The Wrangler's Bride

by Justine Davis

  So she was spending her Sunday evening here in the dark, wishing she was alone instead of cooped up in her apartment with her bodyguard, who was watching the Timberwolves game in her small study until his relief arrived in a few minutes.

  They’d wanted to put her in a hotel, but she’d refused. To the best of their knowledge, the men behind the men who had killed Nick didn’t know where she lived, and she’d been gone long enough to throw them off. Over her protests, however, they had insisted on a twenty-four-hour guard. Eric Neilsen was the young officer who was assigned tonight to keep her alive long enough to officially identify Nick’s killers in the courtroom tomorrow morning. The young officer who was so gung ho and enthusiastic he made her feel old, despite the fact that she probably only had two or three years on him. The young officer who was so fired up even about this boring detail that it made her all the more aware of the fire she herself had lost.

  The continuous patter of the basketball announcer emanating from the study was abruptly shut off in midsentence. She came instantly alert, wondering what had made the rabid fan turn off the game he’d been glued to. Then she heard what he had no doubt heard before, a rather forceful knock on the door. She closed her book and scrambled to her feet. She swept her off-duty weapon, a dark gray, lightweight seventeen-round Glock semiautomatic pistol, up off the nightstand.

  “Eric?” she called.

  “I’m checking.”

  She made her way to the door into the living room, listening intently. She heard Eric call out to whoever was there, but from her position could only hear a muffled answer through the door. She went into the living room and saw the young cop peering through the peephole, his own .45 automatic in his hand.

  “I said she’s not here,” Eric called out. She still wasn’t close enough to hear what whoever it was said, but when Eric lifted his weapon, her heart took a little leap.

  “Mister, you try taking this door down, and I guarantee you’ll be one sorry bastard.”

  Adrenaline shot through her. She ran across the room and took up a position beside the door, where she would be behind it if indeed the man was foolish enough to try to force his way in.

  “This doesn’t sound right,” she whispered to Eric. “If they wanted in, they wouldn’t be so blatant about it. Maybe I’d better check the back windows, see if this is a diversion.”

  “Good idea,” Eric agreed. “Lousy diversion, though. That cowboy getup he’s wearing stands out like crazy.”

  Mercy stopped in midstride. “Cowboy?”

  “Dumb hat and all,” Eric said. “And you’d think they’d get your name right.” He gave her a rather crooked smile. “Or maybe it’s just some confused drunk at the wrong apartment. Any of your neighbors named Mercy and hooked up with some clown in a cowboy hat and boots?”

  She nearly dropped the Glock. “What?”

  “That’s what he said. That he was here to see Mercy and he wasn’t leaving until he did.”

  “My God,” she whispered, and ran back to peer through the peephole. Although she’d already guessed, his name still escaped her on a long breath. “Grant.”

  She shoved the weapon in the waistband of her jeans, and before Eric could even react, she had the locks off and was pulling the door open. Grant stood there, looking a bit startled at the speed with which the door finally swung open. She couldn’t seem to speak, only stare at him. He took a step toward her, his arms coming up, and her pulse raced in anticipation of his embrace. But then he stopped, his eyes narrowing as he saw the Glock, and realized Eric was a bare two steps away, his weapon still in his hand.

  “You know this guy?” Eric asked, looking Grant up and down doubtfully. She understood why; in his battered Stetson, heavy sheepskin jacket, jeans, and worn cowboy boots Grant hardly looked like a native of the Twin Cities.

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I do. Come in, Grant.”

  Grant eyed Eric warily, his gaze lingering pointedly on the chrome .45. The young cop hastily shoved it into his shoulder holster, and backed away from the door. Grant stepped inside, and Mercy closed the door behind him.

  “It’s really true, then,” he said without preamble, looking from the nattily dressed but obviously well-armed Eric to the weapon tucked in Mercy’s waistband. “Damn it, Mercy, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Grant—”

  “All that time, on top of everything else, you never bothered to mention these guys had tried to kill you. Twice.”

  She didn’t know how he’d found out, and it didn’t really matter now. “There was no reason to.”

  He went very still. “No reason?”

  “We made sure they couldn’t trace me to the ranch. No one there was ever in any danger—”

  “Is that what you think this is about?” he yelped incredulously. “You’ve got mob hit men after you—” he gestured toward Eric “—you’ve got to be guarded, and you think I’m worried about that?”

  “I—”

  “Damn it, Mercy, don’t you think I deserved to know the truth, especially after—”

  He broke off suddenly, his eyes flicking sideways to Eric. The young man apparently was a bit slower than she’d thought, or perhaps just naive, because it wasn’t until Mercy also turned to look at him that he caught on.

  “Oh. Er, I guess I’ll go finish watching the game.”

  He escaped to the study, but dutifully left the door partly open.

  Mercy turned back to Grant. God, she’d missed him. She wanted to hug him, wanted him to hold her, just for a moment, but she knew she didn’t dare. Because if she did, she’d never be able to let him go. And he had to go.

  “Why did you come?” she asked abruptly.

  “Why? I find out the mob’s trying to kill you, and you have to ask?”

  Something expanded inside her, some kernel of warmth that she’d hopelessly clung to even as she left him, telling herself she’d probably never see him again. He did care. But she’d known that; it wasn’t in Grant to indulge in a casual affair, without caring for the woman. It wasn’t that that made their relationship impossible, it was distance, more kinds than one.

  And the fact that since she’d been back here, she’d had to confront what she’d done. Or rather hadn’t done. And it wasn’t so easy to forgive herself, here in the world where it had happened.

  Her mind shied away from the painful subject.

  “That’s exactly why you have to go.”

  “Protecting me, Mercy? Is that what you were doing at the ranch, too, not telling me what was going on?”

  She lowered her eyes. “You didn’t need to know.”

  “Didn’t need to know that besides Nick’s death, you were dealing with the fact that you’d twice almost been murdered? Didn’t need to know that’s what you were walking back into now?”

  “What could you have done?”

  “Locked you up on the ranch, maybe,” he said, his voice grim.

  “Grant, I had to come back.”

  “Yeah.” He shoved back the brim of his hat. “And you did it in a big hurry, too. Were you that eager to get back and become a target again? Was even that better than staying away from your precious city one more day?”

  His voice was laced with an anger she didn’t understand. “You know that’s not true—”

  “Do I?”

  “You should,” she countered. “I have to do this, Grant. Can’t you see that? I can’t change…what I didn’t do, but I can help put them away.”

  “Mercy, stop it. I thought we’d settled this. If you’d done anything, you’d be dead, too.”

  “I…” She swallowed and tried again. “That was easy to say then. It was the ranch, the peace there, that made me believe. But here, where Nick lived, and seeing those reports again, seeing it written there…”

  His hands came up, as if he were going to reach for her. A sharp rap on the door made them both jump. Grateful for the interruption, Mercy looked through the peephole.

  “It’s Eric’s relief,”
she said, and the young cop appeared in the doorway as she reached for the dead bolt.

  “Murphy?” he asked.

  She nodded, and opened the door to a redheaded older man who had been one of Mercy’s training officers when she first come out of the academy.

  “Hi, Murph,” she said.

  The older man nodded to her as he stepped inside, but his attention was fixed on Grant. “Who’s the cowboy?”

  His tone was amused. For an instant, Mercy saw Grant as he must appear to those used to the sophisticated polish of city men. But where they saw someone to chuckle at, she saw only Grant’s solid, rugged beauty, and the aura of the open, wild places she’d come to love.

  Just as she’d come to love the man who now stood here, representing all she’d found in his world.

  She admitted it, that she loved him, here and now in this most impossible of places and time, with a stabbing jab of pain. For Grant was also the man who deserved better than a woman who’d let a man she cared for be killed, practically before her eyes, without lifting a finger.

  “He’s…a friend,” she said to Murphy.

  The redhead turned to face her. “Get him out of here, girl.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Stubborn, is he?”

  “He also,” Grant said mildly, “doesn’t care much for being talked about in the third person when he’s standing right here.”

  Murphy’s brows rose, and he looked back at Grant. “Smart one, huh? It’s for your own good.”

  “He also doesn’t like being patronized.”

  “Mighty big words for a cowboy.”

  “And you’ve got a mighty big mouth, for a cop.”

  “Will you two stop?” Mercy said, exasperation overtaking her. “Murphy, knock it off. Grant’s done nothing but help. He owns the ranch I went to, all right?”

  “I’m out of here,” Eric put in, looking at the other two men warily as he dodged past them out the door and pulled it shut behind him.

  Murphy grinned suddenly. “So the cowboy bit’s for real, huh? Sorry. Thought maybe you were one of those wannabe types.” He glanced at Mercy. “And we’re a little wound up about tomorrow.”

  Grant grimaced. “Maybe you should put some of that energy to work figuring out a way to put these guys away without her having to be a target.”

  Murphy shook his head. “No way. We’re going to need her testimony. But she’ll be okay. We’ve had that courthouse staked out and covered since the moment we caught those bastards.”

  Grant didn’t look particularly reassured, and somehow that warmed Mercy even more.

  Murphy turned to her. “We’re going to go over it again tonight, Brady. You know they’re going to try and cash in on the fact that you didn’t see the actual shooting.”

  “So she has to appear in public and let them have another try at her?” Grant said, sounding more than a little belligerent.

  “She’ll have a squad of our special tactics team with her every step of the way,” Murphy explained, beginning to sound a tiny bit harassed.

  Then, as if something had just registered with him, Murphy seemed to suddenly shift gears, looking from Grant to Mercy and back again. A speculative look came into his eyes, and Mercy could just feel him getting ready to ask a question she didn’t want to answer.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said quickly, looking at Grant. “I have to do this. Don’t you see, Grant? I have to do at least this much to put them away.”

  For a long, silent moment, he stood there, looking down at her. She held his gaze, pleading with him to understand.

  “I can’t tell you how much it means that…you came here. But you can’t help me with this, Grant. No one can. I have to face it. All of it.”

  Something flickered in his gaze, something that reminded her so sweetly of the quiet places he’d shown her. Something that gave her hope, although she didn’t dare name what she was hoping for. Finally, with a slow, gentle movement, he lifted one hand and touched her cheek.

  “You haven’t lost your nerve, Mercy,” he said, repeating the words he’d said that day on the ranch, in the quiet moments before passion flared between them there in that special, private place she would hold in her heart forever. She felt color rise in her cheeks at the vivid memories, and saw by the heat glowing in his gaze that he was remembering, exactly as she was.

  “I have to do this,” she said again, almost desperately, because all she wanted to do was go home with him. And it didn’t even rattle her that she’d thought of the ranch as her home as much as his. “I have to do it. Not just for Nick. For myself.”

  Again he was silent for a long moment. Murphy was uncharacteristically quiet, a blessing Mercy wasn’t about to question.

  “All right,” Grant said at last. “I think I understand. Everybody has to fight their own demons. And you’ll win, Mercy. You’re too strong not to.”

  She let out a long breath, only now aware that she’d been holding it.

  “Just do something for me, will you?” he asked softly. She nodded, unable to speak. “Don’t ever lose faith in yourself, Mercy. You’re still a diamond. You always will be.”

  He said it with such quiet, unshakable certainty it shook Mercy to the core. Here, in this time and place where she’d doubted she would ever trust herself or her own courage again, he had handed them back to her, polished and shining like the gemstone he called her. There were few people in the world she trusted as she instinctively had always trusted Grant, she thought. Didn’t that mean she should trust his judgment, as well?

  He looked as if he were about to say something else, but then stopped himself. He turned away from her, with a sharp, short motion, and Mercy wondered if it was truly as hard for him as it looked; selfishly, she hoped it was.

  Long after he left, she was still wrestling with it. Wondering if she hadn’t just made a horrible mistake by sending him away. Wondering if she would ever see him again, and if he would even speak to her if she did. Wishing she could talk to someone about it.

  And at last crying, because the only people she would have trusted enough to talk to about it were Nick…and Grant himself.

  He’d done tougher things, Grant told himself. He just couldn’t remember right now anything harder than walking away and leaving Mercy to deal with her demons in her own way. Especially when what he wanted to do had been something primitive, like throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her back to the safety of the ranch.

  He’d stayed until Monday night, watching the news of the hearing from the hotel room he’d stayed in. But once he saw the cadre of officers protecting Mercy, he’d known she truly was as safe as she could be, under the circumstances. And he’d been more than shaken by her appearance; there had been little of the woman he’d come to know on the ranch in the polished, sophisticated-looking woman in the dark suit and heels and the severe, tidy pulled-back hairstyle. City girl. Pure city girl.

  So he’d gone home, feeling guilty enough already at having been in the city and not gone to see his mother or Kristina. But he told himself he couldn’t have faced either of them, not until he got his tangled emotions sorted out.

  But he’d known, even then, when he was standing in Mercy’s apartment, that only one of those emotions really mattered. The one he’d never expressed, the one he’d walked away carrying silently inside him. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, maybe when she’d first climbed out of the truck and he’d seen the woman she’d become, maybe when she’d first looked out at the ranch and found beauty there…or maybe, just maybe, twelve years ago, when she looked at him as if he’d hung the moon. He supposed it didn’t matter when it had happened, only that it had. And because it had, because he’d finally had to admit to himself that he loved her, he couldn’t admit it to her. Not now, not when she had her own battle to fight. It would be too much, just more pressure on her when she could least afford it.

  And besides, he knew, deep down inside, how she would choose, anyway. Once she’d dealt with those de
mons, once she’d faced them with the courage he knew was still there, that she’d only lost sight of, she would once more be the dedicated cop she’d once been. The dedicated cop who would never dream of leaving her job, or the city that was her real home.

  And he would never see her again. He would lose yet another woman to the city life he could never live.

  You never had her to lose, he told himself sharply as he leaned into the brush he was running along Joker’s back, making the horse turn his head back and look at him curiously. The stallion had been acting oddly ever since Mercy had left, not moping, but waiting at the far end of the corral every day, and staring at the house, as if he expected the girl with the apple-scented hair to appear at any moment.

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Grant muttered to the big Appy. And take your own good advice, McClure, he added silently to himself.

  And he turned his mind to the chores ahead of him, determined to keep his thoughts away from a petite, green-eyed pixie who had somehow invaded his entire life. And his heart.

  Fourteen

  “He should have known better.”

  “Yeah, but he’d been a little crazy about Franco ever since Parness bought it, a couple of years ago. Wanted to take the whole mob down by himself.”

  Mercy paused in the doorway, then backed up, out of sight of the three officers who were in the prosecuting attorney’s office. She’d retreated to the small adjacent conference room until the adrenaline coursing through her ebbed; keeping her cool under such fierce questioning had been one of the biggest battles of her life, and she had no idea how she’d done.

  “Going in there without backup, that was crazy, all right, God rest him.”

  “We got ’em, though. They’ll be up for the max now. That judge didn’t buy a word of their crap about it being an accident. And Brady—she put them away. Never let that jerk of a defense lawyer rattle her once.”