he credited Dani with those changes. She’d pushed him from day one, never buying his excuse that he wasn’t good with people. Maybe he’d judged her too quickly, and maybe he’d judged himself too fast, too...a fault of his, he now saw.
He thought of the way she chewed her cheek when she concentrated, the flutter of her hands when she got excited, the light in her eyes when she caught him by surprise and her snappy comebacks that kept him off-balance. He never wanted to forget any of it. Or forget her.
Something loosened inside as he imagined his life differently, with her, as if he’d been wearing something too tight around his chest for a very long time, a garment that’d never release him as long as his brother’s murderer roamed free. Would Jack find the killer here at Mountain Sky Dude Ranch? Everything was a dead end. Progress followed by setbacks. Still, he would see this through, never stopping until every lead dried up.
Though he didn’t want to leave Dani.
“Good girl,” he murmured to Milly after a final pat, then he returned the brush to the equipment barn. The smell of roasted pork wafted from the outdoor dining area and his stomach rumbled, the aroma reeling him in.
At breakfast, Nan had mentioned plans to make her green chili dish for tonight’s pig roast. After an early start looking for Cher and Pokey, scouting for Smiley and a horseback ride up Shawnee Mountain, he was famished. He needed to refuel before resuming his property search. One particular spot deep in the woods, Spark Canyon, had become virtually inaccessible after the rainfall. Hopefully enough water had drained out of it by now for him to search its caves.
He peered up at the sky, noting the darkening clouds still hangi
ng on the horizon. They looked far off, but in Big Sky Country distances could be deceiving. The sooner he set out the better. The forecast predicted storms the rest of the week.
The outdoor eating area he approached was a blur of activity. Kids chased each other, shrieking, around crowded picnic tables. Chattering guests lined up at the buffet table, laden with steaming kettles, platters of grilled corn on the cob and sliced pork, bowls of coleslaw and a stack of chocolate brownies. His mouth watered at the tantalizing scents.
“Howdy, Nan.” He returned the older woman’s smile and accepted the fragrant bowl of chili she passed him. In a checked apron that matched the rosy color of her cheeks, her white hair in a low bun, a sparkling brooch pinned at her throat, she matched the festive atmosphere.
“You look like you need filling up.” She ladled another scoop of the green stew into his bowl. “There’s blue chips and other fixings down there, but don’t go adding any hot sauce, now. My chili’s already the right amount of hot.”
“That I believe.”
Her eyes twinkled and he found himself relaxing, barely noticing the crowd surrounding them, their chatter falling away, the few, sideways glances he still got on occasion vanishing. “Thank you.”
He tipped his hat and stepped to his left to add shredded cheese and sour cream. He ladled salsa beside a pile of chips, firmly passed on the hot sauce (though it was his favorite), then stopped by the brownies and the slouching server behind them.
“Hey, Tanya.”
Dark circles shadowed her eyes and she shoved her messy hair back. “You want some whipped cream?” She held up a can, and when he nodded, she squirted a lopsided mound that mostly slid off his dessert.
“Much appreciated.”
Tanya waved without looking and her lowered head seemed too heavy for her shoulders.
Clearly she hadn’t been sleeping, he thought, returning Larry’s and Diane’s smiles, giving Dakota a fist bump and waving back at Jori Lynn as he headed to an unoccupied table. Was Smiley back and keeping her up? What information might she be hiding? He needed to mention it to Dani.