by Cassie Miles
She stopped walking. They stood at a high point on a ridge, looking down at the barbed-wire fence that separated their property. In a pasture near the trees, a large herd of cattle were grazing. A field of improbably green winter wheat, planted in late September, stretched out to the road.
Fiona loved this view—a patchwork of subtle winter colors punctuated by the green of the wheat and the heavy black shapes of cattle.
Elvis stepped up beside her and nudged her shoulder like an oversize dog who wanted to be petted. She stroked his neck. “If Nicole is with her kidnapper, that means he’s still at large. Right?”
“There are two of them. One of them has a criminal record as long as your arm. The other is Butch Thurgood—supposedly the guy Nicole likes. He’s won top prizes in rodeos for bronc busting, and he has a reputation for being a horse whisperer.”
“Last night,” Fiona said, “I heard two men arguing. I didn’t see them, but they were close to my house.”
“Did you search?”
Fiona shook her head. It had never occurred to her to go poking around in the dark. “Do you think it was them?”
“It’s worth investigating. I’ll tell Burke, and we’ll come back over here.”
“Burke?”
“The FBI agent who stayed behind.” When she said his name, her features relaxed. “Can I ask you something? Woman to woman.”
“Okay.”
“How did you know? When you met Wyatt, how did you know he was the man you wanted to spend the rest of your life with?”
“It’s not something I planned for. My heart told me.”
“Lucky you.” Carolyn gave a wry grin. “My heart isn’t so direct. I’d know what to do about Burke if I could refer to a balance sheet or see a prospectus.”
Though Fiona respected her neighbor’s keen business sense and focus, she didn’t believe these denials. “It’s obvious that you care about him. Even if it doesn’t make rational sense, you might even love him.”
“I’ve been in love before, and it hasn’t worked.”
“You’ll never know what’s going to happen with Burke unless you give it a try.”
“Oh, hell. I couldn’t possibly pick a more inconvenient time for this to happen.” She stuck the toe of her boot into the stirrup and mounted Elvis. “I’ll be back with Burke to investigate your mysterious voices in the night.”
“I can’t wait to meet him.”
Fiona watched as Carolyn rode down the ridge to the road where she wouldn’t encounter any barbed wire. Though they were the same age, Fiona felt much older. She’d already been through her own cycle of life—marriage, childbirth and the death of her husband.
Now she was alone again. Starting over. She envied the glow of first love that flushed Carolyn’s face when she spoke of the FBI agent. Someday, she hoped to feel that way again. She remembered the sudden rush of emotion that came with love. The shivers. The heat. Hot and cold at the same time.
Instead of walking directly back to the house, she climbed the ridge. From a vantage point behind a boulder, she looked down at her property.
A cool December wind shook the branches of the pines. In spite of the bright sunlight pouring down, she shivered. The voices she had heard last night could have been coming from the barn. Or the toolshed. Or the unfinished pottery studio Wyatt had been constructing for her.
She glimpsed something moving at the back of the house. A shadow that resembled the silhouette of a man. She squinted hard, trying to be sure of the vague shape she thought she’d seen. Was someone creeping around her house?
Her back door slammed. The noise jolted through her like a shot. She hadn’t locked up when she’d gone to greet Carolyn. That shadowy figure could have gone inside her house.
Chapter Two
Riding in the passenger seat of a black SUV with the Longbridge Security logo on the side, Jesse stared through the windshield at the blue Colorado sky. He was on his way to the Carlisle Ranch to put things right.
Behind the steering wheel, Wentworth sat tight-lipped and disapproving. He hadn’t said a word on the drive from Delta to the small town of Riverton.
Red and green Christmas decorations were plentiful on the storefronts. An inflatable snowman stood outside the drugstore. No chance for making the real thing; the weather had been mild for December.
Wentworth pulled up at a stop sign. To their left was the only gas station in town. In front of the auto repair bay, a cowboy slammed the door on his truck and cursed.
“For the record,” Wentworth muttered, “I think you should have stayed in the hospital.”
“Duly noted.” Jesse looked toward the gas station where the cowboy’s ranting got louder. “What’s going on over there?”
“That guy sounds like he’s unhappy about the repair job on his truck. Not exactly in keeping with the spirit of goodwill to all.”
As Jesse watched, the cowboy grabbed a tire iron and stormed toward the office. “Pull over.”
“Aw, hell. I don’t want to get involved in this.”
Still, Wentworth swung the SUV into the gas station and parked by the pump. Longbridge Security wasn’t connected with law enforcement, but Jesse felt a personal obligation to uphold public order.
A white-haired man in coveralls shuffled out of the gas station office. In his grease-stained hands, he aimed a double-barrel shotgun at the cowboy. “Take your business elsewhere,” he growled. “Your truck ain’t worth the rubber you leave behind on the road.”
“I got no problem with you, Silas.” The cowboy backed off. “Where the hell’s your grandson?”
“I’m not the boy’s keeper. Or his parole officer. Get off my property.”
“I’m going.”
As the cowboy made his prudent retreat, the old man lowered his shotgun and glared at Wentworth. “You boys got a problem?”
“No, sir.”
Wentworth backed up and made a speedy exit.
“Quaint little town,” Jesse said.
“The old man’s a real character. Silas O’Toole. He opens the gas station when he feels like it and charges what he thinks is right. I got a fill-up for less than twenty the other day.”
“Colorful.”
“I notice you didn’t jump right out of the car to help. Are you feeling a little pain?”
“I’m fine.”
That wasn’t entirely true. He’d taken three bullets, and the left side of his body was hurting. His upper left thigh had been shot clean through. His left arm was nicked. The worst damage had been in his upper chest near the shoulder where the bullet burrowed deep through muscle and flesh, requiring surgery to remove it. He wore a sling to keep his left arm and shoulder immobilized.
He’d signed half a dozen forms releasing the Delta hospital and the doctors from liability if he croaked because of his insistence on leaving before they recommended.
“You lost a lot of blood,” Wentworth said.
“Just flesh wounds. No bones broken. No internal organs harmed.”
“When you were in surgery,” Wentworth said, “the doc thought he lost you. You were dead for four minutes.”
“I remember.”
Jesse hadn’t experienced his death as a white light. Instead, he saw himself as a youth on the reservation where he went to visit his grandparents. His mom—a blue-eyed woman of Irish descent—always encouraged him to stay in touch with his deceased father’s Navajo heritage.
In his vision, he climbed up a crude wood ladder from the ceremonial kiva. His chest heaved as he inhaled a breath redolent with the richness of the earth and the scent of burning sage. His black hair hung past his shoulders, much longer than he wore it now.
Across the plain, he saw his grandfather, a white-haired shaman wearing a turquoise belt and holding an eagle feather.
His grandfather beckoned. But Jesse’s feet were rooted to the soil. He couldn’t go. Not yet. There was still something he needed to do on this earth.
“You remember dying?” Wentworth ask
ed.
“Something like that.” He adjusted the sling to fit more comfortably around the bandage and dressing near his shoulder. If his grandfather had still been alive, the old man would have given him herbs to use for healing. “Tell me what happened to Nicole.”
“How much do you remember?”
Jesse thought back to the morning before she was grabbed. Her husband, Dylan, had hired Longbridge Security for surveillance and protection. There had been several incidents of sabotage on his ranch, including a fire that burned down one of the stables.
Jesse and three of his men, including Wentworth, had only been on the job a few hours when Nicole stormed out of the ranch house. Though she’d been warned not to take off by herself, she saddled up and rode across the field into the pine trees near a creek. Jesse followed on horseback.
He’d gotten close enough to see the two men who abducted her. He’d heard them say, “Dylan will pay a lot of money to get her back.” And then…disaster.
If he’d moved faster, if his horse hadn’t stepped on a twig, if he’d had a clean shot, he could have protected Nicole. Instead, he’d been shot.
“I remember getting back on my horse. But I didn’t make it far before I fell out of the saddle. I talked to a woman.”
“Carolyn Carlisle,” Wentworth said. “Dylan’s sister.”
“Then I went unconscious. Tell me what happened next.”
“The first thing? I saved your sorry ass.”
“And I thank you for that.”
“Wasn’t easy,” Wentworth said. “I slowed the bleeding, threw you in the back of a truck. One of the ranch hands—a kid named MacKenzie—drove like a NASCAR racer to get you to the hospital. Might have been the best triage I ever did as a paramedic.”
“Is this your way of asking for a raise?”
Finally, Wentworth laughed. The level of tension between them dropped. “I guess you’ve done okay by me.”
“That’s good because I’m not sure who’s going to hire Longbridge Security after word gets out that I let our client get kidnapped. What happened next?”
“The FBI was called in. There was a ransom demand for a million bucks. The FBI tracked down the kidnappers—a bunch of survivalists who were also smuggling. Case closed. Right?”
“Was it?”
“Hell, no.”
Jesse shifted uncomfortably in his seat. With his right hand, he felt in his jacket pocket for the amber vial of prescription painkillers. “Go on.”
“They couldn’t find Nicole. Last night, she called her husband, met with him and told him that she wasn’t coming home. She wants a divorce.”
Jesse wasn’t sure he understood. “I thought you said the kidnappers were arrested.”
“Two are still at large.”
“And the ransom?”
“Gone.”
The Carlisle ranch house came into view in the distance. The property was bordered by a white slat fence. A gently curving road led to a big, two-story, whitewashed house with a veranda that stretched all the way across the front. Pine-covered foothills framed the area. Hard to believe so much turmoil had taken place in such an idyllic setting.
The drumbeat inside Jesse’s head started up again. A low, hollow throb. “What else do you know?”
“That’s about it,” Wentworth said. “I haven’t been to the ranch house. The client instructed me to stay at the hospital. To protect you. You’re the only eyewitness, and it seemed likely that the kidnappers might want you out of the way.”
Jesse hadn’t seen their faces well. They were wearing cowboy hats that shadowed their features. When he closed his eyes to get a mental picture, his pain intensified. He opened a vial of painkillers, tapped one out and gulped it down.
He didn’t know what he’d say to Dylan. The word sorry sprang to mind. Sorry I messed up and let Nicole get kidnapped. Sorry you lost a million-dollar ransom. Sorry your wife left you.
He winced. All of a sudden, leaving the hospital seemed like a really bad idea. He wasn’t ready for a confrontation. “Don’t go through the gate. Take a left.”
Wentworth followed his instruction. “Are we headed any place in particular?”
“I need a few minutes to think before I face Dylan.”
It went without saying that Jesse wouldn’t quit this job until it had reached a conclusion that satisfied both him and his client. Even if Dylan was ready to take his wife at her word, Jesse wanted confirmation from Nicole.
He turned his head and looked out the window. On the other side of a barbed-wire fence was a field of winter wheat. Still green. Even in December. “Slow down.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Not sure.”
He was hoping for clarity—a flash of insight that would point him in the right direction. In the skies above the field, a hawk circled. His grandfather would have called the bird an omen, a sign that Jesse should be like the hawk. He should be the hunter. Find Nicole. Find the money.
Wentworth stepped on the brake.
A woman was running toward the SUV. Her green jacket matched the low grasses growing in the field. Her long brown braid flipped back and forth behind her.
She yanked open the passenger door. She was thin, delicate. Her cheeks flushed with the effort of running. Her gray eyes shone with a feverish light that made him want to look deeper.
“Your logo.” She gasped. “You’re Longbridge Security.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I’m Jesse Longbridge.”
“I have your gun.”
His gun? As she bent at the waist to catch her breath, he climbed down from his seat. His muscles were stiff from lying in a bed for three days, and his bandaged left leg trembled with the effort of supporting his weight as he stood in the road beside her. “What’s your name?”
“Fiona Grant.”
Wyatt Grant’s widow. He never would have recognized this waiflike creature from the photograph her late husband kept on his desk. Wyatt had been proud of his young bride. In that picture, Fiona was as serene as the Mona Lisa. Her long hair fell around her shoulders in shining curls. A diamond necklace glistened against her smooth olive skin. He’d been hired to protect Wyatt Grant a little over four years ago. If he recalled correctly, Fiona had been pregnant at the time and on bed rest.
When she caught her breath and looked up at him, he said, “I was sorry to hear about your husband’s death. Wyatt was a good man.”
“You have to come with me right away,” she said with a sense of urgency. “I think the kidnappers are at my house.”
“Did you see them?”
“Last night, I heard voices. And just a little while ago, I left the house and didn’t lock the door. As I was coming back, it slammed.”
“But you didn’t actually see or hear them?”
“I saw something. A man.”
“Describe him.”
“It was only a fleeting glimpse. A shadow.” She shuddered. Whatever she’d seen had scared her. “I’m not even sure I saw anything. And the wind could have slammed the door. I might be overreacting.”
He reassured her. “You’re right not to take any chances.”
“Do you believe me?”
Much of what she’d said was jumbled, especially the part about having his gun. But she was obviously distressed, and she didn’t strike him as being crazy. “We’ll make sure your house is safe.”
After losing Nicole to the kidnappers, he wouldn’t take any more risks. Fiona needed his protection.
Chapter Three
Jesse shifted his thinking from speculation to action. If there really was an intruder at Fiona’s house, they needed to act fast to make sure he didn’t escape.
“Wentworth, call the Carlisle ranch for backup. Tell them we’re heading to the Grant house.” He opened the back door of the SUV for Fiona. “Climb in.”
In the few moments it took to reach the turnoff to her ranch, Jesse formulated a simple plan. He and Wentworth would cover the front and back of the h
ouse, keeping the intruder trapped until backup arrived. With more manpower, they could search the house, then spread out and search the entire property.
Wentworth got off the phone. “Agent Burke and some men from the ranch are on the way.”
“How long until they get here?”
“Five or ten minutes.”
They drove up the packed dirt road leading to the house. Unlike the other ranches in the area, there was no fence circling Fiona’s property. Her long one-story log cabin nested in a stand of aspen that would be beautiful in the fall when the leaves turned to gold. Behind the cabin, he saw a barn and a couple of outbuildings.
“Fiona, how many entrances does your house have?”
“Only front and back.” Her voice was soft but not breathy. The tone reminded him of gentle notes played by a wooden flute. “But there are windows. If somebody wanted to escape, they could go out a window.”
“Stay in the car, Fiona.” Jesse glanced at Wentworth. “I’ll take the front. You go around back. Don’t enter until backup arrives.”
As soon as Wentworth parked outside the detached garage, Jesse got out of the car. The adrenaline rush masked his pain. His gun felt natural in his hand. He could handle this. No problem.
Moving as quickly as he could with a bum leg, he took a position at the corner of the house beside a long, one-step, wood-plank porch covered by a shingled roof. From this position, he could see the entire front of the house and another side in case the intruder decided to exit through a window.
Leaning against the logs of the cabin, he felt his heartbeat drumming inside his head. His blood pumped hard. He was sweating. In his peripheral vision, darkness began to close in. Not a good sign. He shook himself. Stay awake. Stay alert.
If Fiona’s intruder was, in fact, one of the kidnappers, they were armed and dangerous. They hadn’t hesitated before opening fire on him when he tried to rescue Nicole.