by Joanna Wayne
The woman who had been shot in her hotel room had been close to Heather’s age, nearly the same size and dressed in her clothes. Was it a case of mistaken identity, or had the killer forced Ariana to parade around in Heather’s clothes before he killed her?
The sickness of the image turned his stomach, but it was no sicker than he’d seen more than once in real life. And then there were the sandals. His mind swam in the stream of possibilities, but his eyes stayed on the trail, mindful of anything that might spook Heather’s horse and cause her trouble. She was knee-deep in that already.
“I COULD GET used to this,” Heather admitted before they’d covered the first mile, “especially with a horse like Rosy.”
“Does that mean you’re ready to take her to a canter?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Matt gave his horse a little more freedom, easing into a slightly faster pace that wouldn’t frighten Heather. She and Rosy kept up easily, and the smile of satisfaction on Heather’s face was proof enough she was handling the new speed with ease.
His mind drifted back to the motel and stayed locked in mire and details until they rounded a clump of sweet gum trees and were met by the sound of hammering—and loud male voices.
“Looks like you found the place,” Ben boomed, as the sound of hooves alerted him to their presence. He left his spot in the shade and came lumbering toward them.
“We couldn’t miss it,” Matt said. “Once the horses set foot on the trail, they kept to it just the way you’ve trained them.”
“It’s a good thing. Some of those tourists get lost finding their mouths with a full fork.”
Matt studied the group. The hammering was coming from a spot near a man-made pond where two wranglers were assembling a row of wooden picnic tables.
“You brought a guest.” Ben smiled and walked over to offer Heather a hand in dismounting. “Nice of you to brighten our day with a beautiful woman.” He flashed her a toothy smile. “Miss Lombardi, isn’t it?”
Matt climbed from his horse and tethered the animal while Ben tended Rosy. “We’ve had some trouble, Ben. I guess you’ve probably heard about some of it by now.” He didn’t waste time on small talk. It wasn’t his strong suit, as Heather had so bluntly pointed out to him on more than one occasion.
“If you’re talking about what happened to Miss Lombardi, I heard about it,” Ben said, hitching up his jeans. “That kind of thing makes a man want to buckle on his .38 and go gunning for the skunks, the way we would have done in the old days.” He took a long, hard look at Heather’s face. “Now that I see for myself what the bastards did, I’m even more inclined to go after them myself.”
“Forget the .38,” Matt said. “If you really want to help, give me some information.”
Ben’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Of course. What kind of information would that be, Matt?”
“Which of your wranglers were unaccounted for last night?”
“My help’s all over twenty-one. I don’t do bed checks.” He shifted his weight from one foot to another and ground the toe of his boot into a tuft of grass. “Have you got a reason to suspect someone from my ranch was involved in this?”
“You know me, Ben. I don’t need reasons. I’m an equal-opportunity Ranger. I suspect everyone.”
“Then you better spread your suspicions around. It might not have even been local guys who did the dirty work. Somebody driving through town might be responsible.”
“Any reason for you to think that?”
“We haven’t had trouble like this before. I don’t see any reason why it would start now.”
“You’re right.” Matt said, his voice still friendly. “Still, I’d like the names of every wrangler who can’t prove he was at the Galloping R between six and ten last night. I have to start somewhere.”
“Does that mean you have nothing to go on?” Ben asked. He stepped closer, swatting at a gnat that was cruising the top of his earlobe.
“It means I don’t have a suspect in custody.”
“I’ll be glad as the next fellow when you do. Tourists getting beat up doesn’t help my business any. When do you want this list?”
“Yesterday.”
Ben chuckled awkwardly. Matt waited a moment before he threw in the next bit of news. “The attack’s not the only trouble. We had a young woman murdered this morning at the motel. You might have known her. Ariana Walker. She worked for Rube from time to time.”
Heather watched and listened as Matt told of the horror of the last few hours in the same calm, steady voice he’d used to question Ben about his employees. His gaze never touched her, zeroing in on Ben. She recognized the tactic, but was amazed by his proficiency at it.
The talk circled around the murder and back to her attack. Heather stepped away, roaming down to the area where the wranglers were at work. For all she knew one of the men wielding a hammer could be responsible for her black eyes and bruises, but she was safe here, with Matt so close by. And if she was lucky, she might recognize a voice or notice one of her scratch marks on someone’s face or arms.
“Howdy, ma’am.” The wrangler closest to her laid down his hammer, tipping his cowboy hat as she approached.
“Howdy, yourself. You look like you know what you’re doing. You’ve put a table together in the short time I’ve been talking to your boss.”
“I know what I’m doing, but I’m not doing what I like. I hired on to handle the horses, but I learned quick. When you work for Ben Wright, you do what needs to be done to keep the paying guests happy.”
“And picnic tables will keep them happy?”
“Cookouts.” He shook his head disdainfully. “Me, I’d take my grub inside in the air conditioning, but tourists thrive on heat and bugs.”
“Have you worked at the Galloping R long?”
“Going on my second year. I’m saving money to buy a small spread of my own up in the hill country. At the rate I’m going, I won’t get there until I’m too old to run cattle on it.”
Heather looked up as another wrangler left his pile of lumber and ambled over to join them. She stepped backwards, her breath quick and shallow. The cowboy’s hat was pulled low, but it didn’t hide a cut over his right eye or the bruise that discolored his jaw.
She’d fought for her life last night, swinging her fists and clawing with her nails, but could she have delivered this kind of damage to one of her attackers?
Footsteps rustled the grass behind her, and she whirled around. Matt stepped behind her. “Looks like you fellows got a hot day for table building.”
“It’s not too bad.” The guy with the bruise responded to Matt’s statement, then turned to walk away.
Matt stepped in front of him. “Looks like you had a bad night, too. What does the other fellow look like?”
The wrangler snickered. “Right now, he looks fine, but his day is coming.”
“Who’d you tie into it with?”
“This ain’t a matter for the law.” The cowboy cocked his head defiantly.
Matt stepped into the wrangler’s space and flashed his badge. “Miss Lombardi here was attacked last night, and a woman was killed today in town. Right now everything’s a matter for the law. If you don’t like jail cells, I suggest you start talking.”
“Tell him what happened, George,” the other wrangler prodded. “The jerk that did that to you isn’t worth going to jail for.”
George used a finger to shove the brim of the hat off the cut. “Some guy got rowdy two nights ago out at the roadhouse, started harassing one of the waitresses. I told him to lay off, and when I went to get in my pickup truck, he jumped me. He came at me from behind, the coward’s way.”
“Do you know the coward’s name?”
“Nope. Never laid eyes on him before the other night, but I’ll know him when I see him again. Only this time I’ll be ready for him.”
“Describe him for me.”
Heather sat on one of the picnic benches while Matt made notes in his ever-r
eady pocket notebook. She listened to the description, but nothing clicked. A scrawny fellow in jeans and a Western shirt, blond, middle-aged. Once again, the description fit a couple of dozen guys she’d seen in the last week. Even if it hadn’t, she wouldn’t have been able to match it to one of her attackers. Her assailants had worn masks.
Matt exchanged a few more comments with the wranglers and then took Heather’s arm and led her back to their horses. Once again, he helped her climb into the saddle, but this time the contact was cool and impersonal.
Ben walked over and stopped beside them. “Have you talked to Logan Trenton lately?”
“No, should I have?”
“He keeps his ear pretty close to the ground. He might know something. Besides, I’m not the only fellow around here who has help. You might want to question him about his hired hands, or is he too rich to get this kind of treatment?”
“I’m not going to waste my breath answering that question.”
“I guess you’ll be going to his big shindig Friday night though.”
Matt was already turning his horse around. “It’s hard to say where I might be on Friday. I guess it all depends on how long it takes me to find a murderer.”
Heather waited until they were out of Ben’s earshot before she began her questions. “Do you think Ben Wright could be the boss my attackers were talking about?”
“It’s hard to say.” He brought his horse alongside hers. “I’ll find whoever’s responsible, Heather. I just wish that was my biggest worry right now.”
His answer surprised her. She studied his profile, straight in the saddle, his dark hair poking from beneath his hat. His skin was bronzed from the sun, his angles hard, his muscles taut.
He was a man of many facets. Last night when he’d tended her wounds, she’d glimpsed a hint of tenderness. Today, when they’d found Ariana’s body, she’d felt his fury. And now she sensed something deep inside him that drove him, something that reached beyond his macho sense of duty to the badge he wore.
“What else are you worried about?” she asked.
He faced her, his gaze penetrating. “You,” he said. “I’m worried about keeping you safe.”
“I’m staying with you at your ranch. Surely I’ll be safe there. Who in their right mind would touch a woman sleeping under the roof of a Texas Ranger?”
“That’s the other thing I’m worried about.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m worried how in the hell I’m going to stay in my right mind with you sleeping under my roof.”
She didn’t have time to answer before he broke into a faster speed and put a few yards between them.
HEATHER PACED THE FLOOR of Matt’s ranch house, from the dining room to the kitchen and back to the bedroom. Matt had left her at the ranch while he drove to the autopsy site, and there was nothing she hated worse than being shut out of things.
He hadn’t left her alone. She was a prisoner, well treated, but a prisoner all the same. Her assigned guard was Tommy Joe, one of Gabby’s overzealous deputies who took his duties very seriously. For the first hour he’d dogged her every footstep, following her from one room to the next.
Finally she’d convinced him that in a house this small, he would hear her if she so much as whimpered, let alone called out. Now he was in the living room, reading an outdated copy of Texas Monthly.
She checked to make sure he hadn’t shot himself with the gun he kept fingering and then went to the kitchen for a glass of the lemonade she’d made earlier. The sun was resting on the horizon, but the heat of the day lingered, defeating the efforts of Matt’s window cooling unit.
Glass in hand, she shoved through the screen door, reassuring Tommy Joe that she would go no farther than the porch swing. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate Matt’s concern about her safety. She did. She only wished she was doing more than waiting around while he did the leg work.
She’d had such high hopes for this vacation. She’d managed to save up so that she had three weeks off, but if something didn’t break soon, she’d have to go back to work knowing no more than she had when she’d left Atlanta. As it was, the pile of work waiting for her return was probably already a small mountain. Still, she’d take every day she had coming to her. This was too important not to give it her best shot. After a lifetime of wondering, this was the first time she’d had both the time and the resources to actively search for her birth mother. She had so many questions. There were lots of valid reasons for a woman to give her baby away. And no matter what Kathy’s reasons were, Heather didn’t blame her.
It was just that she’d always wondered about her birth mother, wondered who she was, why she’d had to give up her baby. Heather couldn’t explain it in any way that didn’t sound hokey. She only knew that she felt a need to connect with the unknown part of her past, knew that she wouldn’t be complete until she did.
Lost in thought, she didn’t hear the truck approaching until the door slammed shut and Matt climbed out. Tommy Joe bounded out the front door and down the steps, probably eager to tell Matt what a lousy prisoner she’d been.
The two of them talked for a minute, but even straining, she couldn’t make out the gist of the conversation. A few minutes later, the deputy waved to her and climbed into his own truck. He was probably as glad to be rid of her as she was him. He’d clearly wanted a clinging virgin to watch over.
She was neither.
The sun sank a little lower in the sky, painting streaks of orange across the paling blue as Matt stamped up the steps and onto the porch. Shadows fell across his face, but they didn’t hide the worry that was etched into every line. Still he managed a forced smile as he caught sight of her. “Got any more of that stuff?” he asked, eyeing her lemonade glass.
“Half a pitcher, unless my bodyguard finished it off.” She jumped to her feet. “Would you like for me to get you some?”
“I’d love a glass, but only if you’ll come back and sit beside me in the swing while I drink it.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back. I want to hear everything you’ve learned since you deserted me here today.”
“Be glad that I left you behind. An autopsy is not something you want to experience firsthand unless you have to. And the only other thing you missed was another talk with Rube. Gabby had him into his office for questioning.”
“I thought this was going to be your case.”
“It is. As of...” He pushed his shirtsleeve up and glanced at his watch. “As of forty-five minutes ago. But Gabby will still be involved. In most cases, we Rangers only assist the locals.”
“Did you get anything new from Rube?”
“Only that he’d seen a strange car in town yesterday, a blue Camaro, late model, with some guy behind the wheel he hadn’t seen around Dry Creek before. The car had New Mexico plates.”
Matt dropped into the swing, hooking his hands behind his neck. A lump caught in Heather’s throat. The seductive, tempting cowboy she’d met at the café last night had disappeared, replaced by a man who showed distinct signs of overwork and stress.
She left him there and went for the lemonade. When she returned, his eyes were closed and his head was slumped forward. She hesitated by the swing, hating to wake him. Finally, a horse neighed in the distance, and he opened his eyes.
Stopping the sway of the swing with his foot, he reached for her hand and pulled her down beside him. “Thanks,” he said, taking the lemonade. His fingers lingered against hers a little longer than necessary.
The unexpected caress touched her, comforting but at the same time unsettling. She’d only known Matt twenty-four hours, and yet she was living in his house, bringing him lemonade at the close of a long and frustrating day, sitting beside him in a creaky porch swing.
The tug to her heart now was even more frightening than the attraction that smoldered between them, heating every look, every touch. It had to be the dramatic situation they’d been hurled into. If she read anything else into their relatio
nship, she’d be fooling herself and making it more difficult for them to work together.
She waited until Matt had downed half the lemonade and the muscles in his arms and neck had started to relax before asking her first question. “Did the autopsy show anything unusual?”
He stared into the gathering dusk. “Nothing we didn’t expect to find. Ariana was shot at close range, and it was definitely not suicide. The bullet was from a .44 Magnum. Rube says he doesn’t own a gun like that. There were no contusions or scratches to the body except those from the bullet wound.”
“So she didn’t struggle with the killer.”
“Exactly. Which means it could have been someone she knew or that she was taken by surprise. We’re not even sure why she was in your room. She didn’t have her cleaning supplies with her.”
“Maybe she heard someone in the room and went to check it out.”
“Possibly, but at some point and for some unknown reason, she decided to try on your clothes.”
“Could it be that she just wanted to see how she’d look in a nice suit? Women frequently try on clothes for fun when they’re shopping.”
“Yeah,” Matt stretched his long legs in front of him. “Or maybe someone else decided he’d like to see how she looked in your clothes.”
Heather tried to imagine the scene. Ariana in the musty motel room with a man, a stranger or maybe a lover. Ariana slipping out of her own cotton skirt and faded work shirt and perusing the choices, choosing a silky cream blouse and a blue linen suit. The man waiting until she was fully dressed and probably preening before the mirror. Then he’d put a bullet into her heart and had stolen her life away.
Or maybe Ariana hadn’t been preening at all. She could have been shivering with fear. The images clawed inside Heather. She took a deep breath and forced these thoughts away. She needed facts and reason.
“Was anyone close enough that they could have heard Ariana if she’d called for help?” Heather pulled a foot into the swing and tucked it under her leg.