Cowboy Christmas Guardian

by Dana Mentink

  Barrett shut the door, Hatcher’s words replaying in his mind. As he returned to the kitchen, a trickle of suspicion slithered through his belly. It couldn’t be. “Shelby, who is your uncle?”

  “Ken Arroyo,” she said. “Do you know him?”

  Barrett could feel the weight of his family staring at him. Time seemed to slow as if the hands of the old carriage clock were being held by some invisible force, his breaths ticking along in rhythm.

  “Yes,” he said finally. “I know him.”

  “You’re neighbors,” she said uncertainly, “even though he’s not here for part of the year. You must be friends, then?”

  “No, not friends.” The furthest thing from friends.

  She cocked her head slightly, long tendrils that had escaped the ponytail curling around her face, her glance taking in the stricken looks around the table. “I can see that my uncle has no fans here. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  No, he thought. No, I don’t.

  * * *

  She watched Barrett exhale long and slow. He couldn’t be older than his early thirties but there was a deep storehouse of grief and fatigue in his electric-blue eyes that made her wonder. He rubbed a hand over his chin as if to smooth away some painful thought.

  “Not the time. If you’re feeling better, I’ll drive you to the hospital, or you’re welcome to wait here for the police.”

  “I don’t need a hospital. I need to get back. The police can talk to me at Uncle Ken’s house.” She stood. “I’m okay and I can find my own way to my car.”

  “Begging your pardon, but I’ll escort you.”

  “Not necessary.”

  Barrett didn’t answer.

  Evie appeared to have recovered her composure. “We will bring you your clothes when they’re dry.”

  “Thank you very much, but I can pick them up. You have all been extremely kind. I can’t thank you enough.”

  Evie took her by the hand. There was something forced in her smile and it made Shelby sad. For a few minutes, it had been nice to feel like someone’s daughter again. It pained her that somehow things had changed, though she didn’t know why.

  “That’s what neighbors do,” Evie said. “Barrett will see you back.”

  Barrett stood stiffly by the door.

  “Hey,” Owen said, moving close to his brother. Shelby noted he had a pronounced limp. “I can take her,” he said quietly, but Shelby heard him anyway.

  Barrett shook his head. “I got this.”

  What was it about her relationship with Uncle Ken that had instantaneously set up a wall between her and the Thorn family?

  It’s not your problem. You’re here for Uncle Ken. The Thorns could put up walls for whatever reason and it was of no consequence to her. At the moment, her entire life goal was to get back to her uncle’s place and enjoy the hottest shower she could stand.

  Barrett led her outside. As she passed the foyer, she caught the scent of pine from a Christmas tree. It was standing in the corner of the room, festooned with ornaments. On the fireplace mantel, green branches were trimmed with tiny red glass balls. A framed photo graced the mantel, a grinning Barrett without the cowboy hat, his arm around a young woman, radiant in a wedding dress, her long hair pinned back with white roses. She was lovely. Barrett flicked her a glance, catching Shelby looking at the picture. She looked away and followed him outside.

  The rain had slackened off to a weak sprinkle. The events of the day overwhelmed her as her mind spooled through the memories. A sudden blow to the head, the sensation of being hauled into her trunk, the awful sound of the lid slamming shut.

  The attack had been from Joe Hatcher, she was sure of it, but why? Just to keep her away from the mine? Out of greed? Anger at her perceived trespassing? Or perhaps he had some deep-seated resentment about her uncle, too?

  “You ride?” Barrett said, pulling her back to the present.

  “Since I was a kid,” she said. That was probably overstating. She’d slacked off on her riding since her youth when she would visit her uncle in the summertime, but she found herself wanting to prove her worth to Barrett Thorn. Bad enough that he’d had to rescue her from a locked trunk and lug her out of a ravine. She couldn’t leave him thinking she was some flimsy damsel-in-distress type.

  He untied the horse that Jack had been riding. “Lady is a gentle ride.”

  She was right. He did think she was clueless. Ignoring his offered hand, she put her foot in the stirrup and climbed onto the saddle.

  Barrett mounted his horse and clicked his tongue at the big animal.

  Shelby was grateful that the rain had tapered off. Moonlight cast a weak glow over the landscape as they trailed back to where she’d parked her car. Her own stupid mistake made her groan inwardly. Some assayer. Hadn’t even realized she’d strayed onto Hatcher’s property.

  Determined not to incur any more embarrassment for one evening, she slipped off Lady and handed the reins to Barrett. He was a giant astride the big horse, and as immovable as a cliff.

  “Thank you again,” she said. “I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

  “Don’t owe me anything. I’ll help you find your keys or maybe I can hot-wire it.”

  “No need for you to stay. I’ll find them.”

  He ignored her, dismounting and beginning a search of the wet ground.

  She hesitated, curiosity burning inside. “Barrett, what do you have against my uncle?”

  He looked away. “Don’t need to talk about that now.”

  “It’s not likely we’re going to do much chatting in the future.” That got no reaction. “So tell me. If you have a beef against Uncle Ken, then I have a right to know. He’s my only family.”

  Barrett’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “No disrespect intended, ma’am, but you don’t have a right to know.”

  She folded her arms, her pulse kicking up. “If Uncle Ken has an enemy right next door, then it is my business.”

  Barrett looked down at her, considering, shoulders a broad, tense wall against the night sky. He blew out a breath. “All right. You want to know so bad, I’ll tell you.”

  She waited quietly.

  “Ken’s son killed my wife.”

  The words dropped like stones. Killed my wife. She found herself unable to speak. An endless moment passed between them but she could not think of a single response.

  “Let’s find those keys,” he finally said.

  Her thoughts ran rampant as they searched. Glass littered the ground from where Barrett had broken the window.

  Her cousin Devon had killed Barrett Thorn’s wife? She flashed back to the photo she’d seen, a radiant bride and her handsome groom. With a surge of guilt, she realized she hadn’t been back to her uncle’s ranch in so long that she had only known the barest hint about what was going on in the lives of Uncle Ken and Devon.

  She’d known Devon had gone to prison for causing an accident that had killed a woman, but she did not know the particulars. The times she’d called, Uncle Ken had steadfastly refused to discuss it.

  Still lost in thought, she found her pack under a nearby shrub. There was no sign of her samples, but everything else was there.

  Barrett held the reins of the two horses in his hands. He looked somewhere over her head, anywhere but in her eyes.

  “I’ll wait until you get your car started,” he said. “Good night, Miss Arroyo.”

  In his tone, she heard the bitterness. Ken’s son killed my wife. She was anxious to get away, to sort it all out in her mind.

  A noise behind her made her turn.

  Barrett was staring at something in the distance. His attention was riveted to a spot under the trees, pitch-black except for a soft orange glow.

  Her mind was slow to put it together. The orange glo
w was not an electric or battery light. It sparkled and fizzed like a firecracker on the Fourth of July.

  No, not a firecracker.

  A fuse.

  “No,” Barrett shouted.

  Shelby could not see who was standing there under the trees. With a blur of movement, the stranger launched the dynamite through the air. It arced a golden trail through the night, speeding straight toward her.

  FOUR

  Barrett dropped the reins, grabbed Shelby’s hand and yanked her after him. There wasn’t time to do anything but dive behind a pile of boulders and put his bulk between her and whatever shrapnel was about to come their way.

  The explosion was deafening. Shards of glass flew through the air, smashing on the rocks and cutting into his back as he tried to block Shelby from the falling debris. His eardrums rang with the percussive burst. The ground shuddered under them. He looked up in time to see Lady and Titan bolt, fleeing to the safety of the trees.

  Shelby stirred in his arms but he caged her there with his body.

  “Stay still until we know there’s nothing else coming.”

  She probably wasn’t thrilled about his command, but she acquiesced.

  It was silent save for the wind in the branches and his own harsh breathing. Through the thin jacket his mother had insisted she wear, he felt her sides rising and falling in rapid rhythm. After a few moments, he poked his head up above the pile of rocks, watching for signs of movement. He saw nothing but a flicker of white as Titan led Lady away from the danger.

  Barrett eased up and crawled from the hiding place, offering Shelby a hand. She took it, and together they surveyed the damage. He still kept a cautious eye on the trees.

  The front of her car was blackened and twisted, smoke pouring out through the broken windshield. Her expression was hard to read in the scant moonlight. Fear? Outrage? Confusion? All of them would apply.

  “What just happened?” she demanded, hands on hips.

  “Dynamite.”

  She gave him an incredulous look. “So somebody actually ignited a stick of dynamite and lobbed it at me?”

  He nodded. “Plenty left around here from the mining days. Easy to lay hands on it.”

  “I don’t care where it came from. The bigger point here is why would someone light up a stick and toss it at me? It has to be Joe Hatcher.”

  “Maybe, unless you’ve angered somebody else.”

  She folded her arms and skewered him with such a look of disdain it almost made him smile.

  “I haven’t done anything to anyone in this town.”

  He didn’t answer. Whatever she had or hadn’t done wasn’t his business. Yet once again, he found himself trying to extricate her from a pile of trouble.

  “What makes you think it’s not Joe Hatcher?” she said.

  “Doesn’t seem like a rational thing for him to do.”

  “He threatened to kill me recently, if you remember.”

  “And that was completely out of line, but he might have been shooting his mouth off. My father believes him to be an honorable man, deep down.”

  “And you believe that, too?”

  He cocked his head. “I don’t know, but I trust my father. So for now, I’ll reserve judgment.”

  She met his eyes, her own glimmering with unreadable emotion. “I admire that kind of familial respect.”

  Something was under those words, something deep and painful and raw.

  Since he did not know what to say, he dialed his cell phone and told his family about the newest development.

  “Road’s still blocked to our ranch,” Owen told him. “Cops said they’ll circle around and meet you at Arroyo’s place.”

  Arroyo’s place. He’d rather crawl through a cactus field, but he could not think of any way out of it. “Okay,” he said.

  “Need backup?”

  “Nah, thanks, though.”

  He pocketed the phone and joined Shelby, who was examining the remains of her car.

  “As soon as I get the horses back, we’ll go to your uncle’s place. Cops will meet us there.”

  She stared gloomily at the wrecked vehicle. “My first new car.”

  He decided it was not the time to tell her a nice half-ton pickup might have held up better than her flimsy foreign-made tin can.

  His mother’s voice rang through his memory. In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise. He’d had to copy that proverb out as punishment a number of times when he was a kid. All the Thorn brothers had, except Jack, who was so quiet no one ever knew what he was thinking.

  And then there was the youngest Thorn. Their mother would probably still be having Keegan write out Bible verses if she could get him to do it. Barrett didn’t figure Keegan would ever master the art of restraint.

  He heard no sign at all that the person who had tossed the dynamite was still around, so he figured it was okay to leave Shelby there while he went after the horses. Titan wouldn’t have gone too far and Lady would stay with him. Horses weren’t as smart as humans, but they knew the survival basics.

  Retrieving his hat from the ground and shaking off a sprinkling of glass and dirt, he put it on and headed for the trees. He was surprised to find that Shelby was following him.

  “I...I figured I’d help,” she said.

  Help? That surprised him. Maybe she was scared to be left alone, but she seemed like the kind who wasn’t scared of much.

  A memory came back to him so strong it cut his heart in two. His wife, Bree, was the bravest woman he’d known, but she’d been petrified of snakes. The day a little gopher snake wriggled into the kitchen, she’d leaped onto Barrett’s back piggyback-style, hollering for him to get rid of it. He’d been laughing so hard tears had run down his face.

  A drop of rain splatted his cheek and he realized he was standing still. Shelby was looking at him inquiringly.

  “Are you okay?” she said softly.

  “Just thinking.” He turned away and she laid her hand very gently on his shoulder.

  “Wait a minute. You’re bleeding. I think you got cut by some flying glass.”

  He shrugged. “It’s okay.”

  But she did not let go. Instead she lifted the bottom edge of his jacket. He felt her fingers graze over his back, the sting of the cool air against the cut at odds with the softness of her touch.

  “It doesn’t look deep, but it needs bandaging.”

  He was caught there, wanting to pull away, yet part of him wished to stay, to accept the comfort of her gentle fingers, a connection he had not experienced in a very long time. Blinking, he cleared his throat, moving just enough that she let go of his jacket.

  “There,” he said, relief pouring through him. “There’s Titan.” He whistled and the horse approached, with Lady following a pace behind. He took the reins and patted the horse. “It’s all right, buddy. The dynamite scared all of us.”

  Lady was composed enough to allow Shelby to mount. When Barrett was astride Titan, they headed along the muddy trail toward Ken Arroyo’s property.

  He had not spoken to Ken since the trial when Devon was imprisoned for killing Bree. Ken had bought his son the fancy car and given him all the money he needed to enable his party-boy lifestyle. As far as Barrett was concerned, Ken might as well have bought his good-for-nothing son the liquor that he guzzled before getting behind the wheel.

  Anger lit inside Barrett’s gut like a burning coal, just as hot as it had been since his wife was taken from him.

  Would he be able to keep his mouth shut to prevent the ire from spilling out like acid?

  Just keep quiet, he told himself as they picked their way toward the house of his enemy.

  * * *

  Shelby was lost in thought as they followed the
trail to her uncle’s property. Who would want to throw her in the trunk of her car and then toss a stick of dynamite at her? It had to be Joe Hatcher. He had threatened to kill her, hadn’t he? But what would he gain except to keep her out of the mine and buy himself a whole lot of unwanted attention?

  As they neared the ranch, she could see Barrett straighten. His back must be hurting. Her fingers tingled at the memory of his strong muscles. The man despised her uncle, yet he’d twice bailed her out of a terrible situation. It must be that cowboy-honor thing.

  She felt a deep-down ache in her temple behind her left eye. Migraine or a residual pain from her attack? No time to ponder that as the big ranch house loomed before them.

  Uncle Ken had built the home thirty years before, as a summer place for him and his wife, Opal, but Opal had died in childbirth.

  Uncle Ken lived most of the year on the east coast with Devon, tending to his commercial real estate business and summering at the California ranch until Devon was fifteen. Summers there had been idyllic. The three of them—Shelby, her sister, Erin, and Devon—rode horses, drank lemonade and caught frogs in the creek.

  She’d envied Devon for his situation. It was so different from her own, as a child of a single mother who quaked with fear when the monthly bills came due. She wondered how Devon was faring now. State prison was a world removed from his comfortable home with Uncle Ken.

  A police car was parked in front of the two-story house on the wide circular drive. Barrett looped the reins around a split rail fence. Uncle Ken was an equine fanatic and he kept three horses in the back pasture even though he rarely rode anymore, leaving their care to an employee, but she figured Barrett wasn’t about to make himself or his own horses at home on Uncle Ken’s ranch.

  His son killed my wife.

  She’d not seen Devon since his high school graduation, the happy kid with the wide smile. How differently Barrett must see him, the killer of his wife. She had no idea how the next few minutes would go as she reached the front door. Barrett followed her in, lingering a few paces behind.

  The lamps in the front parlor illuminated a well-appointed front room with sleek leather furniture and richly hued area rugs, not a Christmas decoration to be seen anywhere. Uncle Ken was deep in conversation with a young police officer whose close-cropped hair and rain slicker were damp. Her uncle broke off and wrapped Shelby in a hug, his wide face flushed with emotion.