Gunfire on the Ranch

by Delores Fossen

  “Lacey lawyered up,” Theo went on. “So did August. And Gabriel doesn’t have enough to hold either of them. That means we’re at a stalemate unless SAPD or the CSIs find something to link the attack or McKenzie’s murder to someone.”

  Someone in this case being August or Lacey.

  And that brought Theo back to something he’d been wanting to ask Ivy. “Just how much does Lacey hate you?”

  She looked at him for a moment before she answered. “A lot. Why?”

  He lifted his shoulder. “Lacey said she made it a point to get to know anyone connected to you. It’s a long shot, but she could have discovered the link between August and McKenzie.”

  He was talking softly enough not to wake Jodi and Nathan, and Ivy got up from the table to go closer to him, probably so she’d be able to hear him better.

  “But if she wanted to set up August to take the blame for this,” Ivy said, “then why would she have allowed McKenzie to call her?”

  “Maybe she didn’t allow it. He could have just screwed up. Or it could be he got spooked when he realized someone was trying to kill him and he tried to get in touch with her. Either way, McKenzie would have been a loose end.”

  That was true even if Lacey or August wasn’t behind this. McKenzie had a link to two dead gunmen, and the mastermind pulling their strings wouldn’t have wanted to keep McKenzie around.

  “August’s motive is to clear Travis’s name,” Ivy whispered. “But Lacey won’t inherit her father’s money if she kills me.” She made a soft gasp and touched her fingers to her mouth. “She’d have to get rid of Nathan, too.”

  That wiped away the fatigue in Ivy’s eyes, and the fear quickly came. Theo had had a similar reaction earlier when he’d thought of how this might all play out.

  “God, she can’t hurt him,” Ivy said on a rise of breath. Tears sprang to her eyes.

  Hell. He didn’t handle these tears any better than he had the ones the night before at the sheriff’s office. This time, though, Theo put his arm around her.

  Ivy melted against him.

  That definitely wasn’t good because she felt soft—and right—in his arms. The years vanished, and for a few seconds, she was his lover again. Thankfully, it didn’t go past the thought stage because Ivy pulled away from him.

  “Sorry,” she said, her voice low. He wasn’t sure if she was apologizing for the tears or the reaction they’d just had to each other. And Theo decided it was best if he didn’t have the answer to that.

  “I’m not going to let anything happen to Nathan,” Theo promised her, and somehow that was a promise he’d keep.

  She stayed at the window with him, and her gaze connected with his again. “Is there something you aren’t telling me?” she asked. “You’re not thinking of telling Nathan the truth, are you?”

  That was two unrelated questions. “Nathan will eventually need to know,” he reminded her.

  She kept staring at him. “But?”

  “It can wait a little while longer.”

  He was pretty sure the breath she blew out was one of relief. “Then what’s wrong?”

  “It’s maybe nothing.” And that’s why Theo hated to even say it aloud. Still, it was bothering him. “It’s about Lacey and Wesley. By any chance, did she ever mention him?”

  “No.” Ivy had the reaction that Theo expected. Confusion and surprise. “Why?”

  “Wesley didn’t even ask who Lacey was when she came into the sheriff’s office. At that point, we weren’t expecting her.”

  “Yes,” she agreed after several moments. “But you don’t think Wesley could be behind the attack?”

  Theo certainly didn’t want to believe it, but he just couldn’t shake this feeling. “I’ve worked with Wesley a long time. In fact, we were teamed up on our last case where a fellow DEA agent was murdered.”

  She shook her head. “You believe the attack last night could somehow be connected to that?”

  Theo scrubbed his hand over his face. “If it is, I can’t see it.”

  That didn’t mean he would stop looking, though. He would also be more careful about the info he got from Wesley. After all, it was Wesley’s intel about the impending attack that had sent Theo running to the ranch.

  “I called a DEA friend this morning,” Theo explained. “His name is Matt Krueger, and he’s someone I know I can trust. I asked him to look for any connections between Lacey and Wesley. Between Wesley and any of this,” he added.

  “But why would Wesley want to go after you?” she pressed. “Why would he want to go after you like this?” Ivy amended. “By including our families?”

  “This is just a guess, but the attack last night could be the ultimate smoke screen, a way of making sure no suspicion fell on Wesley.”

  Still, that didn’t answer one big question.

  Why?

  Was it somehow connected to the botched investigation and death of the DEA agent? Theo had spent hours going over every transcript and all the surveillance footage he could get his hands on, and even though he couldn’t see anything wrong, he felt it. Deep in his gut. Something about all of it wasn’t right.

  “Are you thinking that Wesley could be dirty?” she asked.

  He had to shrug. “That whole undercover operation had hitches right from the start,” Theo explained. He couldn’t give her some details because they were classified, but he could tell her the big picture. “There was a militia group dealing arms and drugs, and some of those came from a cache of weapons that’d been seized in a federal raid. The agent who was killed was at the heart of both the bust to seize those weapons and the undercover operation of the militia group.”

  And now that the agent was dead, there was no way he could answer the questions that were eating away at Theo.

  “God,” she said. “If Wesley had anything to do with this...”

  “Wesley doesn’t know the location of the safe house,” Theo told her when he realized all of this had put the alarm back in her eyes. “Only Jameson, Gabriel and the four of us know. And just in case something else goes wrong, if someone did manage to follow us, Jameson is working on setting up a second safe house. A backup.”

  The sound of footsteps stopped him from saying anything else, and Theo automatically slid his hand over his gun in his holster. But it wasn’t a threat. It was Nathan.

  “Aunt Jodi’s taking a shower,” he greeted. “Is there any cereal and milk? I’m hungry.”

  Ivy went to the counter, where there were bags of groceries and supplies, and she rummaged through them. “No cereal, but there are some granola bars.”

  Nathan didn’t seem disappointed with that, and he opened the fridge to take out the carton of milk. Since he couldn’t reach the cabinet and because Ivy was opening the box of granola bars, Theo got a glass for him and set it on the table. Nathan poured himself a glass, all the while keeping his attention on Theo.

  “I’m not dumb, you know,” Nathan said. “I heard Aunt Jodi and Uncle Gabriel on the phone. She was whispering, but I heard her.” He had a big drink of the milk. “You’re my dad, aren’t you?”

  Even though Theo could feel the question coming, it was still a shock to hear it. A shock for Ivy, too, because she stood there, her hand frozen while she reached out to give Nathan the granola bar.

  “Yeah, I am,” Theo answered. He braced himself in case Ivy was going to blast him for revealing that, but she merely put the bar on the table and sank down in the chair next to Nathan.

  Nathan nodded. “We look alike. Aunt Jodi said.”

  His sister was a regular font of information, but Theo couldn’t fault her for that. Nathan was her nephew, and with Ivy keeping that a secret, it meant she’d kept Nathan a secret from all of them.

  “We do look alike,” Theo agreed, and he turned to Ivy to see if she had anything to add to that.

  “Are yo
u mad that I didn’t tell you?” she asked Nathan.

  While he shook his head, he bit off a chunk of the bar. “I knew Dad wasn’t my real dad. Lacey told me, remember?”

  “I remember.” Ivy’s jaw was suddenly a little tight.

  Theo waited for Nathan to ask more—such as why Theo hadn’t seen him in all this time—but he continued to eat his breakfast as if this were an ordinary day.

  “Are those bad men going to find us?” Nathan finally said.

  Theo wished they’d stayed on the subject of fatherhood, but he hadn’t expected Nathan just to forget the attack. “No. That’s why we’re in this house. If we have to stay here long, I’ll have one of your uncles bring out some cereal for you.”

  “Thanks.” He finished off the last bite of the granola bar and looked up at Theo. “Will you and my mom be together? You know, like some moms and dads?”

  Theo was certain he had the same deer-in-the-headlights look as Ivy, but Ivy didn’t seem to have trouble finding her voice. “No. But you will get to see Theo if that’s what you want.”

  “Sure.” Nathan stood and cleaned up after himself. “Can I go play a game on the computer now?”

  Ivy nodded, and she seemed to release the breath she’d been holding when Nathan took off. However, he quickly stopped and whirled back around. “I think Aunt Jodi’s a little sad. Because this was supposed to be the day she got married to Uncle Gabriel.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Theo assured him. That was apparently all the answer he needed, because Nathan hurried to the bedroom.

  Theo waited to see if Ivy would start to cry again, but she blew out another long breath and sat next to him. “I thought Nathan would take it harder than that.”

  Theo made a sound of agreement. And since she’d brought it up—and wasn’t crying—he pushed the conversation a little. “When this is over, I want to see a whole lot more of Nathan. I want to get to know him.”

  She stared at him. “But what about your job? You’re rarely around.”

  “True, but that could change. I’ve been a joe for a long time, and the DEA would probably like to see me behind a desk for a while.”

  “You’d want to do that?” She made it sound as if he’d be jumping off a cliff.

  Nothing so drastic, but it would be a total lifestyle change for him. One that Theo hadn’t thought he’d ever want to make. Then again, he’d never thought he would have a son, either.

  “I’m not walking away from Nathan,” he warned her. “He’ll get to know me as his father, the way he should have from the start.”

  He hadn’t meant for that to sound so harsh, but it was hard to rein in the emotions when it came to the boy. Ivy held all the emotional cards here. She had the history and connection with their son. He was going to have to build it from the ground up.

  “Gabriel, Jodi and Jameson will want to spend time with him, too,” Theo went on. “After all, Nathan is their only nephew.” And he waited for her to dismiss that or accept it.

  One way or another, Ivy was going to have to accept it.

  He didn’t have to wait long. She gave another of those weary sighs. “I didn’t plan to keep Nathan from my brothers or Jodi. Or from you. It all got mixed up into one giant mental mess. The murders. Our breakup. Jodi nearly dying. Gabriel and Jameson weren’t in a good place mentally, and they had their hands full with the investigation. When I suspected I might be pregnant, I decided to leave.” She paused. “They honestly didn’t know about Nathan. I made sure they didn’t know.”

  Because Gabriel and Jameson would have gone after her and tried to bring her home. He got that.

  “And you didn’t stay around, either,” she reminded him.

  No, he hadn’t. “I had to get away, too.” He’d had his own mental mess to deal with. “I kept thinking I should have been there to protect Jodi. I shouldn’t have let that monster nearly knife her to death. That got mixed up with me being a suspect. Then my father’s arrest.”

  Ivy stayed quiet a moment. “Do you think Travis is innocent?”

  He couldn’t give her a simple answer. Because there wasn’t one. “I thought he was. Then Jodi and the rest of you started getting those threatening letters and emails. I’m a lawman, so I had to look at it from the angle that maybe the real killer was doing this so he could taunt you.”

  “Or it could be August trying to create doubt for his brother,” she quickly pointed out.

  Yes, that was more than possible. Still, he doubted his father would have gone along with a plan if it’d actually endangered either the Beckett children or Jodi and him. That meant there was still the possibility of a real killer out there or someone with a sick obsession about all of this.

  Theo’s phone buzzed, and he saw DEA agent Matt Krueger’s name on the screen. He answered the call while he went to the window to have a look outside.

  “Please tell me you found something about that militia raid I was asking about,” Theo greeted.

  Matt hesitated a moment. “Yes, that. I did go over everything, and I see what you mean about maybe the pieces not fitting. I’m thinking someone could have tipped off the militia about agents having infiltrated them.”

  That’s what Theo had considered as well, but it still twisted at him to think that a fellow agent could have done that. “Is there any proof?”

  “Maybe. I just went through the surveillance footage we have, and Wesley made a call about thirty minutes before the attack. Since he was using a prepaid cell, there’s no way to trace it. Any idea who he called?”

  “None.” In fact, that was the point in the assignment, when he, Wesley and the agent who’d died—Ross Callahan—should have been keeping watch for an arms shipment that was about to come in.

  “I think it’s time for me to ask Wesley about this,” Theo added. “I’ll give him a call—”

  “You haven’t heard?” Matt interrupted.

  “Heard what?” Theo asked.

  “I just got the news a couple of minutes ago. Gabriel apparently took Wesley into custody. Don’t know the details yet, but the sheriff found some kind of evidence to link Wesley to those dead gunmen.”

  Everything inside Theo went still. “What kind of evidence?”

  “I’m not sure. Gabriel’s holding that close to the vest. But Wesley claims that you set him up, that you’re the one responsible for those gunmen who attacked last night.”

  Theo cursed. “And why the hell would I have done something like that?”

  Matt hesitated again. “Wesley said you did it to get Ivy out of the way so you could get custody of your son.”

  Chapter Eight

  Theo was still cursing under his breath after they got in the cruiser, and even though Ivy hadn’t timed it, it’d been well over an hour since his intense phone conversation with Matt Krueger.

  During that time, Wesley had accused Theo of attempted murder.

  And that’s why Theo had immediately started making plans to go to the sheriff’s office in Blue River. He did that by arranging for Jameson to come out and stay with Nathan while the deputy, Cameron Doran, drove with Theo as backup into town. Theo and Cameron had been friends since childhood, and Theo trusted him. But Ivy made sure she was in on those plans, too, even though Theo had insisted it wasn’t the right thing to do.

  Heck, she wasn’t sure it was the right thing, either, but she did want to be there when Gabriel interrogated Wesley. And Lacey, as well. Gabriel had had to reschedule her interview so that her lawyer would be there with her.

  “If Wesley’s the one behind this,” Theo said to her, “then you’re not the target. That means there’s no reason for you to be there.”

  Theo had already voiced several variations of that argument to get her to stay at the safe house, and it might be true. The investigation had certainly taken a strange turn, what with Wesley’s accusations. Too bad that
it might take them a long time to sort it out.

  Time they didn’t have.

  Nathan was okay for now at the safe house with Jodi and Jameson, but Ivy hated the thought of him being shut away. Hated more that her little boy was in danger. Maybe they would get some answers, and soon, and put an end to that.

  Theo continued to mumble profanity while he read a text. He did that while volleying glances all around them. So did Cameron while he drove them toward town. Thankfully, it was a rural road with no other traffic, so it should be easy to spot someone trying to follow them. Unfortunately, there were plenty of old ranch trails and even some thick woods between the safe house and Blue River. That’s the reason Theo had wanted Cameron to make this drive with him.

  “SAPD can’t find a money trail for McKenzie and either of the dead gunmen,” Theo relayed to her once he’d finished reading the text.

  It was frustrating but something she’d expected. None of their known suspects would have left that kind of evidence behind.

  “What about the phone call McKenzie made to Lacey?” she asked.

  Theo shook his head. “SAPD can’t even be sure McKenzie made that call. There were no prints on the phone. It’d been wiped clean.”

  Ivy huffed. “That means someone could have killed McKenzie and then used his phone to set up Lacey.”

  “Yep. And Lacey could have done it that way to throw suspicion off herself. That way, if her name did show up on any of McKenzie’s other outgoing calls, then she could say she was being framed.”

  “And she might be,” Ivy admitted. “If someone wants us dead, Lacey would be the perfect patsy since she has motive. Well, motive to go after Nathan and me, anyway. But the person behind this could plan to make it look as if the real target was caught in the middle.” She paused. “Of course, we don’t know who the ‘real target’ is.”

  Theo made a sound of agreement. “About how much money does Lacey think she lost out on with the inheritance?” he asked.