The Wrangler and the Runaway Mom

by RaeAnne Thayne

  She could almost hear the litany echoing in her ears. Margaret, stop that sniveling. Margaret, stiffen your shoulders. Margaret, use a handkerchief.

  Now she felt as if an ocean of tears had been dammed up inside her all these years, capped and contained. It had only taken a sweet, crazy act, like a rough cowboy sleeping out under the stars to protect her, for them to spill free, and now she couldn’t seem to stop them.

  She felt safe here. The realization only made her sob harder. In his arms, surrounded by his strength and warmth, she felt completely safe for the first time in weeks.

  “There now. It’s okay.” He patted her back with his big hands, and she would have smiled at the awkwardness of the gesture if she hadn’t been so completely humiliated at breaking down in front of him. Or so devastated at the knowledge that when he released her, all the fear would come creeping back.

  “It’s not okay,” she mumbled. “It hasn’t been for a long time.”

  “What hasn’t been?” His voice sounded hoarse, concerned. “What’s going on, Doc?”

  “It’s not your problem. I don’t want to involve you in it,” she mumbled against his chest.

  He smoothed a gentle hand down her hair in a tender gesture that nearly destroyed her. “Hate to break it to you, darlin’, but I’m already involved.”

  Perhaps it was the tenderness that compelled her to tell him. Maybe it was simply because here, surrounded by his heat and strength, she discovered she could no longer carry this huge weight by herself.

  “I’m so tired of being afraid,” she managed to sniff out.

  “Tell me, Doc. Tell me what’s so terrible you don’t sleep nights and can’t stop looking over your shoulder?”

  She pulled away from him then shivered. She was right Outside of his arms, it was as if she’d been thrust from a sweet, dreamy haven back into the throes of her nightmare.

  To fight it—and to combat the overwhelming desire to step back into those arms—she gripped her elbows.

  In the thin moonlight, his features seemed blurred, like a photograph left underwater. But still she could see the concern in his vivid blue eyes, see the frown lines radiating from that firm mouth.

  Could she tell him? Weeks of keeping silent about what she had seen that night tangled up her tongue. There were a hundred reasons why she knew she shouldn’t tell him. He would probably tell her to go to the police. It might put him in danger to know what was going on. He would feel even more obligated to try to protect them.

  None of those were the real reason she wanted to stay silent.

  The hard, vicious truth was that she was ashamed. Her shoulders sagged at the bitter knowledge. She didn’t want to tell Colt how weak she had been, how timid.

  But despite all the reasons she could come up with not to confide in him, there was one overriding argument in favor of it: she trusted him. It had grown slowly over the past days but she had grown to depend on his friendship more than she ever believed possible.

  She took a deep breath, filled her lungs with air, then tightened her hold on her elbows until the bony ridges seemed to be imprinted on her fingers.

  “I told you my husband was murdered,” she finally said in a voice that only wavered a little. “But I didn’t tell you I was there, that I watched him die. A man shot my child’s father and I did absolutely nothing to stop it.”

  Chapter 8

  At Maggie’s quiet confession that she had witnessed the hit on her bastard of a husband, the breath Colt hadn’t even been aware he was holding escaped in a rush.

  Relief poured through him—relief that she had finally decided to trust him and relief that he could be done with this job soon and put much-needed distance between them again, that he could once more regain perspective and climb back into the careful order of his life.

  Tempering it was a sharp ache in his chest. He hurt to hear how her illusions had been shattered so brutally, that she had been exposed so violently to the harshness and ugliness of his world.

  She shouldn’t have had to watch her husband’s murder in the first place and she damn well shouldn’t have to relive it, but he knew he needed to hear the story from her own lips before he could help her.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked in a small, tight voice.

  His gaze flashed to her face and the expression there shocked him. In another woman, he would have said she looked guilty, but what would Maggie possibly have to feel guilty about? She had been an innocent witness to her husband’s murder.

  At his continued silence, her spine stiffened and her chin tilted. “Sorry I troubled you. Forget I said anything.” She turned and took a step back toward her trailer but he grabbed her arm.

  “Hey, slow down. I’m sorry. You just startled me, that’s all. You can’t drop a bombshell like that and just expect me to know in an instant exactly how I should react.”

  “I don’t expect anything. I told you, it’s my problem and I’m handling it. I should never have dragged you into it.”

  “And I told you, I’m in it and you didn’t drag me anywhere.”

  Here’s where he should tell her he’s an FBI agent. It was the perfect opportunity, the ideal opening.

  Still, he wavered. The time didn’t seem right. He couldn’t afford to lose that trust until he heard the whole story about that night, about what she knew of the men who had killed Michael Prescott.

  Going with his instincts, he grabbed her hand. “I want to know what happened, Doc. Let’s go inside and sit down and you can tell me about it. You’ve gone this far, you can’t back down now.”

  Shoulders stiff, mouth set, she studied him for a moment, then sighed softly. “You’re right. I might as well tell you all of it.”

  She led the way back to her trailer. He slid onto one of the benches at the table, expecting her to take the other side, but she walked to the little window in the rear of the trailer and looked out at the night.

  “Start at the beginning,” he said. “What happened?”

  She was quiet for so long he thought she wasn’t going to answer him, but finally she turned around and in a clipped, expressionless tone, recited the events of the night Michael Prescott was killed. She told him about their impending divorce, about the bastard’s repeated infidelities and about how Prescott had threatened to fight for custody of Nicky to punish her for leaving him.

  She had gone to his office that night to try to talk him out of it, she said, and stumbled onto a dark, frightening morass of deception, betrayal and, ultimately, murder.

  The more she spoke, the more lifeless her voice became. Her long, elegant fingers were laced together in front of her. They twitched a few times, as if she wanted to fiddle with them, but other than that she remained perfectly still, perfectly composed.

  He would have thought she was made of ice until he looked into her cinnamon eyes and saw the stark, raw emotion there.

  He wanted to stop her, to gather her into his arms again and tell her she didn’t need to tell him anything more, that he already knew the whole story. That he would take care of her. He couldn’t, of course. Hell, just the fact he had the impulse in the first place scared the bejeber out of him. Instead, he had to pretend a bemused kind of shock at her story.

  “So that’s it,” she finally said. “This happened nearly six weeks ago, and I’ve been running ever since.”

  “Why would they be looking for you? From what you said, they wouldn’t know you were even there.”

  “I don’t know why.” The fingers definitely twitched this time. “Before the blond one killed him, Michael told them I had something they were looking for.”

  He felt that little itch between his shoulder blades that usually meant he was close to the crux of a case. “What did he mean?”

  “I don’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about. I’ve racked my brains since that night but can’t come up with a single thing. I moved out three months before he was killed and took very little with me from our house. Whate
ver it is must be somewhere in my apartment, I suppose.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police?” It was one aspect of the case that had bothered him from the beginning.

  She didn’t look at him, just gazed back out at the night. “You know, before this happened to me, I thought the world was an orderly place that always made sense. Two and two always equaled four, morning inevitably followed night. I thought I knew right from wrong, good from evil.”

  “But now?”

  “Now I don’t know who to trust and who to fear. Everything I thought I knew has been jumbled up into a big mess. After I...after I saw the murder, I went to pick up Nicky from the house of the woman who used to be my housekeeper when I lived with Michael. I called the police from there and I would have been desperately grateful to turn this over to someone else, to give a statement, to let them protect me.”

  Her voice trailed off and she was silent for several moments. Finally, he broke the silence. “What happened?”

  “Almost as soon as I hung up the phone, two of the men who were at Michael’s building showed up. I have to think they were tipped off by someone at the police station. How else would they have found me so quickly?”

  He frowned. Lane hadn’t said anything about this in his briefing. He tried to remember what, exactly, the SAC had said. He had mentioned a possible security leak but nothing else. If what Maggie said was true—if DeMarranville’s men showed up before the police she had called could even arrive—Beckstead didn’t have a leak on his hands, he had a damn gully washer.

  She didn’t trust the police, with good reason. How could he possibly tell her he was an FBI agent now? He couldn’t. But he might be able to lead her in the direction of going to the police.

  He paused, choosing his words carefully. “You know, if you decide you want to talk to somebody, that you’re prepared to come forward, I know some people who could probably help you.”

  “Who?”

  “Some friends of mine. Friends who can be trusted.”

  She looked undecided, and then pushed away from the window abruptly, clenching her fists at her sides. “I hate this. I hate being afraid all the time, not being able to relax for even a few minutes. Always terrified to let Nicky out of my sight. You have no idea what I would give for one decent night’s rest.”

  As he studied her tense posture, a tantalizing idea blew across his mind, then quickly took root. He could give her a little peace. It was one of the few things he could offer her. If he packed her and the boy off to the Broken Spur, she could spend at least a few days without fear of Damian’s people finding her.

  He chewed on the possibilities for a few moments, studying the angles carefully. He was pretty sure it would piss off Beckstead. Agents usually weren’t encouraged to invite the subject of an investigation back to their place for a few days.

  On the other hand Lane hadn’t been completely clean with him. If he was willing to downplay the security leak, what else was his boss keeping from him?

  Besides, taking her to his ranch would give him a chance to break the news about being an FBI agent at a time when she might be more receptive. He seized on the thought. “Where are you heading next week?”

  She looked startled at the change of subject. “Utah, I think. The Pioneer Days rodeo in Ogden. Why?”

  He had known it, since Lane provided him an itinerary of all her assignments. Maybe he had subconsciously wanted to take her back to the Broken Spur all along.

  He dismissed the thought. She was stressed out and needed a break from the pressure cooker she’d been living in for the past week. That’s all there was to it.

  “Look, I’ve got a friend with a little ranch right on the way there, just south of Bozeman. Why don’t you and Nick come with me and spend a few days at his place? The Ogden rodeo doesn’t start until Wednesday and that would give you four whole days where you could just relax and let down your guard for a while. Nobody could ever trace you to the Broken Spur.”

  She gave a small, scratchy-sounding laugh. “Are you crazy? You can’t just invite a couple of strangers to stay at your friend’s ranch without his permission.”

  “Joe won’t mind.” He crossed his fingers under the table, wondering just what he would have to do to convince his foreman to pose as a ranch owner during the duration of Maggie’s stay. “He owes me. Besides, you’re not strangers to me.”

  “Maybe not, but we certainly are to your friend.”

  “I promise you, he won’t care. Come with me, Doc. There’s a great fishing hole and a gentle old pony Nick could ride and all the fresh air and spectacular views anybody could ask for.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Don’t think. For once, don’t think. Just come with me.” Suddenly he wanted her there fiercely, not for the case or for her safety but simply because he wanted her to see the place he was raised, his haven from the ugly world he lived in most of the time.

  “You said you were tired of being afraid,” he went on. “Just imagine having four days of complete peace, without once having to worry about anybody coming after you.”

  It was fascinating to watch the arguments churning in her eyes give way to yearning, like summer storm clouds breaking just long enough to let in tentative sunshine. She opened her mouth as if to try one more time to refuse his offer then closed it softly. “Are you sure your friend won’t mind?” she finally asked.

  “Positive. There’s plenty of room in the old ranch house and he’d be glad to see me. The place can always use an extra pair of hands.”

  “In that case, it sounds wonderful.”

  He grinned. Now all he had to worry about was convincing Joe Redhawk to participate in the deception, making sure everybody at the ranch kept quiet about him being an FBI agent and convincing Lane that taking Maggie home with him was the best thing for the investigation.

  Piece of cake. Right?

  “When we gonna be there, Mom?”

  She grimaced at the age-old question she’d already heard a dozen times. Aeons ago, some little Neanderthal boy with a jutted brow probably asked his mother the same thing while trekking across the Bering Strait.

  “We’ll get there when we get there,” she answered Nicky, sparing just a quick glance across the width of the ancient truck cab to watch her son bouncing eagerly on the seat. He couldn’t have been more excited if they were heading to Disneyland.

  She smiled at him, then forced her gaze back to the road and Colt’s horse trailer up ahead.

  The scenery was spectacular, she would give him that much. On one side, huge pine, spruce and quaking aspen towered over the road as it dipped and curved along the terrain. On the other, a fast-moving river cut its way through granite boulders and thick forests. Since turning off the main highway, they had seen deer, elk and even a moose foraging along the side of the road.

  Too bad she couldn’t enjoy any of it.

  She reminded herself to relax her shoulders for the hundredth time since they started out earlier that morning. The twists and turns of the mountain road demanded all her energy and kept her fingers in a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, but more than that she had spent the entire two-hour drive stewing and fretting.

  What was she doing, traipsing across Montana to a stranger’s ranch? This was a mistake. She knew it in her heart, that the more time she and Nicky spent with Colt, the more they would come to care about him, and she couldn’t afford to let him in any more than she already had.

  He would be out of their lives soon, moving on to the next rodeo. She knew it, had grown up with a rambling rodeo man for a father. Leaving was in their blood, in their bones.

  She couldn’t have changed her father any more than she could change the course of that river down there. She wasn’t entirely sure she would have, even if she’d had that power, but she knew what it was to live with the heartbreak of watching him leave over and over again.

  She and Nicky had already lost too much: their home, their belongings, the life they had
just begun to carve for themselves. They couldn’t afford to lose anything else they cared about.

  No, she knew perfectly well that she shouldn’t be traveling this mountain road on the way to spending four days with Colt. But he had lured her here with something impossible to refuse: the promise of peace; albeit even a fleeting peace that, like the man himself, would be gone all too quickly.

  The past weeks of unrelenting fear had left her physically and mentally drained, completely wrung dry, so it made sense that she would find the idea of leaving that behind for a few days so tempting.

  What she didn’t understand was the equally compelling need she had to spend more time with a big cowboy with thick dark hair and irresistible blue eyes.

  She shifted on the seat, uncomfortable with more than the nagging ache in the small of her back from the ancient, springless seat, wondering which appealed to her more, spending a few worry-free days relaxing on a ranch or the idea of spending those days in Colt’s company?

  Despite her best efforts, he was becoming entirely too important to her, was popping into her thoughts all too frequently. Worse, she could feel herself beginning to slip into old patterns of dependency, of need.

  All her life she had allowed others to make decisions for her, had become the person everyone else wanted her to be. The polite, soft-spoken debutante for her mother. The bareback-riding hellion for her father. The elegant society hostess for Michael.

  A psychoanalyst probably would have had a name for someone so desperately eager to please, probably would have blamed it on the tumult of a childhood spent straddling two different worlds without completely belonging to either.

  Regardless of the cause, she had vowed not to let herself lapse into that kind of thinking again. She owed it to herself to be her own person, to find her own joy. Not to be dependent on someone else to provide it for her.

  “Hey, Mom, guess what?” Her son’s voice derailed the train of her thoughts.

  “What?”

  “Colt says there’s a pony at the ranch I can ride all by myself and his name is Star and he’s got a white tail that goes clear to the ground. When it rains, Colt says his tail gets all muddy.”