Perfect Wyoming Complete Collection: Special Agent's Perfect Cover ; Rancher's Perfect Baby Rescue ; A Daughter's Perfect Secret ; Lawman's Perfect Surrender ; The Perfect Outsider ; Mercenary's Perfect Mission

by Marie Ferrarella

Gemma pulled back from Ford’s comforting embrace. Why didn’t he believe Lacy wasn’t completely under Samuel’s mind control? “She warned Jed he was about to be killed.”

  “She liked you. You were her friend. She must have known about the bracelet and that you’d be a suspect because of it. I can see how she’d be torn enough to act. But now that Jed is gone and I kept key evidence hidden from Bo, she’s made her decision. You’re not part of Grayson’s cult. She is.”

  And now they couldn’t be friends. As upset as that made her, she understood Ford’s point. He was right. Lacy was in too deep to find her way out. She was where she believed she was safest.

  Sadness welled up and immersed Gemma’s heart. She would mourn the loss of a friendship that had meant so much to her. She’d also mourn the loss of Cold Plains, or her perception of it. All she had were her possessions, each one blissfully purchased. But even those didn’t matter anymore. There was nothing left for her here. Nothing except Ford.

  Eyeing him, she saw his care and patience.

  “Let’s leave, Ford. Let’s go away from here.” She didn’t mean it to sound as if they’d go together and live happily ever after.

  “I’m not leaving Cold Plains,” he said, alleviating her concern and disappointing her at the same time. “I’m staying until Samuel Grayson is brought to justice.”

  She should have known he’d say that. He’d stay and see that his hometown was purged of crime, lawman that he was.

  “And you’re staying with me,” he added.

  Wishing he was saying that for a different reason, she broke her gaze from his. In the next instant, she wished she could turn off the switch that made her desire to be with him. Unfortunately there was none, and she couldn’t stop the way she felt. And that would only get more difficult if she was pregnant.

  Reaching for her, he touched her face, turning her head toward him and bringing her gaze back to him. “Everything will be all right. I’ll make sure of it.”

  What about them?

  As they continued to fall into each other’s eyes, she felt their increasingly familiar chemistry fire to life. Ford ran his thumb over her mouth.

  “Don’t look so sad, Gemma. I want to see your smile again.”

  “I want to see your badge again.”

  With a single, breathy laugh, he angled his head and kissed her. What he’d likely intended to be a casual response morphed into more. Immediate passion erupted. Gemma parted her lips to seek more of him and he pressed harder for a deeper kiss.

  Sliding her arms around him as he leaned toward her, she lay back on the sofa. He climbed over her, giving her room to move her legs up and onto the sofa. She opened her knees and he fitted himself between them, coming down for another fervent kiss. Everywhere his body came in contact with hers, a burning fire blazed.

  “Gemma,” he rasped. “Gemma.”

  “Make love to me,” she said.

  He groaned as his cell phone once again interrupted. Ignoring it, he continued kissing her, heating her up until she felt flushed with need.

  His cell phone rang for the third time.

  Ford lifted his head and stared down at her.

  She wanted him so badly. But his ringing phone had spared them from making another mistake.

  He retrieved his phone and put it to his ear as he rose to stand.

  “McCall.” As he listened his face lost all traces of passion. “We’re on our way.”

  He disconnected.

  “Who was that?” she asked.

  After a brief hesitation, he said. “Hawk Bledsoe. An FBI agent working with a task force to bring Grayson down. He may have found Felix Taylor.”

  “You’re working with the FBI?”

  “We need to meet him. Let’s get going.”

  Gemma tried not to put too much importance on the fact that he’d told her who his secret friend was. He’d told her who Hawk Bledsoe was because he had to, but he hadn’t admitted to working with him.

  * * *

  “How did you find out about a John Doe in a mountain town like Shady Meadow?” Hallie asked with a shaking voice.

  Sandwiched between her distraught grandmother and Dillon in the back seat of Ford’s Escalade, Hallie was tense, her emotions on the verge of erupting.

  “I gave his picture and name to a friend of mine, who entered it into a database. When I met with him yesterday, he said he got a call from the sheriff there and gave me the specifics of the crime scene.”

  “Do you think it’s my dad?”

  Martha turned stark, reddened eyes toward him from her dreadful stare out the window.

  “I don’t know.”

  Either Hallie or her grandmother would have to identify the murder victim. Hallie realized that and exchanged a look with Martha.

  “We’ll be there with you,” Gemma said, her heart breaking for them both.

  “H-how did he die?” Tears brimmed her lower lids.

  “We don’t know for sure if it’s your father,” Ford reminded her.

  “Just tell me.”

  Ford glanced at Gemma and then into the rearview mirror. Seconds later, he finally and slowly said, “He was hanged, but his body was found along the side of a highway.” The rope had still been around his neck, Agent Bledsoe had said.

  Gemma felt the raw emotion inside the vehicle.

  “S-somebody dumped him there?” Her voice shook again.

  “Yes.”

  Martha resumed her awful, silent stare through the window. She must know they’d find her son at the county morgue. Despondently, Hallie leaned on Dillon, who put his arm around her and pulled her closer.

  Ford drove to a stop in front of the county coroner’s office. Hallie walked with her grandmother and Dillon trailed behind as they all entered the small building.

  After a receptionist phoned in their arrival, a medical examiner emerged from a hallway. Average in height and in an open white medical jacket, he stepped toward Ford, seeing his badge.

  “Dr. Owens.”

  “Ford McCall.” They shook hands. “This is Hallie and Martha Taylor.”

  The medical examiner regarded them with empathy. “I know this is difficult, so why don’t we just get to it?”

  Hallie nodded, sniffling and wiping her eyes.

  The man led them down a gray, cold hallway. Gemma took Ford’s hand and he gave it a squeeze. She didn’t have a father, but facing identifying the body of anyone close to the heart had to be daunting.

  The medical examiner pushed open a door and walked into a long, narrow room full of refrigerated coffin drawers. One was pulled out and a body covered in a white sheet lay there.

  The medical examiner stood on the other side of the flat drawer. “Are you ready?”

  Martha covered her mouth and began crying.

  “Go ahead,” Hallie said bravely. “Grandma, close your eyes.”

  Waiting a beat or two, the medical examiner pulled down the white sheet.

  Martha burst into greater sobs.

  “Yes,” Hallie choked. “That’s him. That’s my dad.” Then she buried her face against her grandmother and the two cried, holding each other.

  Gemma wiped away her own tears rolling down her face. Damn that Samuel Grayson. He had to be stopped.

  “He was hit on the head with a blunt object,” the medical examiner said to Ford. “Probably before he was hanged.”

  Just like Jed and Michael, the technician.

  Dillon moved to Hallie and her grandmother, putting his hand on Hallie’s back and rubbing gently.

  Hallie turned into his arms. “Bo Fargo can’t get away with this.”

  “It’s Samuel who’s behind it, Hallie,” Dillon said. “He’
s the one who did this.”

  Ford put his arm around Martha, who leaned against him and looked forlornly toward the drawer. The medical examiner had covered the body again.

  “My son was murdered,” Martha lamented. Then she looked up at Ford. “You have to do something.”

  “I’ll catch the killer. You have my word.”

  Gemma felt his resolve ring true. Ford wouldn’t give up until he found justice for all of Bo and Samuel’s victims.

  * * *

  After driving Dillon, Martha and Hallie back to Cold Plains, Ford and Gemma returned to Shady Meadows. Ford wanted to check around town and ask a few questions. He was quiet all the way to their motel. Gemma wondered if he was thinking about Felix or if it bothered him to be alone with her again. She was stuck with him, and it was beginning to really weigh on her that she might be pregnant. Maybe she’d pick up a test. No point in upsetting him if it was a false alarm. She’d have to figure out how to get the test without him knowing, though.

  She could just see him catching her standing in front of the pregnancy tests.

  What are you doing? he’d ask.

  To which she’d have no reply. Somehow, Oh, I thought these were the tampons, wouldn’t fly.

  Entering the motel room, he dropped the overnight bag they’d decided to share outside the bathroom.

  “Are you hungry?”

  She shook her head. Her nerves had wiped out all her hunger pains.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No.” She tried to sound cheery. A-okay. Never better. Nothing wrong here. Nope.

  Oh, by the way, I think I’m pregnant.

  He stood in the middle of the room, uncharacteristically awkward. He rubbed the back of his neck. Glanced at the door as if contemplating escaping for a little while. Gemma began to feel ill at ease.

  “Is something wrong with you?”

  Dropping his hand, he turned his head toward her. “Me? No. I just notice how sometimes you seem…upset about something.”

  Crap. “Me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then stop acting like it’s killing you to be in the same room with me.”

  He stared at her. “It is.”

  That threatened to send her into a meltdown. It was killing him because he wanted her. “Then do something about it.” She wished she could take the words back as soon as she said them. She couldn’t think clearly when he was around.

  “Trust me, I’d like to.”

  She may as well forge ahead. “What’s stopping you?”

  “If we continue like this, we might not be able to walk away from it.”

  A sharp stab of despondency slammed her. He would walk away? “Don’t you mean you won’t be able to walk away?”

  He sighed a heavy breath and ran his fingers through his thick, blond hair, confirmation enough for her.

  “Why would you walk away?” He was that sure?

  “It’s not you, it’s…”

  His family. His wife. His unborn baby. “Are you that afraid of losing another person you love?” That had to be the crux of his emotional trouble.

  “I’m not afraid, I just…I can’t be involved with anyone right now.”

  “How will you know when you can?”

  “What are you asking? Are you ready for another relationship?”

  She lowered her head. She’d always told herself that she needed to heal from Jed’s destruction before she gave love a try again. Before she could learn to trust a man again. Had Jed’s murder and all the trouble Samuel caused diverted her from that goal? She’d no longer have the seminars to help her. She couldn’t possibly be ready, and yet… She lifted her head.

  “Now you see my point.”

  He was turning this all back onto her. “Ford, you haven’t let go of your guilt over not being able to save your family.” And then his wife had died during childbirth. Had he ever known love without losing it to tragedy?

  “I have let go. I spend every day of my life atoning for that. Avenging them. I do what I do for them. Not because I feel guilty.”

  “And your wife? What about her death?” She didn’t have to add that he’d lost his unborn son as well.

  He pointed his finger at her. “Don’t.”

  His family’s murders and the death of his wife and son had marred him irrevocably. “I’m not going to die, Ford.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  He stared his warning.

  “You’re afraid of falling in love.”

  “I’m not afraid,” he snapped.

  He was. He was terrified. He couldn’t bear to lose another person he loved. So he guarded himself against it. He made sure he didn’t feel enough to make it impossible to walk away. As long as he knew he could walk away, he felt safe. He might tell himself that some day, when he was ready, he’d try love again. But he’d never be ready unless he faced his fear.

  What would it do to him if she was pregnant?

  * * *

  Gemma trotted to keep up with Ford’s long, angry strides. He was still mad at her for pinning him with a hurtful truth last night. Well, that truth hurt her, too. He still denied that his wife’s and baby’s deaths kept him shying away from love. The big, strong, tough cop couldn’t possibly be afraid of something as harmless as love. But he was.

  They’d spent the night in separate beds. She’d lain awake tortured by his closeness, wondering how he separated not wanting to lose another person he loved with fear of love. Maybe he felt that as long as it was his cognitive decision, it wasn’t fear.

  She followed him up the steps of an old, rundown cabin. The sheriff had said Felix’s body had been found just outside of town, not far from the road leading here. This was the only house within reasonable distance.

  Ford knocked. No one answered. “There’s no one there.”

  Gemma turned with Ford. A boy riding a mountain bike and dressed in khaki shorts and a green T-shirt had stopped in the driveway, his curly red hair springing out from under a baseball cap.

  “You lost?” the boy asked.

  “Do you live near here?” Ford countered non-committally.

  “Yeah, over that mountain there.” He pointed. “On a ranch.”

  “Do you know the people who live here in this cabin?”

  “There’s just one. A man. A real loner. My mom says she feels sorry for him because he doesn’t have any family. He only comes here for the summer. Has a house in Florida. Must’ve decided to stay there this year. Nobody’s seen him. How come you’re here?”

  “A man was murdered recently and we wanted to ask him if he saw anything.”

  “Oh, yeah, I heard about that. He was dumped just at the end of this driveway.” The boy pointed there. “Do you think he did it?”

  “We don’t know yet. Thanks for your help.”

  “See ya around.” The boy peddled off, glancing back at them once, his bike zigzagging as he picked up speed down the driveway, veering off at a trail.

  “So much for asking the neighbors,” Gemma said.

  Ford began walking around the cabin, stopping at a window to peer in. Drapes blocked his view. He continued along the side and peered in another window. Something must have caught his eye because he returned to the front door.

  “Back up, Gemma.”

  She did. “What are you going to do?”

  Her answer came when he lifted his leg and kicked, breaking the wood holding the door shut. It swung open and Gemma was immediately accosted by a horrible stench.

  Gagging, she covered her mouth and nose. Around Ford’s big frame, she saw a man hanging from a rope. A badly decomposed man. His clothes hung, dirty and stained, on rotti
ng flesh.

  She screamed.

  Ford stepped inside, already reaching for his cell phone. He hadn’t bothered with his gun. The man had obviously been dead a long time. Shaking, she watched him go to the chair near the body and look down at a baseball bat. Jed’s killer had used one on him. And in all likelihood, Felix, too. That and the proximity to Felix’s body suggested this man had seen something that had cost him his life. The sheriff had probably knocked and when no one answered, assumed the man was still in Florida.

  Gemma watched Ford search around the house, unable to look as he went through the man’s clothing. Nothing else must have turned up because he ushered her out of the house empty-handed.

  “Why does the killer leave baseball bats at the scene?” she asked.

  “Must be his method. He knocks his victims out and then hangs them. Catches them unaware so there’s no struggle. No noise. Killing them is easy. He’s careful not to leave any prints or other evidence. Only the ropes and the bats.”

  “But he doesn’t leave a bat at every scene.”

  “No. Which tells me he didn’t want Felix to be connected to the other murders. Jed and Michael, he wanted connected.”

  “In case he had to pin me with both?”

  “Could be. Leaving the weapon is ballsy, though.”

  “He must not be afraid of being caught.”

  “No. But that could work in our favor.”

  Because the killer was overconfident. Because he had Samuel backing him, or so he believed. Gemma shuddered. She wished all this would end. She’d moved to Cold Plains to find peace, not to encounter one dead body after another.

  “Come on,” Ford said. “The sheriff is on the way. I don’t want to be here too long.”

  As he drove down the driveway and onto the highway, she recognized a car parked along the side of the road. The same one that had been outside the forensic scientist’s house. And inside the car were Alan and the same driver as before.

  Ford cursed. He hadn’t wanted Samuel to learn what he’d discovered. “Let’s get our things and drive back to your place tonight.”

  Gemma was in complete agreement. She’d get no sleep whatsoever knowing they were being watched. But would they be any less watched back in Cold Plains?