Last Stand Ranch

by Jenna Night

“It’s just a building,” Claudia spoke calmly, barely acknowledging the anguish in Olivia’s confession. “It can be replaced. But I am going to go check on my horses. We might need to move them.”

  Tears formed in the corners of Olivia’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  Claudia turned to her. “You didn’t do this—it isn’t your fault. Pull yourself together, honey. There isn’t time for that.”

  For a moment Olivia could only stare at her great-aunt. Claudia’s emotional and spiritual strength in the midst of a potential catastrophe was stunning.

  “Don’t even think about running away,” Claudia added, her gaze so piercing Olivia felt as if her aunt was looking right through her. “This ranch is as good a place as any to make your stand. And don’t think for a moment that I’m some feeble old thing who can’t take care of herself. You and I are sticking together, come what may. Agreed?”

  Olivia’s jaw dropped slightly. Then, realizing Claudia was waiting for a response, she nodded her head. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Elijah stepped up to the storm door, yanked it open and walked in. White ash had settled all over him, cut by rivulets of sweat. He pulled off a helmet one of the volunteers must have given him and rubbed his fingers over his short, sweat-soaked hair.

  “How bad does it look?” Claudia asked.

  “The fire’s obviously close, but it won’t jump to the house. We’re making sure of that. Mom and Dad are moving your horses away from the smoke and over to our place until we’re certain none of the embers will start another fire. Whatever you had in that shed is lost.”

  “I don’t care about the shed.”

  “Mark and Linda are heading a crew to put out any spot fires that pop up around the corral or the stables,” Elijah added.

  Claudia blew out a puff of air. “I need to get out there and have a look around. See what I can do.” She squared her shoulders, shoved open the back door and walked outside.

  Olivia turned to Elijah. “It’s my fault,” she said. “I left the light on in the shed. It must have shorted out and caused the fire.”

  “That’s not what happened. The light was still burning when Raymond and I first went out there and tried to put out the flames. We could smell kerosene.”

  “I must have kicked over—”

  “No.” He put his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eye. “Someone had latched the door from outside. Dragged a section of an old plow in front of it. I think the shooter thought you were in there.”

  “He saw me earlier?” The realization made her knees start to buckle, but Elijah held her up.

  “After you went upstairs, I went out there to get the gloves you were worried about. Yeah, you’d left the light on. But I left it on, too, when I came back to the house. I figured I’d go back out a little later and finish cleaning up. Next thing I knew, I heard Raymond hollering.”

  Elijah’s hands were still on Olivia’s shoulders and she leaned into him a little. That solid, self-certain way he had seeped into her and brought her a tiny measure of peace.

  She needed it because it was still her fault. And it looked as though the torment was never going to end.

  * * *

  Elijah woke up on the narrow bed in the office off Claudia’s kitchen feeling as if he’d chewed on nails all night.

  The taste and smell of smoke still lingered in his nose and mouth, like stale water and ashes. And he’d only gotten a couple hours of sleep. Fitful sleep, at that.

  The fire was out. Everybody was okay. The grounds behind the house were pretty well cleaned up. But worry for Olivia had needled him all night long. Images of what could have happened would flash through his mind and wake him.

  Eventually, he’d fallen asleep for a couple of hours. But now the sun was coming up and it was time to get moving. He needed a cup of coffee. He also needed a plan to get through all his responsibilities for the dawning day.

  Before anything else, though, he sat on the edge of his bed, closed his eyes and bowed his head to pray. It was the only way he could keep going, the only way he could do what he had to do. He’d learned that lesson a long time ago.

  The coffeepot in the kitchen still held some of the leftover coffee Claudia had brewed for the firefighters last night. He was tempted to pour some of that into a mug and microwave it. Bad coffee and stale food offered a strange comfort. Maybe they were a reminder of days past, telling him how much worse things could be. Or maybe they just got him in the mood to prepare for battle.

  In the end, he dumped out the old coffee and started a fresh pot. Eventually the others would wander in, and they’d want some. He grabbed one of Claudia’s homemade muffins left out on the counter. She and Denise had pulled out every baked good they could find from every cabinet and freezer in the house and the cottage to make sure everyone who’d showed up to help fight the fire got a snack before they left.

  Predictably, the cherry-pecan muffin was stale. But it hit the spot. While he chewed and watched the coffeepot gurgle, he thought about last night, mentally reviewing everything that had happened. What could he have done differently? What should he have done differently?

  He thought about Olivia. He thought about her a lot. It was getting harder and harder not to. And that was a problem.

  Plenty of people talked to him about “moving on” from his experiences in the army, and from the guilt he felt over coming home whole when so many were badly injured or didn’t survive at all. His dad, his mom, his pastor and Arthur, of course, told him that he shouldn’t dwell on the past—not if it kept him from living his life. But moving on, living a “normal” life, would mean leaving his fallen comrades behind. Letting their memory fade. And he would not do that.

  He shook his head. Even if he was willing to open up enough to try for a relationship, who said Olivia wanted someone like him, anyway? His scars weren’t only on the outside. Right now she was afraid. It was natural for her to feel drawn to a man who was willing to help her. He was not the kind of man to take advantage of a vulnerable woman.

  And how well did he really know her, anyway?

  He plucked one of the dirty coffee mugs out of the sink, washed it, poured himself some coffee and forced his thoughts away from Olivia and back to the events of last night.

  The first he’d known of the fire was when he’d heard Raymond yelling and then pounding on the kitchen door. Elijah had been on Claudia’s computer, ordering supplies for his ranch. He’d yanked open the kitchen door and seen flames from the direction of the shed.

  Denise had stumbled out of the cottage, talking into her phone, having already dialed 911.

  Jonathan had run outside and Elijah had barked at him to stay in the house and keep an eye on Claudia and Olivia. Then he’d gone out with Raymond to turn on some garden hoses and try to keep the flames from spreading.

  The shooter must have seen Olivia out there earlier. Maybe he had heard Elijah go in for Olivia’s gloves. He must have assumed Olivia had returned to the shed to work for a while so he had gone to get the kerosene, shutting and blocking the door without looking inside to see no one was there before setting the fire.

  Elijah took another sip of coffee while a question formed in his mind. What had Raymond heard or seen that made him aware of the fire? What, exactly, had woken him up? He would need to ask him.

  The floorboards squeaked and Elijah looked over to see Olivia pushing open the swinging door between the kitchen and the dining room. Just before the door swung shut, he caught a glimpse of Jonathan sprawled on the living room couch, mouth hanging open, looking like a goofball.

  Olivia was still wearing the jeans and T-shirt she’d had on last night. She must have collapsed into bed fully clothed, just as Elijah had done. Her hair was tied back in a disheveled ponytail.

  Elijah stepped away from her and leaned against the counter. “Coffee?”r />
  She nodded.

  He washed out a coffee mug from the sink and filled it for her. When he turned around, she was rotating the arm of her injured shoulder.

  “Looks like you’re getting your range of motion back.”

  She reached for the mug he offered her and took a couple of sips. “Yeah. It feels a lot better. I go back to the doctor in a few days and he’ll tell me if I need physical therapy.”

  “How’d you sleep?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  “That’s usually a good sign.”

  She looked into his eyes. Then her gaze shifted. He could tell she was looking at the scars on his face.

  “From an IED,” he said. “Improvised explosive device.”

  “Does it bother you to talk about it?”

  “Not especially.” There were things he didn’t want to talk about. When that was the case, he had no problem slamming the door shut on the topic.

  “It had to hurt,” she said.

  “I lived through it. Not everybody did.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” She paused and looked at him, as if maybe she expected him to have something else to say about the subject. He didn’t. But it was nice to know she would be willing to listen. Sometimes he did need to talk and not everybody could take hearing what he had to say.

  He watched her walk over and pick up one of the muffins on the counter. She ate a bite, and then turned to him. “These things are stale.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a good kind of stale.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, it is.”

  They stood there sipping their coffee and finishing their stale muffins in companionable silence.

  Olivia poured him some more coffee, refilled her own mug, and then sat down on a round stool in the corner of the kitchen. “This can’t go on,” she said quietly.

  Immediately his senses sharpened. “What, exactly?”

  She looked down. “I can’t keep disrupting everybody’s life.”

  He watched her reach up to run her fingers through her hair. She felt around at the unkempt ponytail, pulled off the band holding it together and retied it.

  Then she looked directly at him, studying his face again. It was somewhere between unnerving and intriguing when she did that. “I know you have a life and work to do at your ranch. Things to do besides follow me around.”

  He was a little concerned at where this was going. Was she reconsidering leaving? He set his coffee mug on the counter and crossed his arms. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I’ve been pretty self-centered, letting you drop everything to take care of me.” She sighed. “If you want to go back to your own ranch for the day, I’ll go with you. You could help your dad without worrying about my safety. Vanessa’s flying in later this morning. There’s no reason she can’t go from the airport to your house. We’ll all come back here when you’re finished working.”

  He could get back to his usual routine for a day. Not spend so much time around Olivia. Have some time to get his head back on straight.

  “Good idea,” he said.

  ELEVEN

  “Wow. This is different from your apartment in Vegas.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Olivia said as Vanessa glanced around the living room of the Morales ranch house.

  “I’ve traveled to northern Arizona before,” Vanessa added, “but I’ve never had the good fortune to visit a ranch with a gorgeous view like this. I’ve got a few vacation days I’ve been ordered to use before they expire and I do believe I’ll use them here.”

  If Olivia wasn’t mistaken, Vanessa’s gaze was lingering on the cowboys visible working outside. Elijah was one of them.

  “Sorry I couldn’t meet you at the airport,” Olivia said. “But it’s a long drive from here and, well, someone’s been trying to kill me.” It felt ridiculous saying the words aloud.

  Vanessa turned and strode over to Olivia for another hug, having already swept her up in an embrace as soon as she’d walked through the Morales door.

  She was a tiny little thing, decked out in expensive designer jeans, a silver knit top and pointy-toed shoes with four-inch heels. She wore her platinum curls piled high on her head and when she came in close to hug Olivia she nearly jabbed her in the eye with a red lacquered chopstick hair ornament.

  “I’m so sorry this is happening to you,” Vanessa said after she let go of her. “And we’re going to find the idiot who’s doing this and nail him. I promise.”

  Tiny and outlandish looking, Vanessa had already earned herself a reputation as a pit bull in the courtroom. She’d told Olivia that she witnessed her stepdad hitting her mom on multiple occasions when she was a kid. She’d grown up tough. And she wanted to help people stuck in domestic abuse situations, which was how she came to meet Olivia.

  “Thank you for the very sweet driver you sent to pick me up at the airport, by the way,” Vanessa added.

  Bobby had been assigned that job. Upon arrival back at the Morales ranch he had escorted Vanessa into the house, sat in a living room chair, immediately picked up an electronic tablet and immersed himself in cyberspace. Olivia got the impression he found Vanessa to be kind of intense.

  “Bobby’s part of that group you told me about, Vanquish the Darkness, right?”

  At the sound of his name, he glanced up at them.

  Olivia nodded. “He is.”

  “A Christian motorcycle group,” Vanessa mused. “I had no idea such a thing existed. But I ran down everything I could find on Vanquish and they seem legit.”

  “Vanessa!”

  “Hey, you’re my friend and you’re in trouble. You can’t blame me for doing what I do.”

  “Wish I could say the same about your law firm,” Bobby said, looking up from his tablet. “I mean about the legit part. Your legal firm has represented some pretty sketchy people.”

  Vanessa turned to him, frowning, hands on her hips. “Are you checking up on me?”

  “Yes.”

  She broke into a broad grin. “Cool.”

  “Seriously?” Olivia looked back and forth between the two of them. “Does no one take anyone on face value anymore?”

  “So, about your firm?” Bobby prompted, ignoring Olivia’s small outburst.

  Julie had brought in a tray with glasses of iced tea a few minutes earlier. Vanessa picked up a glass and took a sip. “When my firm hired me, they made it clear they believed everyone is entitled to a robust defense and if I didn’t agree I could leave. I happen to agree. I’m not a personal fan of all of our clients, but I don’t have to be.”

  Bobby looked ready to follow up on that, so Olivia hurried to change the subject. “Well, I just want you to know I appreciate you coming to see me.” She gestured toward one of the couches. “Let’s sit down.”

  “I figured it might not be safe to talk on the phone, so I had to come,” Vanessa said, taking a seat. “Anyone who thinks their phone is secure these days is kidding herself.”

  The front door opened and Elijah walked in, looking every inch the cowboy in jeans and cowboy boots. He glanced at Bobby. “Thanks for the text.” Then he introduced himself to Vanessa. “I wanted to hear what you had to say.”

  Vanessa’s eyes practically glowed when she looked at him.

  He walked over and sat next to Olivia, and for some stupid reason that made her feel better. Not that she had any kind of claim on him. Or wanted one.

  “I don’t have very many specifics to offer,” Vanessa said.

  “What does that mean?” Olivia asked.

  “It means your local sheriff’s department has been calling Kurtz’s law firm asking about him, his friends and his associates. I’m not sure if you know this, but Kurtz is out of the country. Vegas PD sent a couple of detect
ives to his office for a chat with some of the senior partners, at the request of your local sheriff, and that didn’t make anybody happy.” She flashed a sharklike smile.

  “I thought Kurtz always liked attention,” Olivia muttered.

  “Not this kind. The state of Nevada is investigating him, too. Again. They’ve been trying to pull his license to practice law for years, but given his influential friends, they need to build an overwhelming case against him. The man has dirt on a lot of people that he wouldn’t be afraid to use to his advantage.” Vanessa glanced out the window, then turned to face Olivia.

  “My sources tell me the state wants to build a full-blown criminal case against him,” she continued. “Brutally attacking his wife and apparently getting away with it seems to be the last straw for a lot of people. Several useful anonymous tips have come in. If the investigators talk to you, maybe you’ll be able to help build their case. You might know a small detail that’s more important than you realize.”

  “I lied on the witness stand,” Olivia said flatly. “I have no credibility.”

  “This isn’t for a trial. An easily confirmed fact you could give them might connect him to a bigger picture.”

  “If Kurtz loses his legal license, he loses some of his value to his mobster friends,” Elijah said. “That could be why he’s so intent on coming after you. Or hiring somebody to come after you. Maybe he blames you for this new investigation. He could be nervous. Maybe he thinks you’re outsmarting him and finding another way to get him locked up. It would be an added blow to his ego and he might not be able to handle that.”

  Olivia nodded. A bruised ego was the reason for a lot of the violence she saw at the shelter. Someone fearing a loss of control might lash out, too.

  “I think the state investigation is the best explanation for why Kurtz would suddenly act so brazenly,” Vanessa said. “The timing of the attacks lines up with that. If he’s trying to take care of the problem himself, that might explain why things have been so messy. As far as I know, Kurtz has never actually murdered anyone. Do you know for a fact if he’s in the UK? I’m just going by what his people are saying. They could be lying.”