by Joanna Wayne
Heather wrapped her arms about her chest, suddenly chilled.
“I hate thinking Gabby could be responsible for all that’s happened in the last few days, Matt.”
“I don’t think he is. But I have to consider that he might be in on it, either as an innocent pawn or a player. He’s the only person I told we’d be on this road tonight.”
“Pamela Jessup, Kathy Warren, Billy Roy Lassiter, Paul Ridgely and now Gabby.” She pushed dripping strands of hair from her face. “Will it ever end?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s going to end, and damn soon. And before this case is closed, more than one person is going to take up residence behind bars.”
“We can’t solve it out here.” She shivered again as a gust of wind whipped at her wet hair and clothes. “So, Ranger McQuaid, how do we get back to civilization?”
“My lines of communication all went down with the truck, and I don’t think we could yell louder than the music from the party even if we weren’t waterlogged.” His arm circled about her shoulders. “That leaves only one option. We walk.”
Her head flew up. “In wet boots? Through thick brush inhabited by rattlesnakes and coyotes? In my soaking skirt and ridiculously thin wet blouse?” She groaned.
“A piece of cake,” he promised, standing and tugging her to her shaky legs.
“You saved me for this. And I actually thanked you!”
“You can always count on a Texas Ranger.”
THE DAYBREAK PARTY at the collapsed bridge was anything but festive. A tow-truck team worked at hauling Matt’s truck from the creek. Logan, Gabby, and Matt watched, circling each other like a pack of wild dogs.
Heather stood in the background, the memory of last night’s dive into the creek and the game of dodge the bullets destroying any objectivity she might have otherwise mustered.
“You had no call to go snooping around my land, Matt McQuaid. You slink around like a skunk in the night and then have the nerve to accuse me of destroying my own damn bridge and having you ambushed.” Logan stuck his nose in the sheriff’s face, including him in his angry tirade. “You, too, Gabby. I know you started this, messing around where you have no business. I’ll have you both investigated for improper procedures.”
Matt stepped between Logan and Gabby. “You do what you like, Logan, but unless you come up with a fast explanation for why a section of this bridge was cut, and some ties removed, you’ll be filing your complaints from a jail cell.”
“I told you, I had no idea the bridge had been vandalized.” Logan waved his arms in frustration. “Hell, my own daughter travels this road sometimes. And I sure have no reason to hire gunmen.”
“Your stepdaughter.” Matt’s eyes took on a frightening sheen, cold as death. “Someone around here attempted to murder Heather and me last night, and I know you well enough to know that nothing goes on around this ranch without you knowing about it.”
Logan’s hands knotted into fists, and his chin jutted defiantly. His accusing glare moved from Matt to Heather. “If you want to find the real roots of all the problems we’ve been having around here, Ranger, I suggest you let your brain—not some other part of your body—do your thinking.”
“Say what you mean, Logan. Forget the sarcasm. A man in the position you’re in now shouldn’t waste energy.”
“I’m saying you need to look a little closer to home. We didn’t have any problems in this town until Heather Lombardi showed up, prancing around in her short skirts, asking questions, pretending to be looking for her mother.”
“I wasn’t pretending, Logan. And I didn’t ask for trouble. It came looking for me.” Heather jumped into the fray.
“All I know is you drove into town, and trouble rode in right behind you. You made your moves on the Ranger, and he got sucked right in. You turned him against all of us.”
At that, Matt’s face twisted into hard lines. “You’ve said enough, Logan.”
“No, not nearly enough. If you weren’t such a brown-nosing coward, Gabby, you’d tell Matt yourself.”
“Tell me what?”
“That the whole town’s talking about how you’re just like your old man. The minute Susan Hathaway dropped into his life, he forgot the law he lived by, forgot his friends, forgot everything except protecting some skirt passing through town.”
Gabby stepped backward. “You’re about to say too much, Logan.”
“No, just what needs to be said. Jake McQuaid took up with some tramp and forgot who put him where he was. He turned against the honest citizens of Dry Creek, the same way Matt is doing.”
Tramp. The word stuck in Matt’s gut, and every muscle in his body knotted. He lunged for Logan, pinning him against the trunk of the only tree in the area.
“You say what you want about me, Logan. You say what you want about my dad. We can take it, might even deserve it. But if I ever hear you say another word about Susan or Heather, your face will be mincemeat. Do you understand?”
“Yeah. I understand everything. I understand it all too well.”
Logan met Matt’s gaze, and Heather trembled at the rage that passed between them. She knew the fight was far from over. It would be continued some place, some time, and the results might be deadly.
Logan wiped sweaty hands on his jeans. “You better have a damn good case if you have me arrested, McQuaid. My lawyers will walk over you like...”
“Like your wife’s horse walked over her.”
“You sonofa—”
This time it was Logan who raised his fist. Gabby grabbed his arms. “That’s enough, the both of you. This ain’t how the law around here operates.”
“What does any of this have to do with my mother?”
They all spun around at the sound of Sylvia’s voice. She was mounted on a magnificent horse, the two of them rising like a centaur above a cluster of thorny cactus.
“What are you doing out here?” Logan demanded. “I told you to stay at the house.”
“I’m not a little girl, Logan. You can’t order me around any longer, especially not here. In three years, half the ranch will belong to me.”
“Fine, then you stay out here with these sorry excuses for lawmen. I’m going back to work, and I’d suggest the sheriff and the Ranger do the same. One person has been killed in Dry Creek in the last week, and one stabbed nearly to death. Shots were fired again last night. And the best they can come up with is some damn fool notion that I’m involved in this.”
Matt pulled his hat low. “Oh, it’s more than a notion, Logan.”
Logan headed toward his horse. “If you have evidence against me, spit it out now, Matt, like a man.”
“I’ll spit it out when the time comes. Like a lawman.”
Logan climbed on his horse and turned it around, leaving at a fast gallop and not looking back.
“I’m sorry you had to hear any of this, Sylvia.” Matt walked toward his friend.
She threw her head back, as a gust of wind caught her long black hair and flung it across her face. “What were you saying about my mother?”
Heather saw the defeated shrug of Matt’s shoulders. He put a hand to Sylvia’s horse, running his fingers through the flowing mane. “I have reason to suspect your mother’s death may not have been an accident. I’m sorry. I know it’s going to be hard on you, but I have to reopen the case.”
“If you know something, Matt, tell me. I have a right to know.”
“I can’t say anything yet.”
“Because you’re a lawman.”
She spit the word at him, and Heather saw him wince. But he held his head high.
“Because I’m a lawman, and because I’m your friend.”
“I can tell which carries the most weight.” Sylvia turned her horse and galloped away, but not before Heather saw the glint of tears in her eyes.
The weight of the world appeared to settle on Matt’s shoulders. He pulled his hat low over his forehead. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve got work to do.”
He yanked
open the passenger-side door of the truck he’d borrowed from John Billinger. Heather touched her hand to his shoulder. “You did what you had to, Matt.”
“Thanks. I’m glad somebody believes that.”
“You wouldn’t be a good Ranger if you didn’t do what has to be done. You know that.”
He took her hand and squeezed it. “Most of the time I know it, but it’s a damn hard job when you have to hurt your friends.”
“When it’s all over, Sylvia will understand and be thankful to know the truth.”
“Maybe, but what about the rest of the town? How will they react when I hang all their dirty laundry up for public inspection? And will my own family be thankful if I have to drag the name of Jake McQuaid through the dirt in order to find justice?”
“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”
“Hope isn’t in my job description.” He jerked the truck into gear and revved the engine. In minutes they were heading back into town.
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON before Matt finished up his business in town and he and Heather started back to the ranch. Nothing was settled yet, but they were miles ahead of where they’d been yesterday. The paperwork was in process.
By tomorrow they’d have the insurance records on the death of Logan’s wife, and legal permission to dig up her grave. If the body was there, an autopsy would be conducted to see if evidence indicated the death might not have been an accident. If the body was missing, that in itself still implicated Logan.
Not only that, but Paul Ridgely had regained consciousness for a few minutes and spoken for the first time since the stabbing. By tomorrow, the doctors had said he might be coherent enough for Matt to ask him a few questions.
Heather adjusted her visor, warding off the blinding glare of the sun. Watching her, Matt felt a crazy urge to stop the truck and take her in his arms, and realized how drastically the focus of his life had changed in the last few days.
He’d driven down this same road eight days ago, needing nothing but time alone at his ranch to satisfy his every need. It would never be that way again.
Now days at the ranch would be colored by the memory of Heather sitting at his breakfast table, her hair rumpled from sleep, her face bruised and battered and still so tempting. He’d see her in the swing, sipping lemonade, her lips wet and pink.
But the nights would be the worst. He’d be forever haunted by the moments they’d spent making love. He’d feel her beneath him, smell her fragrance, all flowery and intoxicating. He’d taste her lips and long to run his fingers across her velvety skin.
Damn. How had he let this happen? Even if she wanted to, he couldn’t ask her to stay. His dad’s blood ran too pure in his veins. The art of small talk, of cuddling, of making a woman feel loved and wanted, was as foreign to his makeup as branding cattle was to Heather’s. He’d never be able to satisfy her, not over the long haul.
Or was he just unwilling to give it a try, because he was too afraid of failing?
Surprising himself, he made a sharp left turn, swerving onto a dirt road he hadn’t been down in years. So much of the past had crashed down around him the last few days, a side trip to the scene of it couldn’t make things any worse.
“Where are we going?”
He reached across the seat and took Heather’s hand, tangling his fingers with hers. “To the old home place, the house where we lived before Jake pulled up stakes and moved us to Colorado.”
“I’m glad. I’d like to see it.”
“It’s not much to look at—crumbling walls, broken windows, a leaky roof.”
“Does the property still belong to your dad?”
“No, he sold it to Logan Trenton for less than it was worth, but I guess he was anxious to put Dry Creek behind him.”
“I wouldn’t put much stock in what Logan said about your father. Everything I’ve heard since I’ve been in this town indicates that the people thought your father was a saint.”
“Yeah, most of them did.”
“Give your dad a chance, Matt. He deserves that much from you.” She slid closer as he pulled into an overgrown dirt drive and stopped in front of a dilapidated old house.
Matt opened the door and climbed out. She followed him, jumping from the truck to the hard ground. “Is this where you found Susan, out by this old drive?”
“No, it was down the fence line, close to that lean-to that’s half gone.” He pointed to what looked like a pile of boards a quarter of a mile down the road. “The grass was high then, the way it is now. She’d been thrown out of a car and somehow managed to roll under the fence and into that cluster of mesquite and hackberry, just west of the lean-to.”
“Why don’t we walk down there before we go inside? I could use the exercise.”
“If you want. There’s nothing there to see.”
They walked in companionable silence for a few minutes. Heather was mulling over the events of the last several days. “I don’t understand about Logan,” she said al last, turning to Matt. “If his wife owned such a big ranch, why was he a deputy under your father? Why did he want your dad’s job of sheriff when Jake left for Colorado?”
“Talk is Logan’s wife didn’t give him much say in running the ranch while she was alive. He gave up the job of sheriff a few months after she died,” Matt explained.
“But not so soon that he couldn’t squelch an investigation into her death.”
“Exactly, and from the time the new sheriff took over, there are no missing records.”
Heather shivered. “Death, murders, cover-ups. Even the possibility of Logan killing his own wife. I pray we find out that’s not true.”
“Me too, for Sylvia’s sake. But men have killed for far less than a ranch the size of Trenton’s place, not to mention the enormous cash inheritance that provided the power he so enjoys.”
“Let’s go back, Matt. I’ve seen enough out here, and I’d like to see the inside of the house before it’s totally dark.”
Quietly, hand in hand, they retraced their steps. Heather had never felt closer to the rugged Ranger at her side. She wasn’t sure why, except that he had once run this land as a boy, played chase with his brothers around this brush. She could almost see him now, a smaller, less assured image of the man beside her.
He was opening up to her more and more. The trip here today was proof of that. For most men, taking a woman to see the home they grew up in might not mean so much. But Heather knew Matt well enough now to know that this was as intimate as making love, perhaps more so. He was tearing down another of his defensive walls and letting her peek inside. She knew this was a rare revelation.
“Go on inside,” he said, when they’d reached the back steps. “I’ll get a couple of soft drinks out of the cooler in the truck. I’m dryer than dust.”
Heather started to wait, then changed her mind. Darkness was setting in fast now that a few clouds had blown in. If she wanted to get any kind of feel for the house Matt was born in, she’d better get moving.
She stepped inside. The door slammed behind her. And even before she felt the barrel of the gun boring into her back, she knew she was not alone.
Chapter Fifteen
“Logan!”
“Don’t tell me you’re surprised to see me.”
Her mind struggled to accept the reality. Somehow she and Matt had stumbled into another trap. “Put the gun away. Matt’s just outside.”
“Put the gun away?” He poked the pistol harder into her flesh. “Why would I do a thing like that after I followed you all the way out here to kill you?” He grabbed her arm and twisted it painfully behind her back, shoving her against the rickety counter that housed the rusted kitchen sink.
“I didn’t see your truck.”
“You do take me for a moron, don’t you? You and that damn fool boy of Jake McQuaid’s. I knew where Matt was going the minute he turned off the main road. I came the back way, cut across my own land and left my truck parked out of sight. The better to surprise you.”
Panic skittered along Heather’s every nerve. She had to warn Matt. Her gaze roamed to the door. If she could see him coming, she could yell out to him.
Logan ran a finger across her cheek. “You’re a pretty woman, Heather. I didn’t want to hurt you. I sent you a note and warned you to get out of town, but you just wouldn’t listen.” He slid the gun from her back and nestled it against her right temple. “Now call your Ranger lover in here so I can get this over with.”
She didn’t have to. The footsteps on the back porch were heavy and quick. “Matt...”
Logan’s hand slammed across her mouth, muffling her voice. She kicked at him and bit into his fingers, but his hold never loosened. Sick and shivering with fear, she watched Matt’s face turn ashen as he walked through the back door and caught sight of the gun at her head.
“Hands out to the side, Matt. One rash move on your part and Heather Lombardi’s brains will spray the room.”
Matt did as Logan said, standing quietly while Logan reached over and yanked his gun from the holster, tossing it across the room. The sound of metal on wood echoed like thunder in Heather’s brain, her senses soaking in each sound, each movement, as if it were her last.
Matt’s eyes turned black as coal, his stance rock-steady. Only the perspiration dotting his brow hinted at the fear that had to be churning inside him.
“You won’t get away with this, Logan.”
“What makes you think that, Ranger?”
“Because too many people know what you’ve done. There’s Paul, and Gabby.”
“Paul hasn’t told you anything.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know Paul. And he knows what I’m capable of.”
“We all know you’re capable of murder.”
Logan’s grip on Heather’s arm tightened. She fought the pain, determined not to give him the satisfaction of hearing her cry out. And she wouldn’t keep quiet any longer. “You killed Billy Roy Lassiter, didn’t you, Logan?”
“Smart little woman you have here, Matt. Too bad you won’t get to enjoy her after tonight.” He twisted the barrel of the pistol into her temple. “Billy Roy got what he deserved. He was messing around with my wife, no-good tramp that she was. She’d already had Sylvia out of wedlock, and still she had to have her men.”