High-Caliber Cowboy

by B. J Daniels

  Now she picked up the phone and hit redial on a hunch. If he’d taken the precaution to clean out the safe, he might have taken other precautions, as well.

  After four rings, a voice mail message picked up. “You’ve reached Dr. Niles French. Leave a number and I’ll get back to you.”

  Dr. French. She clutched the phone, sick to her stomach. She heard stirring down the hall. Another groan. Move. Get out. Now! Fear paralyzed her. Dr. French.

  A groan down the hall.

  Hurriedly, she scribbled down the phone number on the display, her hands shaking. If the last call Mason VanHorn had made was to Dr. French, then she knew she was in trouble.

  Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She thought she might pass out if she didn’t get out of this room. Out of this house. She could hear more stirring down the hall in the bathroom. He was coming around.

  She couldn’t go out that way. She moved to the window at the far side of the desk, fumbled the lock open and lifted the frame. Kicking out the screen, she shoved a leg out and climbed up, teetering on the windowsill for a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness before she dropped to the ground.

  Footsteps in the hall. Hurry! She practically threw herself out the open window, hit the wet slick ground and fell, her leggings instantly muddy and soaked.

  Scrambling to her feet, she ran through the pouring rain to the lofty pine trees and the cover they afforded. She streaked across the grassy hillside to the creek bed and the cottonwoods. Following the creek, she ran to where she’d hidden her vehicle earlier. She didn’t look back, afraid she’d see Brandon McCall’s handsome face—and his shotgun pointed at her heart.

  She was soaked to the skin and chilled as she climbed behind the wheel, started the engine and peeled out. All she wanted right now was to get back to the motel and climb into a tub of hot water. She didn’t want to think about the empty safe. About the call to Dr. French. She didn’t want to think about what she’d learned tonight about Mason VanHorn. Or Brandon McCall.

  Her hands were shaking as she drove as fast as she could toward the highway, needing to put distance between her and the VanHorn Ranch.

  She shouldn’t have been surprised. Not about Mason VanHorn. Or about Brandon McCall. But she was. She’d thought she’d seen something promising in Brandon McCall years ago, but it seemed she had been as wrong about him as she was Mason VanHorn.

  Slamming her hand down on the steering wheel, she warned herself not to let this get personal. She laughed at the thought. After years of specializing in digging up dirt, she was good at what she did. She’d written the book on detachment when it came to her job—to her life.

  But this wasn’t just any investigation. And she could no longer pretend it was. It had suddenly gotten damn personal.

  At the two-lane highway, she turned south on the road from Antelope Flats, Montana, to Sheridan, Wyoming. Since her arrival, she’d seen little traffic on this stretch, even in the daytime, except for an occasional coal mine or gas worker, a rancher heading for Sheridan or a fisherman coming up from Wyoming headed for the Tongue River Reservoir. But nobody at this hour of the night.

  She watched her rearview mirror expecting to see at least one set of headlights behind her on the rain-slick highway. Instead there was only darkness. At least for the moment. The storm snuffed out all light from the moon or stars, turning the Tongue River to pewter as it followed her over the border into Wyoming.

  Her plan had worked, for all the good it had done her. Vandalizing the coalbed methane wells had gotten everyone away from the ranch house. Well, almost everyone.

  At least it had gotten her what she wanted—inside the ranch house—inside the safe.

  Tears burned her eyes. If Mason VanHorn had cleaned out the safe, did that mean he’d destroyed the evidence? Did that mean she’d never be able to get to the truth?

  She rubbed a hand over her wet face and stared past the clacking windshield wipers at the rainy highway. Exhaustion pulled at her. She was wet and tired and cold and discouraged. She’d almost gotten caught tonight, but the fact it had been Brandon McCall made it all the worse.

  He hadn’t recognized her, she knew she should be thankful for that. But even that hurt. He hadn’t remembered her. But she’d remembered him. That should have told her everything she needed to know. Obviously he hadn’t been as taken with her as she had been with him all those years ago.

  She’d thought about what it would be like to run into him. Just not on the VanHorn Ranch. Not working for the enemy. The long-running feud between the McCalls and the VanHorns aside, she’d expected better of him.

  She crossed the river as the highway meandered to Sheridan, Wyoming, fighting her disappointment. Angry with herself for ever thinking he might be different from other men she’d known. Even more angry that, over the years, she’d held him up as the kind of man she would want in her life.

  How ridiculous was that? He’d been little more than a boy. She couldn’t know what kind of man he would grow into. But she thought she’d known. Obviously she’d seen something in Brandon McCall that hadn’t existed.

  She felt sick. Men just kept letting her down. What did that say about them? Or her?

  How she would have loved to drive straight to the airport and fly home. But she couldn’t leave. Hers wasn’t the only life at stake here and this wasn’t the first investigation where she’d run into trouble. She was known for hanging in until she got what she was after.

  Even if she could have let Mason VanHorn get away with what she knew he’d done, she had Lenore Johnson to think about. When she’d hired the private investigator, she’d warned Lenore how dangerous this was going to be.

  Now Lenore was missing. Presumed dead, if Mason VanHorn or Dr. French found out that she’d been asking questions about them.

  If Lenore Johnson had failed, Anna knew she had even less chance of finding out the truth. But she had to try to find Lenore, try to help her if she was still alive. How, though, could she find out the truth with everything—and everyone—against her?

  Along with Brandon McCall, every ranch hand at the VanHorn Ranch would be looking for her now, including Mason VanHorn himself once he returned from Gillette.

  She glanced in the rearview mirror again. Nothing but rain and darkness behind her. The same in front of her. She hadn’t been followed. But she wasn’t safe. She wouldn’t be safe and she couldn’t help Lenore until she could get the goods on Mason VanHorn. She desperately needed leverage. She’d thought she would find it in his office safe, that he would keep it where he could get to it, that he needed it as desperately as she did.

  If she was right, then the evidence was at the house—just not in the safe. She would have to go back. Tomorrow night, once it got dark.

  She’d have to get back into that house, even knowing that they’d all be waiting for her. All the ranch hands and hired thugs. Mason VanHorn, if he heard about tonight—and Brandon McCall.

  And if she was really unlucky, the man she feared the most, Dr. French.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tuesday

  Sheriff Cash McCall had just gotten to his office when the phone rang.

  “This is Johnson Investigations in Richmond, Virginia,” said a woman with a wonderful Southern accent.

  “I’m calling in regard to Lenore Johnson. She is in your area on an investigation and we haven’t received word from her for several days. She had made a prior arrangement to call yesterday afternoon at a set time. She did not call. We have reason to believe she might have met with foul play.”

  An investigator all the way from Virginia? “I can’t file a missing person’s report for forty-eight hours on an adult, but I would be happy to take the information,” Cash told her.

  “We’d appreciate that. Because of the nature of our business, I’m afraid I can’t give you the details of the investigation. However, I can tell you where she was staying, the make and model of the car she was driving and give you her description.”

&
nbsp; “All right.” Had she been a tourist, Cash wouldn’t even have done that much in the first forty-eight hours. Usually people just lost track of time and forgot to call. But since she was an investigator… And since he was a nice guy who had taken this job to help people…

  “She was staying at the Shady Rest Motor Inn in Sheridan. The rental car was a dark green Dodge Dakota, license MT 3-178649. Ms. Johnson is forty-six years old, five-foot-seven, auburn hair, chin-length, slim build, brown eyes. She was armed.”

  “This investigation,” Cash asked. “She considered it dangerous?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s all you can tell me.”

  “At this point. If we haven’t heard from her in forty-eight hours, I will be happy to disclose additional information. That will give me time to contact our client.”

  “Your client? Who you also can’t divulge at this point,” Cash said.

  “That is correct.”

  He groaned inwardly. “But you’ll call me if you hear from her.”

  “Of course. At once. We greatly appreciate your assistance, Sheriff.” She gave him her number and hung up.

  Cash called information in Richmond, Virginia, and asked for Johnson Investigations. Same number as the woman had given him.

  He had just hung up when he got the call from the Antelope Flats Clinic. He was surprised—and instantly worried—when he heard Dr. Porter Ivers’s stern voice.

  “You might want to come down here,” the elderly doctor said….

  * * *

  BRANDON WAS SITTING UP on the gurney at the Antelope Flats Clinic when his brother came in.

  “How’s the head?” Cash asked.

  Brandon swore under his breath. Dr. Ivers must have called him after Brandon had come stumbling in, bleeding all over the floor.

  “Better.” His head hurt like hell. But nothing like his pride.

  “You weren’t in that bar fight out at the Mello Dee, were you?” Cash asked. “I’m looking for the guys who tore up the place last night.”

  “Nah.” If he told Cash about last night, he’d have to tell him about the night security job at VanHorn Ranch. He already knew his brother’s response to that.

  Nor could Brandon tell him about the vandalisms out there since VanHorn hadn’t reported them. As sheriff, Cash would have to pay Mason VanHorn a visit, demanding to know why he hadn’t been called—and warning VanHorn not to take the law into his own hands.

  Once Brandon’s name came up, VanHorn would be beside himself to think he’d had a McCall working for him. Heads would roll. And Brandon—if not shot—would be out of a job. And the VanHorns and McCalls would be at it again.

  But Brandon didn’t kid himself. None of that was why he couldn’t tell his brother. This was about salvaging some of his pride and that meant getting the vandal in his sights again. Hell, he’d been so close to her that he’d smelled her perfume, seen the hint of perspiration on her upper lip, knew the exact shade of her honey-brown eyes.

  Unfortunately, he’d fallen for her helpless reporter act and had a sore head to prove it.

  If he told Cash the truth, he’d never get a chance to catch the woman. And he would catch her. He was counting on seeing her again. His gut told him she hadn’t left town, that even though she’d gotten into the safe, she wasn’t finished with Mason VanHorn. And this time, Brandon would be waiting for her.

  “So how’d you get your head bashed in?” Cash asked. He had his sheriff face on, which Brandon knew meant he’d keep at it until he got the truth out of him. Or something close.

  “It was stupid,” Brandon said sheepishly, looking down at the floor. He’d perfected this look over the years after getting caught in countless shenanigans. All the McCall boys got into trouble. It was almost a tradition. And as the youngest McCall male, he’d had to sow his share of oats, as well. But at thirty-three, he was taking the longest to straighten up.

  He looked at the floor and said, “There was this bull out in a pasture and there was this woman…”

  Cash groaned. “You were showing off. This woman have anything to do with why you’ve been staying out all night for days on end?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  Cash shook his head but smiled. “Our little sister thinks it’s serious.”

  It was serious all right. Just not in the way eighteen-year-old Dusty thought. “Yeah, that Dusty’s a real authority on romance,” Brandon quipped.

  “Doc says you don’t have a concussion.”

  “Just a few stitches,” Brandon said, trying to play it down.

  “Twelve is more than a few. What’d you hit?”

  “Must have found the only rock in the field when I came off the bull,” Brandon said. “But, hell, big brother, you had more stitches than that when you were young.”

  “When I was young? I’m only a few years older than you. And I can still kick your butt.”

  Brandon grinned. “Might have to see about that someday.” He quickly changed the subject. “Heard Molly’s back from visiting her mom in Florida.” Molly was the woman his brother had fallen in love with and from what Brandon had seen, Cash was more than serious about her. “Is that weddin’ bells I hear? Bet Shelby’s already bought a mother-of-the-groom dress for the wedding.”

  Shelby was their mother, but after not being part of their lives for more than thirty years and suddenly returning, her five now-grown children couldn’t bring themselves to call her mother.

  “You tryin’ to change the subject?” Cash asked, eyeing him.

  “I don’t want to talk about my love life, okay?” His nonexistent love life, especially.

  “Neither do I,” Cash said. “You want me to call J.T. and tell him you won’t be doing any work at the ranch today?”

  “That would be great,” Brandon said, sincerely touched. Cash was offering the equivalent of an olive branch. “You know J.T. He’ll think I busted my head open on a rock only to get out of work.”

  Cash returned his smile. Their oldest brother, J.T., could be a little intense when it came to the ranch. But J.T. had mellowed some since his recent marriage. A woman was exactly what J.T. had needed.

  “With Rourke back, they should be able to manage without you for a few days,” Cash said.

  Brandon grinned, seeing that his brother was getting him a few days off to recuperate—and spend time with his lady. “You romantic, you. You’re okay, Cash, no matter what the rest of the family says about you,” he joked.

  “I got work to do,” Cash said, and turned to leave.

  “Thanks,” Brandon said to his brother’s back. He felt a little guilty about keeping things from Cash. But not guilty enough to confess just yet.

  Once he caught the woman from last night, he’d collect his bonus and tell Cash everything. Once VanHorn got wind of everything, the job would be over anyway.

  Dr. Ivers came back into the emergency room. He had a frown on his face, as if disgusted with the whole bunch of McCall boys. He’d been stitching up McCall boys from long before Brandon was born. The doc had tried to retire but couldn’t seem to make it stick and was only becoming more cantankerous. Kind of reminded Brandon of his father. But then Asa McCall had always been cantankerous and just plain hard to get along with.

  That is until recently, when his wife Shelby returned from the dead. Brandon shook off the thought. He didn’t want to think about what was going on between his parents.

  “You’re free to go,” Dr. Ivers said, handing Brandon a prescription for painkillers. He checked the bandage on the back of Brandon’s head, adding, “I don’t want to see you back in here. Don’t you have something better to do that get banged up in the middle of the night?” He shook his head again. “Good thing you McCalls are a hardheaded bunch.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Brandon said, reaching for his cowboy hat. He placed it gingerly on his head, wincing a little.

  “You’re going to have a scar,” said a female voice from the doorway.

  “Won’t be my first scar
,” Brandon said with a grin.

  “Hi, Taylor.”

  “That’s Dr. Taylor Ivers to you,” the old doc snapped. Taylor was Dr. and Mrs. Porter Ivers’s surprise late-in-life child. She had followed in her father’s footsteps, something that Brandon could see pleased the old doc greatly.

  Taylor held out her hand. “Hello, Brandon.” He took it, not surprised by her firm handshake. She was all business. He hadn’t seen her since she was a skinny kid with braces and glasses. She hadn’t changed that much, except she had perfectly straight teeth and must have worn contacts.

  She’d been one of those gifted kids who went to a special private school, graduating high school at fifteen, college at eighteen and medical school at twenty-two. Last he’d heard, she’d done her residency at some cutting-edge hospital down south.

  “You planning to take over for your dad?” he asked her, joking.

  “She has bigger fish to fry,” Dr. Ivers snapped. “She’s not getting stuck here.”

  “I’ll be staying for a while,” Taylor said, glancing at her father. “My mother isn’t well.”

  “I’m sorry,” he answered quickly.

  “I want to be near my parents right now,” Taylor said, and turned to her father, “You have a phone call.”

  “I’ll take it in my office.” He looked at Brandon. “I’d tell you to take it easy, but I know it would be a waste of breath.” The old doc turned and left without another word.

  As Brandon slid off the gurney and headed for the door, Taylor busied herself putting away the equipment her father had used to patch him up.

  Brandon left with only one thing on his mind—the woman who’d wounded his pride. The flesh injury would heal.

  * * *

  ANNA’S ATTEMPTS to find out if Brandon McCall had been taken to the Antelope Flats Clinic had failed miserably.

  As an investigative reporter, she knew a few tricks for getting information. But the woman she spoke to at the clinic, a Dr. Taylor Ivers, wasn’t falling for any of them.