Colton's Cowboy Code

by Melissa Cutler

  Damn, Brett prayed that neither of those motives held true, because if that were the case, then no one on the ranch was safe. “I hope you’re wrong. But I still don’t get what you meant by secrets.”

  “The ranch is too far off the beaten path for a small-time crook to risk, so I don’t think jewelry was the main point of the break-in. Not for the relatively low-value items that were stolen, and not given that photo albums were also taken. So if money wasn’t the motivation, then that means secrets are involved.”

  Yeah, right. “That’s a nice theory and all, except for one thing. My mother doesn’t have any secrets. She’s a depressed, bitter socialite.” Saying the words dredged up all the frustration and pain of their combative relationship. He would forever regret his last words to her before her attack, and when—he refused to think of it as an if—she woke, he’d be the first in line at her bedside to tell her that he forgave her and ask for her forgiveness in return, but that didn’t mean he was obligated to transform her into a saint in his mind.

  Daniel gave him a look. “Everybody and every place has secrets, bro.” He spurred his mount into motion, headed away from the homestead to the fence line in the distance.

  Brett gave a long look at Daniel’s back, at the shoulders that were unmistakably Colton DNA. Daniel’s mother had been Brett’s father’s mistress—his father’s secret. Maybe Daniel was onto something with his theory.

  Brett urged Outlaw to catch up, his mind chewing over the possibility that his mother could have brought the attack on herself through keeping a secret of her own. No way. Not Abra Colton. If she’d gotten herself in hot water, she would’ve come racing to Brett’s dad for help.

  As fast as Daniel had taken off, he brought his horse to a stop. Brett instructed Outlaw to do the same.

  Daniel brought his rifle up, aiming it to his right. “Did you see that?”

  Brett scanned the countryside in the direction that Daniel’s rifle was pointed, but saw only tall grasses and scrub trees in the last lingering indigo glow of daylight. “No. What?”

  Daniel nodded to his right. “Three o’clock. I saw movement.”

  “Coyote?”

  “Not sure. Probably, but it looked bigger to me.”

  They stood still and quiet. Brett strained his eyes. Then he saw it, a glimpse of movement more than two football fields away. With the gait and the shape, it had to be the head or back of a large animal or a small man, its form black against the night and moving quickly away from them on top of a small rise.

  Brett took up his rifle and whispered, “Come on. Let’s see what, or who, we’ve found.”

  They proceeded forward with caution, letting their horses pick their way quiet and steady over the land. Brett’s senses were on high alert now. He heard every crunch of grass under the horses’ hooves, every rustle of leaves in the breeze. He was keenly aware of his own loud, fast heartbeat and the twitchy urge of his trigger finger where he held it straight against his .22.

  How long had it been since he’d shot a gun? Several months, at least. It was one of those skills that never left a man completely, but he sure hoped he wouldn’t need to pull the trigger tonight.

  They were nearly to the top of the rise where they’d seen the movement when a flare of light burst to life on the far side of the rise and reflected off the clouds. Brett and Daniel stopped their horses and exchanged a nervous glance. Brett adjusted his shotgun against his shoulder, his eyes locked on the glow coming from the other side of the hill.

  That’s when he saw it—a flicker that could only be one thing.

  “Fire,” Brett said, urging Outlaw back into motion.

  With a curse, Daniel sped to join him. They raced over the hill. The hunting shed they sometimes used when there was evidence in the area of bobcats, coyotes or mountain lions was fully engulfed in flames.

  “I’ll radio for help,” Daniel said. “You keep looking and I’ll catch up with you. We’ve got to catch whoever did this and I’m guessing they’re not going to hang around to watch us put the fire out.”

  Brett and Outlaw took off into the prairie, cutting a wide path around the burning building. He kept his head on a swivel, straining for a glimpse of movement in the darkness, but the light of the fire hindered his night vision. It took a long time for his eyes to adjust enough to see anything but the silhouettes of trees, boulders and the horizon.

  Then, he saw it again. Movement. At first glimpse of something making haste across the prairie a good fifty yards to his left, Brett sucked in a breath in shock. He slowed Outlaw while his eyes got a read on the motion again. Something or someone was definitely out there with him, something as big as a person, rustling the underbrush and running on foot fast away from him. Contrary to Maria’s imagination, this was no prairie ghost, so it’d only be a matter of seconds before Outlaw caught up to him. Or it.

  Gun at the ready, he nudged Outlaw’s flank.

  Then, somewhere nearby, a gunshot fired.

  Chapter 10

  The darkness was disorienting, but the gunshot seemed to have come from the direction of the outbuilding. Out on the prairie, there were few places a man and horse could hide that would shield them from gunfire. Brett briefly considered pulling his flashlight from his saddlebag because the dark was so frustrating in its limitations, but that would do little more than blind him to the world beyond the limited scope of the beam. Listening for sounds of movement was still his best choice.

  He held his breath, held Outlaw perfectly still, and opened his ears. Nothing but the hollow, droning whistle of wind across the grass and the faint crackle of burning wood in the distance. To his right, a twig snapped, followed by a rustling sound. Brett swung his attention and rifle in that direction.

  “Freeze! Or I’m going to blow your head off,” he bellowed.

  He would never shoot without first having a visual on his target, but maybe his threat would inspire the trespasser to speak up. More rustling sounded, getting farther away. Brett gave a slight tug of pressure to Outlaw’s rein, commanding him forward a few steps.

  A howl cut through the breeze. Outlaw stiffened and stopped moving, his ears tall. Brett couldn’t make sense of the sound, higher pitched than a dog’s wail or the keening of tornado sirens. It was the kind of sound that crawled under your skin and came back out in nightmares, or when your mind was in the twilight zone between sleep and waking.

  Brett kept up his visual scan of the surrounding prairie, but saw nothing.

  Then the sound cut off as though someone had hit Stop on a stereo, though it echoed in Brett’s ears for several moments longer until it was eclipsed by the sounds of Brett’s pounding heart and his panting breaths.

  The next gust of wind carried with it the noxious odor of burning wood laced with chemicals. The fire.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and called Daniel. “Did you hear that sound? That howl?”

  “Huh? No, but I thought I heard a gunshot. Are you okay?”

  “Fine. I heard the shot, too, but I lost the trail. Whoever set that fire and shot at us is long gone,” Brett said.

  “A crew’s on their way from the ranch, bringing the water tank.”

  “Police? Fire department?”

  “I haven’t called them yet. I figured we’d see what we’ve got first. They might just get in the way of our investigation.”

  Ryan would be ticked off beyond belief if they didn’t clue him in, but he agreed with Daniel’s plan to wait and see. He gave a wiggle of the rein with his right hand, turning Outlaw in the direction of the fire. “I’m headed back your way.”

  “Keep your eyes open and your gun ready.”

  Brett gave one last look over his shoulder. “Copy that.”

  At the site of the fire, Daniel, along with Rafe, Jack and at least a half dozen ranch workers had already dous
ed the flames with water from the tanker truck, which idled nearby, its headlights illuminating the scene. The men stood around the burned-out shell of the hunting blind, hands on hips, pointing and talking.

  Brett dismounted a fair distance away, hoping to spare Outlaw from breathing the most concentrated levels of residual smoke and fumes. He walked toward the men, his gaze still scanning the horizon for movement, though he felt in his bones that the perpetrator had vanished.

  Ash and carbon scattered in the breeze, kicking around Brett’s boots as he walked. A particularly large piece of ash tumbled across the ground in his direction. Brett bent forward and plucked it up. He knew the moment his fingers touched it that it wasn’t ash, but a photograph. He angled it into the light from the tanker’s headlights.

  It was from a Christmas card from years and years ago. He, his brothers and sister, and his parents posed in front of a beige studio backdrop, all dressed in Sunday finery. Every set of their eyes had been gouged out.

  * * *

  The parking lot of the Tulsa police precinct that Ryan worked in was packed. Brett found a spot on the street, then texted Ryan about his arrival as he trekked to the main entrance. The lobby was mostly full. Behind the front desk, uniformed and plainclothes officers carried on with their busy morning, most anchored to their desks with their fingers busy at keyboards.

  A bony woman with frizzy gray hair and a variety of tattered bags and purses slung over her right shoulder stood at the front desk, demanding answers about why her next-door neighbor hadn’t yet been arrested for spying on her, despite the numerous police reports that the woman had filed. The receptionist had patient eyes and a serious expression, as though she earnestly valued every opinion and complaint lobbed at her throughout her shift.

  A jingle of keys preceded Ryan’s arrival in the lobby. He was dressed in beige slacks and a blue dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He’d rolled the sleeves up over his forearms and had affixed his badge to his brown leather belt, right next to his holstered firearm. Nobody exuded effortless confidence like his brother Ryan.

  “Thanks for meeting with me,” Brett said, standing.

  “I’ve been at my desk this morning, drowning in paperwork, so I appreciate the break.” The frizzy-haired woman at the front desk slapped her palm on the counter, her voice turning shrill. Ryan eyed her for a beat, then turned his attention back to Brett. “Let’s go to my office. I just made a fresh pot of coffee.”

  He followed Ryan through the maze of hallways. The mention of coffee conjured a vision of Hannah in Brett’s mind and brought a smile to his lips as he recalled her first morning at the ranch. She’d tried hard to tough it out that morning at breakfast, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anyone so green around the gills. Thankfully, her morning sickness seemed to be fading. Even still, she’d rallied like a trouper every morning, insisting on getting right to work—highlighting a one-two punch of moxie and self-deprecating charm that had—

  He shook his head. There he went again, damn it all. Daydreaming like a smitten schoolboy. It was high-time he knocked that nonsense off because his wayward thoughts were making it harder and harder to think clearly when it came to protecting the woman and child in his charge. Now, more than ever, he needed to stay focused on what mattered most—keeping them safe.

  Ryan stopped at his office door and ushered Brett in. “Don’t try to tell me that smile is because I’m offering you coffee.”

  “Nah. Just thinkin’.”

  Ryan gave him a poke in the ribs as he passed. “About your baby mama, I bet.”

  “Lucky guess.”

  “No way. That was me using my advanced detective skills. How are the two of you doing?” He pushed the door to his office closed with his shoe, then made a beeline to the coffeepot on the table in the corner.

  Brett took a seat in front of the desk. “She’s already proved to be a major asset to the business, and she’s helping me come up with a horse-breeding proposal to present to Jack and Pops, which is invaluable.”

  Filling two mugs with coffee, Ryan frowned. “That’s a cop-out answer.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  He handed Brett a mug. “What I asked was, how are you two getting along? I mean, you’d only met her twice before she moved in with you, right? So, how’s it going? Do you like her?”

  “Don’t you ever get tired of interrogating people?”

  Ryan assumed his seat behind the desk. “Nope.”

  Brett sipped his coffee. “Well, she won over the whole house within the first five minutes of them laying eyes on her, just like I knew she would, and she’s been charming the socks off everyone ever since. And at least once a day, she gets this look in her eyes like she wants me to kiss her, and every single time, I come about this close to caving. And there’s nothing sayin’ I’d be able to stop with just a kiss. So I’m pretty miserable.”

  Ryan snorted. “How would making out with her be a bad thing?”

  “Because I’m ninety-nine percent sure that would’ve been the wrong move. Her pregnancy hormones tend to make her rather...passionate, you might say. But there’s no getting around the fact that she’s in a vulnerable position. No matter what Little Brett is telling me to do, sleeping with her is not the right move. She and the baby are my responsibility and I’m not going to muck all that up by overstepping my boundaries.”

  Ryan raised his mug in a salute. “Mature.”

  “Precisely. Thank you.” That was exactly what he was determined to be—no matter how kissable she looked or how ardently she tried to seduce him. “Thankfully, most of our evenings together are cut short by my patrol shifts.”

  “That’s a helluva thing, that fire last night. I’m glad you and Daniel called me in. I can’t figure out why anyone would be motivated to start a fire all the way out in the back fields.”

  “The fire marshal had just arrived at the ranch before I left to come here.”

  “Good,” Ryan said. “He should have some answers for us soon about the cause and origin point. But I’m fairly certain that you haven’t come all the way here for advice on your love life or to talk any more about the fire, since we just saw each other a few short hours ago.” He threaded his hands together behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “So, to what do I owe this visit?”

  “I might have some insight as to the motivation of our arsonist.” Brett slid the defaced Christmas photo across the desk. He’d taken the precaution of sealing it in a plastic ziplock bag, hanging his hope on the chance that the police would be able to salvage fingerprints or DNA from it. “I found this at the scene of the fire, but I haven’t shared it with anyone yet. I wanted to talk with you first.”

  Ryan left the photograph on his desk and stared at it for a long time, his expression inscrutable. Then he scrubbed a hand over his mouth. He picked the bag up and held it close to his face while he took a slow drink of coffee.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s from one of the photo albums stolen from Mom’s room,” Brett said into the stretching silence. “And it’s defaced in the same way as Greta’s photograph in the stolen locket the police found outside the hospital.”

  Ryan set the photograph on the desk again and leveled a somber look at Brett. “Well, holy hell. If there was any doubt before, there won’t be now. This makes it personal.”

  “My thoughts exactly. This confirms our suspicion that the hit man who went after Tracy last month wasn’t Mom’s attacker and that her attack wasn’t a random robbery gone bad. Whoever it was, they knew where her room was, where she kept her jewelry and her photo albums, and—” he speared a finger onto the desk near the photograph “—they cared enough to deface our family memories. Multiple times.”

  “And they set that building on fire knowing you’d find it, along with the photograph. It was a plant. Just like the locket.”

  Brett
nodded. “I hate the way this is shaping up.”

  “Me, too. Who knew where you and Daniel were patrolling last night?” Ryan asked.

  “No one. We decided which direction we’d go after he came to the office to get me. But anyone who was at the ranch could’ve seen which direction we left in.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “What?”

  Ryan rolled his gaze up from the photograph to pin Brett with a grave look. “That whoever’s behind all this damage and Abra’s attack works at the ranch.”

  A chill crawled under Brett’s skin. How could he keep Hannah safe if the danger was right under their noses, invisible in plain sight? “Like I said, I hate the direction this is going.”

  “You said you didn’t show this photograph to anyone else? Not even Daniel or Hannah?”

  “No one. Not Daniel, and definitely not Hannah. I don’t want her to worry unnecessarily.”

  Ryan nodded. “Let’s keep it that way for now, until I’ve had a chance to think this through. If whoever’s doing this lives and works at the ranch, then the fewer people who’re aware of the evidence, the better. Someone wants to hurt our family. Not just Mom, but all of us.”

  Brett was too agitated to sit. He pushed up from the chair and paced to the door, staring blankly through the glass into the hall. “Why would someone do all this? What do they have against our family?”

  Daniel’s theory about secrets popped into Brett’s head. But secrets about whom? And what?

  “No idea what the motive is,” Ryan said. “None of it makes sense yet, but it’s going to very soon because I’m not going to rest until it does.”

  “I just moved the mother of my child onto the ranch. I told her I would take care of her and the baby and keep them safe, but how can I do that if Mom’s attacker is right under our noses?” He pivoted and pinned Ryan with a stare. “I have a family to protect now, damn it.”