by Jenna Night
“What exactly are we up against?” Elijah asked.
Lily and Nate each filled him in on what they knew.
“Tell me about Eddie Drake,” Elijah said.
Lily described his physical appearance, including his slicked-back red hair. She clasped her hands in her lap. Talking about him made all the terrifying emotions come roaring back and her stomach started feeling knotted.
“He asked me out a few times,” she continued. “Turning him down only seemed to encourage him to try harder. He bragged about himself, trying to impress me. It was annoying and I tuned it out.” She looked up and Nate was watching her very intently. “The only specific thing I remember him saying was that he was into computers and technology and that he was really good at that stuff.”
“There’s an organized-crime element involved in what’s going on with the cargo thefts and with Lily,” Nate said. “We don’t know the extent of it yet. But they could have sent out professionals to wrap things up and silence her.”
Lily shivered as a chill passed through her. Professional killers might be after her. Nate took his arm from the back of the couch, dropped it down and held her hand.
“We can keep an eye out for any strangers coming onto the property,” Bobby said, looking at the screen of the laptop balanced on his knees.
Lily looked down at her fingers entangled with Nate’s. As time passed everything seemed to get murkier instead of clearer. With the people trying to kill her and with Nate.
Nate blew out a sigh. “I report back to work tomorrow. Maybe I’ll learn something useful.” He squeezed Lily’s hand and then let go of it. “You’ve had a long day. Why don’t you get some rest?”
Her heart was beating so hard in her chest it was a moment before she could answer. “Good idea.”
He stood and held out his hand. She took it and he pulled her to her feet. She vaguely noticed that her leg hurt, focusing instead on the steadying touch of his hand. She said good-night to everyone and he walked with her upstairs to the door of her room.
“I bet you’re sorry you stopped at the Starlight Mart on your way back from Phoenix,” Lily said from her doorway. She was afraid to let herself feel a connection with him, yet it was hard to let him go.
“Nah. I like to find trouble. That’s why I do it for a living.”
What he did for a living. That’s right. All of his efforts were about doing his job. This wasn’t about her.
“Well, I’m glad you did stop there.” She tried to reel in her feelings for him, but it wasn’t so easy.
He nodded. “We made it through another day. If we can keep doing that, we’ll be fine.”
“You’re right.” Another day, another battle to stay alive. “Good night.” She stepped back into her room and softly closed the door.
* * *
Lily heard the low rumble of a motorcycle in the distance. She set down her pail and brushed the dirt off her gloved hands. After three days at the Morales ranch she was used to helping out with chores and she appreciated the chance to do something useful to earn her keep.
This afternoon she’d offered to help Olivia pack straw around some of the plants close to the barns and stables and behind the sprawling ranch house to help them survive the upcoming winter. She’d just returned to the small barn with Olivia to reload straw when she heard the sound of an engine.
Nate must be back. Ricky, reportedly the best auto mechanic in Oso County, was working on repairing Gaston’s truck as fast as he could, but he’d needed to order some parts. In the meantime, Nate used a motorcycle he kept at the Morales ranch to ride back and forth to work, bundling up to withstand the cold rush of air.
Lily quickly removed her glasses, used the tail of her flannel shirt to clean the lenses, patted her bangs to make sure they were lying flat and then smoothed the rest of her hair as best she could. When she put her glasses back on she realized Olivia was watching her and smiling.
Lily felt her cheeks burn. Could she have been any more obvious? And where had her silly reaction come from, anyway? She knew better. Yes, butterflies fluttered in her stomach every time she was near Nate, but that didn’t mean she had to turn off her brain. He stayed at the ranch because protecting her was part of his job. And she needed to get back to work herself as soon as she could.
Nate had put his hand atop hers the night they arrived at the ranch, sending a warm feeling of belonging through every cell in her body. But he hadn’t touched her since. In fact, the very next day he’d saddled up and ridden out to work the ranch with Elijah, Elijah’s dad and a cowboy named Mark. Jonathan and a couple members of Vanquish had stayed at the house to keep an eye on Lily.
He’d pulled away from her for a reason and he had a right to that. He’d already poured a lot of energy into protecting her. She couldn’t ask for more.
Did she want more from him?
The fluttering feeling in the pit of her stomach at the thought of seeing him again said yes. But that silly fluttering feeling had given her bad advice before. Following that advice had ultimately led her to the situation she was in right now. Fearing for her life. Fearing for her mother’s safety.
Lily patted her jeans pocket, making sure her phone was still there. She’d been texting her mom and avoiding actual conversations. It was easier to withhold things that way, which was what Lily wanted to do right now. She didn’t want her mom worrying.
But then it occurred to her that her mom might be doing the same thing. Would she tell Lily if her bronchitis was hanging on and she was getting sicker?
Maybe not.
That settled it. Lily needed to ignore those fluttery feelings about Nate and focus on things that mattered. It was selfish of her to even consider taking time for a relationship when she had a mess of a life to put back together.
She glanced at Olivia, wishing she could take back cleaning up and fixing her hair when she’d first heard Nate coming down the drive. Hopefully, Olivia wouldn’t mention it to Nate. Maybe those flutters in Lily’s heart would die down. If not, she’d figure out a way to stomp on them and kill them.
The sound of the motorcycle stopped. Nate must have parked it at the front of the house. Meanwhile, Elijah, his mom and Mark rode up on horseback. They’d been out for hours rounding up stray cattle and bringing them closer to the ranch buildings and their supplemental food supply before winter set in.
While the other riders headed for the stables to take care of their horses, Lily watched Elijah ride up close to Olivia and lean over. His wife, beaming, stood up on her tiptoes to meet his lips for a kiss.
Lily’s heart ached a little.
She glanced back toward the house and saw Nate walking around the corner, the afternoon sunlight glinting off his sheriff’s deputy badge. He wasn’t alone. Sheriff Wolfsinger walked alongside him, as did Deputy Rios with Bubba trotting alongside her.
“They must have learned something,” Elijah said to Lily. He got off his horse and reached for his wife’s hand.
“Maybe it’s good news,” Lily said. “Maybe all of this is finally over.”
After an exchange of greetings with the law officers, Elijah offered to leave. “If you need to talk in private, Olivia and I can bring Churchill to his stall and get him situated for the night.”
The sheriff looked at him for a minute and then shook his head. “No. I think I can trust everybody here to keep their mouth shut.” Elijah nodded. Wolfsinger glanced at Lily and Olivia and both women also nodded.
“There’s still no sign of Eddie Drake,” he said.
Lily’s spirits sank. “Maybe he’s fled the state?” she said hopefully.
“The cargo-theft task force met today. We learned some new information and maybe you can help us piece some things together.” He focused his attention on Lily. “Nate said you told him Eddie was good with computers. What can
you tell me about that?”
“Just that he said he was good with them. He boasted about all kinds of things.” She thought for a minute, trying to remember any of the details from her typical workday that might be important. “He brought his own tablet and laptop to work. He had more than one phone. I got the impression he wanted to seem important, but now that I think of it I couldn’t tell you exactly what he did at Torrent Trucking every day. I know he worked with routing a lot. He worked evenings and sometimes weekends.”
“We’ve already talked to Bryan Torrent about obtaining access to Torrent Trucking computers and the company network. He’s fine with that,” Nate said. “Maybe our computer forensics people will be able to make some headway.”
“I don’t know that there’s much of a company network,” Lily said. “They used some truck-routing software and some accounting software, but everything I saw was pretty basic stuff you could buy online. None of it seemed very sophisticated, really.”
“Maybe Bryan Torrent’s business was pretty basic,” Nate said. “But Eddie Drake might have been running something completely different under his nose.”
“What do you mean?” Lily asked.
“Most cargo trailers, as well as the tractors, are set up to emit tracking signals,” Nate explained to Olivia and Elijah. Then he turned back to Lily. “The task-force leaders said today that all of the thefts happened when tracking signals were turned off, or false location information was sent back to the owners’ computers.”
Lily shook her head. “I have to say Eddie doesn’t seem smart enough to do something like that.”
“He didn’t have to invent the technology, he just had to be willing to use it,” Wolfsinger interjected. “Maybe that’s the connection with organized crime. They paid for the programming and whatever else was required and put it into place.”
“So you think Bryan Torrent might have been duped?” Lily asked.
“Mr. Torrent inherited the trucking company along with a couple of smaller businesses from his parents,” Wolfsinger said. “He got into financial trouble and had to sell all of them except for Torrent Trucking. Sadly, his wife became very ill. After she passed away he used the insurance money to pay off his debts. According to him, he learned his lesson, accepted that he wasn’t a good businessman and hired professionals who knew what they were doing to run his company.”
“Speaking of people he hired, what can you tell us about Sheila?” Nate asked.
“Sheila? The dispatcher?” Lily shrugged. “You met her at the office. She’s young. I never heard anyone complain about her at work. We didn’t really have anything in common. Mostly she talked about going nightclubbing and I got the impression she and Eddie were friends and maybe hung out after work sometimes. Why?”
“She’s gone missing,” Nate said. “Her family is very worried.”
ELEVEN
Lily had looked completely at home in her jeans and flannel shirt, with that little bit of straw in her hair. Making the drive from downtown Painted Rock out to the Morales ranch, Nate kept that image of her fixed in his mind while his eyes were on the road.
Ricky the mechanic had called to say he’d finished the repairs to Gaston’s truck just after Sheriff Wolfsinger and Deputy Rios left the Morales ranch. Elijah had given Nate a ride into town to the mechanic’s garage and was following him back to the ranch.
Nate rubbed his eyes and tried to dismiss his mental image of Lily as a ranch woman. She was getting to him and he needed to do something about that. Maybe he should move back into his apartment. He was still assigned to the Painted Rock substation, but he hoped his recent work in Phoenix plus his assignment to the cargo-theft task force might get him transferred back to Copper Mesa. The Morales family and their Vanquish friends were perfectly capable of protecting Lily. Maybe things would start to go his way and whoever had shot at him and Lily would break into Nate’s apartment looking for her while Nate was there. He would love to meet that guy.
More troubling at the moment was the fact that Sheila, the dispatcher from Torrent Trucking, was missing and Nate feared the worst. Yes, there was a chance she’d simply taken a trip because she felt like getting out of town. Or she could be part of the cargo-theft ring and had hightailed it out of Copper Mesa because it looked as if the operation was falling apart and she was in danger of getting caught.
But maybe professional killers were in town and they’d grabbed her. Or maybe Eddie Drake had snapped and done something terrible to her. What if they now had Lily in their sights? If someone was determined enough and had the resources—someone like a professional hitman—they could get to her on the Morales ranch. The thought made Nate’s stomach clench. He couldn’t leave Lily’s protection up to someone else. He had to take care of her himself.
Nate pressed down on the gas pedal, picking up speed. He could call Lily to see if she was okay, but what he really wanted was to see her. He hadn’t even been gone that long, but he needed to know with absolute certainty that she was all right.
Nate reminded himself he didn’t have any kind of claim on her. Not as a friend or anything else. He was a cop. She was a woman who needed protection. They’d had a friend in common back in their teenage years, and in honor of Joseph Suh he would keep her safe. That was it.
No, that wasn’t it. But that should be it. That should put the stop to anything personal happening between them. He’d promised himself he would never risk putting a woman in the same situation his mom had been in, leaving her widowed and feeling abandoned. Nate didn’t go to work every morning thinking that day would be his last, but the risk was there.
His entire life and his sense of purpose were wrapped up in being a lawman. It wasn’t just a job for him and it wasn’t something he could quit. Not now. Maybe one day, when he was older, he’d be ready to turn in his badge and help run the Blue Spruce. But not yet.
It was the undeniable truth that he didn’t have the background to make a good family man. He’d learned a lot from Bud and Ellen and his interactions with the Suh family, but those early years had been a chaotic mess. He had a general idea of how parents were supposed to interact with small children, but there was still so much left that was a mystery to him.
For a moment, that image of Lily on a ranch was back in his mind. And she was walking around with a couple of little kids following behind her. She’d mentioned she wanted to have children one day.
Nate shook his head. “Stop it.”
Anger at himself flared hot across the surface of his skin. He should never have moved into the Morales house. He should have stayed in his own apartment. Moving back into the apartment and living alone again once Lily was safe was going to feel much colder than it had felt before.
But he would adjust. Just like he’d adjusted when he first moved out here from Copper Mesa. And if he had any character at all, he would keep his feelings for Lily to himself.
He turned onto the drive leading up to the Morales ranch, parked by the front door and got out of the truck.
Elijah parked his truck, got out, and walked up the front steps beside Nate. “Good thing there wasn’t a cop around.” He slapped a hand on Nate’s shoulder and gave him a hearty squeeze. “You might have gotten a speeding ticket.”
Nate managed a small laugh but he didn’t slow down as he headed for the front door. When the time was right, he’d start keeping his distance from Lily. Right now he just needed to see her and make sure she was okay.
As soon as he opened the door he smelled butter-pecan tarts. Lily liked to bake. She’d made something every day since the day after they’d arrived at the ranch. Nate headed for the kitchen.
He found her there.
Strands of dark hair had come loose from her ponytail. She had flour smudges on her cheeks and on the black frames of her glasses. She was moving in front of the stove, favoring her injured leg.
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br /> She turned to him and her brown eyes looked so soft and inviting that for a few seconds he simply took comfort in gazing into them. For the moment it felt like every worry he had in the world had been wrapped up in making sure that she was okay. And now that he finally saw for himself that she was fine, a rare feeling of peace settled over him.
“These butter-pecan tarts are awesome.” Bobby, the curly-haired tech expert for Vanquish the Darkness, was the only other person in the kitchen. He sat at a small table, helping himself to another tart. Nate hadn’t even noticed him until now.
“They smell good,” Nate said quietly. His attention was back on Lily and she’d locked gazes with him.
“Gaston will be happy to hear his truck has been repaired,” Lily said.
Nate shrugged a shoulder. “I’ll wait until tomorrow to tell him. Make him suffer a little longer. Builds character.”
She laughed and reached up to tuck a stray hair behind her ear.
Nate heard the scrape of a chair and from the corner of his eye he saw Bobby get up and leave, taking several tarts with him.
And it wasn’t hard to guess why he’d scooted out so fast.
Nate’s feelings for Lily were probably written all over his face. And the way she was gazing at him and fidgeting a little bit nervously made him think she might be feeling something, too.
Stop. If Nate was truly a man of character, he would stop what was going on between them right now. Lily wanted a family one day. She’d said so. And he was not a family man. No matter how much he might want to be one.
“Having that truck repaired is one less problem to worry about.” Nate consciously made the effort to change the expression on his face and in his eyes, trying to look like he did when he was working. Closed-off. Unemotional. Detached.