by Ruth Langan
Erin stopped dead in her tracks and stared at the offending hand.
At once he released his hold on her and took a step back. “I forgot. You only let Hazard Wilde touch you.” Then, with an insolent grin, he bowed. “After you, lady doctor.”
She paused at the back door to remove a parka from a hook. When she stepped outside, she could feel the bite in the air.
The truck, she noted, was still idling. She pulled herself up to the passenger seat. Before she could even secure the seat belt, Russ engaged the gears and took off, the wheels churning gravel.
“Did Hazard say if he’d contacted the sheriff yet?”
Russ shrugged. “He didn’t say.”
“Did Cody go with him?”
“Yeah. His ever-present sidekick. The old man acts like a doting father.”
Erin nodded. “I think he’s proud of Hazard. And he should be.”
“You mean ’cause Hazard’s made himself millions on his old man’s ranch?”
“Not because of the money. But because he’s made himself into a fine man.”
Russ shot her a sideways glance. “A fine catch, don’t you mean?”
She arched a brow. Her tone was pure ice. “I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t play fancy lady with me. You females are all the same. Walk right over the poor slob who’s got to work for a living, and cozy up to the guy with all the money.” His foot pressed the accelerator nearly to the floor. The truck bounced over ruts and rocks as it raced up a hill and flew down the other side. “Tell me. How long did it take for Hazard to flash his money and get you into his bed?”
Erin’s fingers gripped the door. “I intend to tell Hazard about your insolence. I won’t have you speaking to me in this way.”
“You won’t have…?” He reached out and closed his big hand over her arm.
Despite the protection of the parka, she cried out in surprise and pain. Her surprise turned to fear as he dragged her across the seat until the seat belt dug into her ribs. His face was inches from hers. His breath hot against her cheek.
“Let’s get one thing straight, fancy lady doctor. That old coot, Cody, isn’t around to play bodyguard now.”
“Cody?” She struggled to keep the fear from her voice.
“Yeah. He’s always thought he was better’n me. Like you. But out here, you’re no better’n anybody else. In fact, you’re less than anybody. That brain of yours won’t do you any good at all. What counts here is muscle. And if you think you’d like to go up against mine, be my guest.” His eyes narrowed. “As for your big protector, Hazard Wilde, he doesn’t scare me.”
He released her and returned his hand to the wheel as they careened into a wood.
Erin peered out the window. “This isn’t the way to Peterson’s.”
“That’s real smart, Doctor.”
Her eyes widened as her fear grew. “Where are you taking me?”
“Someplace where we can be alone.”
“Why?” Even as the question slipped from her mouth, her fear turned to a quick rush of panic.
“Because I’ve finally figured out a way to really hurt Hazard Wilde. The calves were good, as far as they went. They just didn’t go far enough.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “It was you who killed all those calves?”
He flashed her a look of triumph. “Smart, wasn’t I? See, you aren’t the only one with brains.”
“But how? Why?”
“The ‘how’ was easy. I just helped myself to Beryl’s syringes and insulin. Whenever I had a few minutes alone with the herd, I’d poke a couple of calves. When I saw how easy it was, I started ordering bigger doses from a connection in the medical supply business. I only used Beryl’s supply in an emergency. The ‘why’ is even easier. To destroy Hazard Wilde.”
The truck emerged from the wood into an isolated area bounded by tree-shrouded hills. As Erin looked around she realized there were no herds nearby. No wranglers. She shivered. No one who could come to her rescue.
“Come on.” Russ turned off the ignition and reached over, releasing her seat belt. Then he grasped her hand in a viselike grip, tugging her across the seat.
She had no choice but to stumble along beside him as he exited the truck and started past a stand of trees. They came to a clearing. It was a desolate spot. Beneath a layer of melting snow were the charred remains of what may have been a house. The only thing still standing was a stone chimney.
“Cozy, isn’t it?” Russ dragged her closer. “This is where I spent my happiest years.”
“Here? On the Wilde ranch?”
“My old man was foreman.” His voice lowered. “It was a good life. For a while. Then it turned into a living hell.”
“Why—” Erin’s teeth were chattering, and she had to swallow before she could manage to ask, “Why did you bring me here, Russ?”
“I told you. I’ve figured out the perfect way to hurt Hazard Wilde. The calves were a start. But this’ll be even better.” He turned to stare at her and she could see the madness in his eyes. “I’m going to kill everything he loves. Including you.”
Hazard drove with one hand, holding the cell phone to his ear with the other. “What do you mean, Russ isn’t there? Where did he go?”
Peterson’s voice sounded puzzled. “He’s just following your orders.”
“My orders?”
“He told me you called and wanted him in town right away. I figured it had something to do with this Beryl Spence business.”
Hazard gave a hiss of annoyance. “I never phoned him. And he didn’t come into town. I’m almost at the ranch and I haven’t passed another vehicle on the road.”
“Maybe he stopped at the bunkhouse.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Hazard felt the first trickle of ice along his spine.
Beryl had told the sheriff that she’d been misplacing her insulin and syringes lately. Suddenly it was all beginning to make more sense. Russ Thurman had just become the prime suspect. When he found him, Hazard vowed, he’d get to the truth in all this.
“I’ll check.” He disconnected and jammed the phone into his shirt pocket.
With a twist of the wheel he veered up the driveway and pulled around to the back of the house. There was no sign of another truck. Despite the chill, he started sweating.
He turned to Cody. “Check the bunkhouse. See if there’s any sign of Russ Thurman.”
While Cody started off in the direction of the bunkhouse, Hazard sprinted up the steps and let himself in through the back door.
“Agnes?” Hearing the sound of the TV, he hurried through the kitchen toward the great room. It was empty. He moved on until he came to the lab.
“Erin?” He paused in the doorway. As he’d feared, it was empty.
Very deliberately he turned away and made his way to Erin’s bedroom, willing himself not to panic. When he found it empty, as well, his heart plummeted all the way to his toes.
He turned and retraced his steps through the house. When he got to the back door, he saw Cody helping Agnes Tallfeather up the steps.
“What’s going on? Is she hurt?”
“More mad than hurt.” Cody caught the old woman’s hands and held them up. They were bloody and battered.
“Bastard locked me in the closet,” she muttered. “Hauled me out of the house like a sack of potatoes and locked me up in the bunkhouse closet. Said he’d figured out the perfect revenge against the Wildes.”
Hazard’s heart stopped. “Russ Thurman?”
She nodded. “Crazy as a loon. Always said that about him. Him and that drunken father of his.”
Cody looked around. “Where’s Erin?”
“Gone.” The word nearly stuck in Hazard’s throat.
“With Russ Thurman?”
Hazard nodded.
“After he locked me up, he shouted that you’d know where to find him.” Agnes rubbed at her bruised and bloody hands. “He called it the old homestead.”
“Of course.” Cody froze.
“You realize he’s gone off the deep end. Erin’s no match for a brute like that.”
Hazard’s eyes were as hard as chips of steel. “Notify the sheriff.” He was already racing out the door. “Tell him I intend to kill Russ Thurman. Unless he kills me first.”
“It doesn’t look so big now.” Russ had hold of Erin’s wrist as he circled the crumbling foundation, half-buried beneath overgrown roots and shrubs. “But when I was a kid, I thought it was the grandest ranch house in all of Wyoming. It was the first real home we’d ever had. Before that, my old man and I used to go from ranch to ranch, pitching a tent in the woods, or bunking in one of the range shacks while we helped with the calving. None of the jobs ever lasted beyond a few months. Then we’d be forced to move on. I hated it. Until I was twelve, I never had a home or a friend. Then we came here, and Wes Wilde hired my old man on as foreman of the ranch.”
He stopped, kicked at a half-buried stone. Something caught his eye, and he bent to retrieve a silver chain. Without realizing it, he let go of Erin’s wrist while he examined the dull silver.
She glanced toward the truck. The driver’s door was still open. Had he left the keys in the ignition? She’d been too distracted to notice. She mentally measured the distance, wondering if she could outrun him and lock herself inside. Her heart started pounding at the thought of what she was about to do.
“Belonged to my mother.” He held up the chain, and she pretended to be interested.
“That’s pretty.” Her mind raced. She had to keep him distracted. “Was your mother pretty?”
“Yeah.” His eyes narrowed on her. “When you’re twelve, you don’t really notice. But looking back, I should have. She was little. No bigger’n you. Blue eyes and hair like cornsilk. She used to wait in some dingy room in some dingy town until my father would get another job and send for her. When she came here, she thought she’d died and gone to heaven. But then she started liking it too much.”
“Too much?” Erin glanced toward the truck, then back to Russ.
“She was always running into her room and brushing her hair or smoothing her skirts whenever she heard the sound of someone coming.”
“That’s what…” Erin tried to speak, though her face felt frozen. Whether from cold or fear, she wasn’t certain. But she could no longer feel her hands or feet. In fact, her whole body seemed numb, and she wondered if she would stumble and fall when she started running. “That’s what most women do when they have company.”
“Yeah.” His eyes went flat. Flat and dead. “Especially if the company is the rich owner of the ranch.”
He kicked at the ground, his eyes scanning the dirt. “Wonder what happened to the little heart that used to be on this chain.”
Erin knew she would never have a better opportunity. She had to use this momentary distraction. She turned and started racing toward the truck. Before she’d even taken two steps she heard his muttered exclamation.
She dared not look back. With her lungs burning from the effort, she ran as fast as she could. When she reached the truck she leaped inside and grabbed the door.
Instead of cold steel, her hand encountered flesh. She looked up to see Russ just one step behind her, holding the door.
“Why you little…” He swung the door wide and caught her by the shoulder, yanking her with such force she fell to the ground.
As she started to get to her knees, he caught her by her hair and pulled her head back. “You think you’re smart.” He slapped her so hard it snapped her head to one side.
For a moment Erin was forced to grasp the door of the truck for balance as a shower of stars swam in front of her eyes. Then, as she slowly struggled to her feet, she became aware of a sound.
A truck barreled over the hill and came to a screeching halt just inches from them. As Hazard stepped out holding a rifle, Erin felt her hopes soar. Then, just as quickly, her hopes were dashed as Russ grabbed her and held her in front of him like a shield.
After one quick glance at Erin, Hazard kept his gaze steady on Russ. He couldn’t bear to see the deathly pallor that robbed her of all color, or the terror in her eyes.
He’d driven like a madman, almost blinded by the rage that drove him. In his whole life, he’d never known this kind of fear. And now that he knew Erin was still alive, nothing else mattered. He would save her. Or die trying.
“Let her go, Russ.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” Russ laughed. A wild, high-pitched sound that scraped over raw nerves. “That’s why I brought her here and lured you to follow. So I could just give up without a fight.”
Almost casually he reached into his pocket and withdrew a syringe, pressing it to her throat. “Now I’ll give the orders. And you’ll do as I say. ’Cause I’m the one with the power now. And you’re going to know what it feels like to be less than nothing.” He motioned with the syringe. “Toss down that rifle and kick it over this way, or I’ll have to stick your woman. You know those calves that keeled over without a whimper? She’ll be just like ’em.”
“Don’t hurt her.” Hazard held the rifle in one hand and started to toss it aside.
“No, Hazard.” Erin let out a cry of despair. “Don’t you see? He’s going to kill me, anyway. But if you do as he says, you’ll have no way to defend yourself.”
Hazard’s eyes narrowed on Russ as he tossed aside the rifle. “If you hurt her. If you so much as harm her in any way, I’ll kill you with my bare hands. That’s not a threat, Russ. That’s a promise.”
“That’s right. Talk tough for your woman. That’s what the Wildes are famous for, aren’t they?”
Hazard shot him a puzzled look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. You knew. You all knew.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Russ.” Hazard wondered how many seconds it would take to cross the distance between them. Was there time to snatch Erin from this madman’s hands before he could plunge the syringe? Or would he risk her death in the attempt? He knew one thing. He had to try.
“Never could figure out why Wes Wilde would hire my old man as foreman. Oh, sure, he’d been bouncing around ranches all his life. Knew a good bit about cattle and such. But he liked to drink. And when he drank he tended to slack off and let the other wranglers cover for him. So, I had to wonder why a man like that would be foreman. And then, all those years later, I found out why.”
“Why?” Hazard was determined to keep him talking until he could find a chance, no matter how slim, to attack.
“When my old man died, I found a packet of letters written to my long-dead mother from Wes Wilde. My old man had read them, too. Every one of them. Telling her she had a right to leave a man who beat her. Telling her he’d give her protection if she asked for it. After he found those letters, my old man sank into a bottle and never crawled out. He drank himself to death. And one night in a drunken rage he burned down the only home I’d ever had. They found his body right next to the tin box filled with those letters.”
Erin saw the stunned look that came into Hazard’s eyes and knew that he’d never known about the letters.
To his credit he managed to keep his tone even. “And you’ve decided that my father hired your father because he was in love with your mother?”
“Why else?”
“When my father hired your father, he hadn’t even met your mother yet. There was only you and your old man, living hand-to-mouth. Your mother didn’t come into the picture until she joined the two of you much later. If there was…something between them, they kept it to themselves. My mother had long since passed away, and your parents’ marriage was just as dead.”
Russ’s voice went up a notch. “Then if it wasn’t to impress my mother, you tell me why Wes Wilde hired a man like my father to be his foreman.”
Hazard shook his head. “You damned fool. Don’t you see? My father had three sons of his own. And he took pity on a twelve-year-old boy who had never had a home or a friend.”
Russ
stiffened. His face drained of all color. This was something he’d never even considered. And now his mind simply wouldn’t accept it. He’d nursed this anger, fueling it almost lovingly through the years with every real or imagined slight, until it consumed him. There was no way he could now deny something that had become so much a part of his life. “You’re lying,” he screamed. “It’s all a lie.”
Hazard used that moment to rush forward and forcibly yank Erin free. With one quick shove he pushed Russ back against the truck hard enough to stun him. The syringe fell to the ground.
“Get inside,” Hazard commanded. “Lock the doors. And no matter what happens, stay inside.”
Erin turned, clawing and scrambling into the truck with a strength driven by panic. When the door slammed behind her, she couldn’t even remember how she got there. She watched as Russ punched Hazard so hard he fell to the ground. Then Russ fell on top of him, pummeling him with his fists. A moment later both men had regained their footing. The two exchanged blow for blow, until their faces were bloodied. Erin had to look away, to keep from being sick. She had never seen such violence. And still they fought, each desperate to subdue the other.
Erin breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Hazard knock Russ to the ground. For a moment she closed her eyes and whispered a prayer that it was finally over. But then there was a terrible roar, so powerful it rocked the truck. She opened her eyes and saw the rifle in Russ’s hands. Then she looked toward Hazard and saw him stiffen, then slide slowly to the ground.
“No!” Erin reflexively clutched the satchel to her chest. Without realizing what she was doing, she threw open the door and hurried to Hazard’s side. There seemed to be blood everywhere. Staining his shirt. Spilling like a river from his body, turning the snow beneath him to crimson.
She was a doctor, yet not a doctor. She had never in her life tended a patient. Still, she had to do what she could to save him. She unzipped the satchel and grabbed up the surgical knife, cutting away his shirt to press a sterile cloth to the wound.
“Go…back.” This was Hazard’s worst nightmare. She had given up her safety for him. And now he was helpless to protect her. “Go back…truck.”