accidents happen, even to the most skilled riders. You should know that. All it takes is a moment of inattention, a snake on the path, anything can make a horse rear and throw a rider.” He raked a hand through his shaggy dark hair and she knew she was losing him.
“But we aren’t talking about some greenhorn, Zack. We’re talking about my father.” She turned around to stare out the window at the dark, angry clouds, despair eating at her.
“Something bad is happening at my ranch, Zack,” she continued. “And it started before my father’s death.”
“What do you mean?”
She turned back to face him and again felt the jolt of his physical presence. Damn, she’d hoped that four years of college and an additional year of wisdom and growth and life experiences would somehow kill the intense physical attraction she’d always felt for him.
If she lived to be a hundred, she’d never understand the contradiction of disliking him and being physically attracted to him. Even when she’d been young, the eight-years-older Zack West had excited her in ways she hadn’t understood.
When she’d heard he was back in town a month before, she’d steeled herself for a visit, but he hadn’t come around. She’d been relieved and yet oddly disappointed by his absence.
Then, at her father’s funeral, she’d looked for him, appalled by the fact that he hadn’t been there. But she tamped down the simmering resentment about that and instead focused on what she needed to tell him.
“A month ago Dad was going up to the hayloft in the barn and he fell through one of the rungs of the ladder. If he hadn’t managed to grab on to the step above, he would have fallen to the floor. We discovered that it looked like the rung had been partially sawed through.”
Zack frowned, the gesture pulling together his thick dark eyebrows. “Have you talked to Jim Ramsey about these things?”
Kate sighed as she thought of the sheriff of Cotter Creek. “I spoke to him a week after dad’s death. He seemed to think I was making mountains out of molehills, that I needed to go home and grieve and stop looking for boogey men at the ranch.”
At the look on Zack’s face, she wanted to cry. She saw his disbelief and knew that he was probably thinking the same thing as Sheriff Ramsey had, that her grief was making her somehow delusional.
“Look, Katie…”
“It’s Kate,” she corrected, and saw his jaw clench. “I outgrew Katie when I stopped wearing pigtails.”
“Kate, just answer me one question.” He gazed at her intently. “Why on earth would anyone want to kill your father? Everyone liked Gray. He didn’t have any enemies in the world.”
“If I knew why somebody wanted him dead, then maybe I’d know who is doing these things.” She moved over to one of the orange chairs and lowered herself into it. She noticed he hadn’t asked why anyone would want to kill her.
He probably thought she deserved whatever came her way. Certainly he’d never hidden his dislike for her. “Look, I know we haven’t exactly had a stellar relationship in the past, but I need you to come work at the ranch and to find out what’s going on. Don’t do this for me. Do it for Dad. He loved you like a son.”
Funny, after all this time the thought of Gray’s love and adoration for Zack still had the capacity to wrankle her heart just a little bit. But she didn’t have time to examine old baggage and resentments. As much as she hated it, she needed Zack.
“Katie—Kate,” he corrected himself. “I already explained to you, I don’t work for Wild West Protective Services anymore. I quit a month ago.” He set his hat back on his head and she couldn’t believe he was going to walk out on her.
She struggled to her feet, cursing the ankle that forced her to move across the floor on crutches as he started for the door. “I guess my father was one poor judge of character,” she said to Zack’s back.
He slowly turned to face her, his eyes flat and emotionless. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”
As the events of the afternoon replayed in her mind, it wasn’t just anger that built inside her, but also fear. “Dad believed you hung the moon and stars. He thought you were a man of honor and he’d turn over in his grave if he knew you were turning your back on him.”
He stood frozen, his features utterly devoid of emotion. In the long pause of silence, her anger outweighed her fear. “Get out,” she exclaimed, overwhelmed by so many emotions she thought she might explode. “I must have been out of my mind to call you in the first place. Just get out, get out of my sight.”
He didn’t wait for her to tell him again. He turned on his heels and left the waiting room. Kate walked back to the window and looked out with regret.
If only she could call back the last three minutes of their conversation. Whenever she was stressed or feeling powerless, she had a tendency to respond with anger. It was a curse and a habit she’d worked hard to change, but ten minutes with Zack and she’d reverted to old form.
She watched until he pulled out of the lot and out of her sight. It was only then that an unexpected sob rose up in her throat. She swallowed hard against it.
Other than tears spent upon her father’s death, it had been years since she’d cried. In fact, the last time she remembered crying had also been the last time she’d seen Zack. Of course, she’d been a headstrong almost-eighteen-year-old at the time and he’d been the very bane of her existence.
She had promised herself a long time ago that she would never again cry over Zack West. She angrily wiped at her eyes as she limped out of the hospital and toward her truck.
The storm was passing, without a drop of rain having fallen. Early June and already they were suffering a drought. But the weather conditions were the last thing on her mind as she left the hospital behind and headed back toward the ranch.
Instead she focused on the stampede, worrying about the damage that had been wrought by the out-of-control herd. New fencing cost money, dead cattle were a loss and, for a moment, she felt overwhelmed by the choice she’d made to take over the reins of the ranch after her father’s death.
They were supposed to have been partners, she and her father. After college, when she’d decided to return to the ranch, she’d hoped that the two of them would work side by side on the land they both loved. She’d hoped to have the time to make her father proud of her. But time had been stolen from them.
He’d been murdered.
Nothing and nobody would ever be able to convince her otherwise. And nothing and nobody would be able to make her believe that the stampede that had nearly taken her life hours before had been an accident.
Something bad was happening at her ranch and the one man she’d believed might be able to help her had walked away, leaving her alone to face whatever evil had come to stay at Bent Tree Ranch.
* * *
It was just after seven the next morning when Zack drove toward the Sampson place. Nightmares had driven him out of bed at a few minutes before five and for the last two hours he’d been sitting at his kitchen table, drinking coffee and thinking about Gray and his daughter.
The
