Guardian Cowboy

by Carla Cassidy

  Her curtains were pulled tightly closed, so nobody could peek in. She looked at her closet door and then toward the bathroom.

  There’s nobody there, she told herself.

  There wasn’t anyone watching her. She was just feeling uneasy because of the events of the day and she was going to continue feeling uneasy until the person who was apparently stalking her and trying to kill Sawyer was caught.

  * * *

  Damn it!

  He’d arrived in the woods in time to see Janis and Sawyer stretched out on a checkered tablecloth. The sight had stirred his anger into a near-blinding rage.

  He knew he’d get a better shot at the cowboy if he patiently waited until they stood. But he feared what he’d be subjected to seeing before that happened.

  It would be natural for the two of them to turn to each other...to passionately kiss...to possibly make love right there in front of him. He couldn’t stand the thought, let alone the vision, of it happening.

  And they had kissed. He’d had to momentarily look away from the sight of their desire. Thankfully the kiss hadn’t lasted for long.

  Janis was his, and that big, dumb cowboy didn’t have a right to touch her in any way. He had no right to kiss her.

  He’d watched the two of them together until he couldn’t stand it any longer.

  His gun had burned in his hand, as if the fever of his rage had infected it. He’d aimed at Sawyer’s head and had fired, cursing when the bullet missed the target.

  The attempt to kill Sawyer had been a dismal failure, and he’d been cursing himself ever since. The best thing he could hope for was that Sawyer would be afraid for his life and would stop seeing Janis. That was the only way he’d get to stay alive.

  As for Janis, his plans for her were nearly complete. Excitement rocketed through him. Soon she would belong to him and only him.

  * * *

  Sawyer leaned back in his saddle and surveyed the herd of Black Angus cattle before him. He was looking for any sick or wounded. These cows were the bread and butter of the ranch and, as such, they received a lot of care.

  The other men had tried to talk him into taking the day off. Even though his shoulder was still sore, it wasn’t bad enough to lay him up.

  Besides, he liked working hard. Cassie paid them a fair wage. All the men had good work ethics and it wasn’t just about a paycheck, it was about their emotional connection to the ranch where they had all grown up.

  Clay was on horseback next to him and they’d only been out in the pasture five minutes before Clay urged him to go back to the stables.

  “You’re a target on that horse,” he said. “Go in and clean some equipment in the barn, or polish some leather in the stables.”

  “I’m not going to change the way I live my life because of some nutcase,” he replied.

  “That nutcase almost killed you yesterday,” Clay said. “You got lucky it was just your shoulder that took a bullet. It could have easily been your head or your heart.”

  “Yeah, I know. But what am I supposed to do? Hole up someplace and shiver in my boots with fear? Should I stop seeing a woman I think might be my future happiness?” Sawyer heaved a deep sigh.

  “I don’t know, man. I’m just worried if you keep sitting on that horse you won’t have a future at all,” Clay replied.

  “I’m hoping this guy will slip up, that he’ll do something stupid and Dillon will be able catch him.”

  “Yeah, but in the meantime none of us feel good about you being out on horseback in the pasture,” Clay replied.

  Sawyer suddenly realized he wasn’t just putting himself at risk, he was also putting at risk the lives of the men he considered his brothers. A bullet aimed at Sawyer could just as easily go awry and slam into anyone near him. The last thing he wanted was to put somebody else in danger.

  “Okay, point taken,” he said to Clay. “I’m heading in. I’m sure Flint will be thrilled if I take over his job of mucking out stalls for the day.”

  “Good decision, Sawyer. We all want to keep you alive,” Clay replied.

  Minutes later Sawyer was in the stables and cleaning out stalls. As he worked, his mind buzzed with the questions that had plagued him since the night he’d found the note on his windshield.

  Who was this person? What was his ultimate goal? What in God’s creation was his end game? Was it simply to make sure Janis never got close to a man? Or was it something even more ominous?

  There was still something that niggled in the back of his brain, something he felt was vitally important. But he couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out what it was.

  It was still bothering him when he walked into the dining room that evening where the scent of roast beef filled the air, along with the talk and laughter of the men already there.

  Meals were served buffet style and Cookie never made a bad dish. The beef stew held chunks of tender meat and carrots and potatoes. There was also coleslaw, big corn muffins and some kind of a marshmallow fruit salad.

  “How’s the shoulder?” Jerod asked as he fell into line behind Sawyer.

  “Sore, but I’ll survive. How’s the volunteer work going?”

  Jerod had recently started volunteering at the Bitterroot community center, working with the local youth.

  “I’m really enjoying it. You’d be surprised by how many kids there are here in town who don’t have a great home life. My goal is to keep them from becoming runaways like we all were.”

  “Yeah, there aren’t many people like Big Cass around. We got lucky winding up here. Unfortunately most runaways don’t get so lucky.”

  They filled their plates and then joined the others at one of the picnic tables. The usual joking and laughter accompanied the meal, but Sawyer was only half engaged by the conversations around him.

  Instead his mind went over and over everything that had happened since the night the bar had been spray-painted. He was missing something... Something important.

  His mind was still working overtime as he drove into town to spend the evening at the Watering Hole. His heart had nearly stopped last night when Janis had said she didn’t want to see him anymore.

  He really believed they were building something wonderful between them and he was sick at the idea that it would all be destroyed because of some anonymous creep. The last thing he wanted to do was to put her in any danger, but he was certain the perp didn’t want to harm her whether she was seeing Sawyer or not. He was the target, and he’d take the risk. He’d become invested in her and she was worth it.

  The bar was relatively busy when he walked in at just after seven. He instantly spied Janis working the bar. His heart lifted at the warm smile she greeted him with.

  He slid onto one of the empty bar stools and returned her smile. “How’s your shoulder doing?” she asked, her brown eyes darkening with concern.

  “It’s fine. It’s gonna take more than a single bullet to get me down.” His attempt at a little humor didn’t lighten her eyes back to their normal shade of rich caramel. “Janis, I’m fine,” he assured her. “How are you?”

  “A little tired. It took me a long time to fall asleep last night.” She fixed him his usual soda and lime and then continued. “I know it sounds crazy, but I kept feeling like somebody was watching me.”

  “I’m sorry. I know this is all difficult for you,” he replied. “The last thing I want is for you to feel uncomfortable in your own space.”

  “I’d question my sanity if I didn’t have some sort of reaction to what happened yesterday,” she replied. “Did you pick up your pain meds?”

  “Nah, I’m fine without them,” he replied.

  Their conversation was interrupted by Myles Hennessy. “Hey, darlin’, I thought you were my girl,” he called from the other end of the bar. “Are you going to let that cowboy monopolize all your time?”

  �
�No, only part of my time,” she replied. “I’ll be right back,” she told Sawyer before she walked to the other end of the bar to take care of Myles.

  Myles Hennessy. Did he really believe Janis was his girl? Was his flirting truly harmless fun? Was it possible he was the man they were looking for? A person who had hidden in the woods and tried to kill Sawyer?

  Or was it John Bailey? The fortysomething sat at the end of the bar, his dark eyes brooding as he drank his whiskey. John had never married. As far as Sawyer knew, the man didn’t even date. Was it because he’d harbored a secret crush on Janis?

  Then there was Damon West, also seated on a stool at the bar. Had the widower honed in on Janis as his next bride? They were the same men he’d looked at before, but this time he was looking for a man who had murder in his heart.

  These three men almost always sat at the bar or in a section Janis was working. Sawyer frowned and took a sip of his drink. Hell, the perp could be any one of them or any other man who frequented the bar.

  The night wore on and still something continued to bother him. What was it? What clue might he have in the depths of his brain that refused to surface?

  It was almost closing time when the thing that had been bothering him came into clear focus. He motioned to Janis, who was at the other end of the bar serving Myles another drink.

  “Who did you tell we were going to fish and have a picnic before we went?” he asked her.

  She frowned thoughtfully. “I might have mentioned it to Annie, but other than her, nobody.”

  “And I didn’t even tell the other men on the ranch that I was taking you out there for a picnic. Other than Cookie, nobody else knew.” A tight knot formed in the pit of his stomach.

  “Then how did the man know we’d be out there?” she asked. “How did he know we’d be out there on that day and at that time?” Her eyes got larger...darker.

  “The only place we talked about our plans was in your room.” The knot in his stomach tightened. “That means the only way the man knew to be in those woods at that time of the afternoon was because there’s a listening device in your room.” He watched as a new horror filled her eyes.

  Chapter 7

  “A listening device?” Janis echoed his words in an effort to make sense of them. Who on earth would be listening to her when she was in the privacy of her own place? The hair on the nape of her neck rose as goose bumps raced up and down her arms. It was too creepy to even digest.

  “As soon as you’re finished out here, we’re going to rip your room apart until we find it,” Sawyer said.

  For the next hour she waited on customers and made small talk, but her mind buzzed with the new, horrifying information. A listening device. Was it really possible?

  Had she told anyone about the fishing date? No, she listened to the patrons, but she never shared her own personal business with any of them. And she wasn’t even sure she’d told Annie. So, how would anyone know they were going to be in that pasture?

  If there really was some sort of listening device in her room, how long had it been there? What did the person who had planted it hope to hear? The sound of her breathing at night? Her singing slightly off-key while she thumbed through her wish book? Maybe that’s what had given her that creepy-crawly feeling.

  Surely there had to be another explanation. Maybe she had mentioned it to Annie and then Annie had told somebody about their plans. Even as the thought entered her mind, she dismissed it. Why on earth would Annie tell anyone what Janis and Sawyer were doing on a Sunday afternoon?

  Time couldn’t move fast enough, but finally it was closing time and she and Sawyer were the only two people left in the bar. She locked the front door and then, together, they walked toward the back of the bar and through the door that led to her private quarters.

  “I’m really hoping you’re wrong,” she said. “I hope we don’t find anything because otherwise it’s just way too creepy.”

  “It is creepy,” he agreed.

  He’d been able to joke when he’d taken a bullet to the shoulder, but there was no sign of his humor right now. His body was tensed and his mouth was a thin slash. He looked bigger and more serious than she’d ever seen him as he sat on her bed and picked up her landline phone.

  He unscrewed both the earpiece and the mouthpiece. His deepening frown told her he’d found nothing that shouldn’t be there. He put it back together and then looked around the room, his eyes narrowed and his gaze intent.

  She did the same thing, seeking someplace where a bug could be hidden. “Maybe the overhead light?” she asked.

  “Maybe,” he replied. “I need to get a stool from the bar in order to check it out.”

  As he left to go into the other room, Janis sank down on the bed and checked out her bedside lamp. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Surely they were mistaken. Maybe Annie really had mentioned their plans in passing to somebody.

  The bedside lamp held nothing suspicious and by that time Sawyer was back with a stool. He appeared even more tense than he’d been before. He climbed on top of the stool and unfastened the screws holding the frosted glass dome cover. “Nothing,” he said in disgust and then set to putting the dome back in place.

  When he was finished, he moved the stool to check out the smoke alarm. He pulled off the white cover and checked it out. “Bingo,” he said softly as he removed a small piece of electronics.

  “Oh, my God, I can’t believe it,” she said with a stunned gasp. Her heart beat so hard she feared it might explode. Somebody had been bugging her room. Her mind struggled to wrap around that fact. Why? And, more importantly, who?

  Sawyer climbed down off the stool and sat next to her on the bed. He placed the offending object on the floor and smashed it with his boot. He hit it once...twice...three times and then turned to face her. His features were grim as he held her gaze for a long moment. Her heart began to beat with a new anxious rhythm. “What?” she asked.

  “I have worse news.”

  She stared at him, wondering what on earth could be worse than having her privacy being violated by a listening device. “Tell me.” The words whispered out of her as the back of her throat tightened up.

  “There are peepholes in your wall.”

  She stared at him, trying to comprehend what he had just said. Had she misunderstood him? Peepholes? Then the utter shock of clear realization shuttered through her. “Holes in the wall?” she echoed. Suddenly she was ice-cold and her stomach roiled with nausea. “Show me.”

  They got off the bed and walked across the room to the wall that separated her room from the bar. He ran his hand across the faded pink-flowered wallpaper. “Here.” He took her trembling hand and guided it to a spot that appeared to be the dark center of a flower.

  “And here.” He pulled her to the left and ran her fingers across another hole in the wall. The horror inside her grew to near screaming proportions as he found yet another...and another one.

  Somebody had sat on the other side of the wall and watched her as she’d dressed and undressed. Standing next to Sawyer, she felt naked and dirty.

  “The bathroom,” she said as a new horror shivered through her. They found two more holes in the bathroom wall, one of them in the shower.

  Some pervert had seen her naked in the shower and while she’d done other personal business. She began to hyperventilate as sobs choked out of her.

  Sawyer pulled her out of the bathroom and wrapped her in his strong arms. She leaned against him, her legs almost too shaky to hold her up. He seemed to sense that and he held her tight enough that she couldn’t fall.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he whispered, stroking his hand up and down her back as she wept uncontrollably.

  How was anything ever going to be all right again? Unbeknownst to her, she’d been somebody’s personal peep show. It was absolutely horrifying.

 
“He...he could be watching us now...right this minute,” she gasped. She shoved against him, needing to escape this room that had once been home and now felt like an evil, alien place. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Grab a sweater and we’ll go outside. I’ll call Dillon.”

  “No, we can’t do that,” she said. “What if he’s just waiting for you to go outside where he can shoot you again?”

  “We’ll be fine,” he assured her. “And nobody was in the bar. Let’s get out of here at least until Dillon arrives.”

  A few moments later she had a white sweater pulled tightly around her despite the warmth of the night. Sawyer had called Dillon and now they just waited for the lawman to arrive.

  She’d finally stopped crying but remained shocked and appalled by what had been discovered. How long had the holes been there? Who was behind them, peeking in at her? The whole thing was so tawdry, so revolting.

  “It has to be somebody I work with,” she finally said as the initial horror began to fade away and she began to think more clearly.

  “I thought it was somebody who came into the bar all the time, but I think you’re right. It’s got to be somebody you work with. One of the holes was in the back wall of the bar, but two of them were in the storage closet and the other two would be in the kitchen.”

  The names and faces of all the men she worked with flashed through her head at dizzying speed. These were men she would have trusted with her life, and yet one of them was a perverted creep who had not only watched her in her most private moments, but had also tried to kill Sawyer.

  He threw an arm over her shoulder and pulled her close against his side. “You are not spending another night in this place until we get to the bottom of things,” he said.

  The assurance in his voice was comforting, but there was only one problem. “I don’t have any place else to go.”

  “You can’t stay with your mother for a little while?”

  She stiffened. “I refuse to stay with that woman for a single night.”