light. Once away from the ranch house and its lone stand of trees planted as a windbreak, the terrain looked pretty much the same. Gently rolling plains stretched for miles with not another tree in sight. With the window down to let in the cool night air, the smell of dry grass and sagebrush filled the interior of the truck. The scent brought back recollections of growing up on his father’s ranch just a county over from Briscoe.
He had to admit they weren’t all bad memories. He’d had free run of thousands of acres, and a horse he could escape on whenever he got the chance. For that reason he missed his father’s ranch. Too bad his father didn’t own it anymore.
Mona’s hand reached out and touched his sleeve. “Slow down.” She pointed to a slight rise in the prairie. “Park the truck behind that hill and turn off the lights.”
He pressed the brake, slowing the truck to a halt at the same time as he flicked the lights off. For several moments, they sat in the dark, until their eyes adjusted.
When Mona opened the door, Reed’s hand shot out. “I know you told me ranch security, but what exactly do you mean by that?”
She stared at his hand until he released her arm. “We’ve had several instances of cattle rustling in the past month. With over six thousand acres of land to manage, I can’t do it all on my own. There are too many places to be at once.” She grabbed her rifle from the gun rack behind her head and slid off the truck seat, dropping to the ground.
Reed reached for his rifle and followed suit. “Why don’t you go to the sheriff?” Not that he’d trust the sheriff to handle anything more than a speeding ticket.
“No.” No explanation, no reasons.
Mona Grainger moved up a notch in Reed’s esteem. He didn’t care for Sheriff Parker Lee. “Okay, if not the sheriff, why not the DPS?”
An unladylike snort escaped her. “Public Safety referred me to local law enforcement.” As she neared the top of the small rise, she knelt in the grass and dropped to her hands and knees, inching toward the ridgeline.
Following her lead, Reed did the same until he’d crawled up beside her in the grass. A moonless night had settled in, with a million stars lighting the heavens. On the other side of the hill, a dark ribbon of road stretched for miles, disappearing in the blackness.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Reed made out tiny red dots in the distance just as they disappeared over the horizon. Possibly the blink of brake lights on a tractor-trailer rig.
“Did you see that?” Mona asked.
“Yeah.”
“Hundred bucks says that’s a truck full of Rancho Linda cattle.” She stood and fired a shot at the retreating vehicle, not that her rifle had that kind of distance.
An answering shot echoed through the darkness.
Reed grabbed Mona and pulled her to the ground.
“Some of them are still down there. I’d like to keep my job for longer than a day, if you don’t mind.”
The sound of a small engine revving carried across the hill.
“Come on!” Mona leaped to her feet and scrambled back down the slope to the truck.
Right behind her, Reed climbed into the truck and switched it to four-wheel drive. They topped the hill doing thirty and plunged downward to the field below.
Taillights glowed red on the road over a mile away. The rustlers had a head start on them. If they had any kind of horsepower in their vehicle, they’d be gone before Reed and Mona made the highway.
“Damn.” Mona held on to the handle above the door as the truck bounced over uneven terrain, small bushes and rocks on its descent to the bottom of the hill.
Meanwhile, the taillights disappeared into the night.
Reed eased across the cut barbed-wire fence, careful not to get wire wrapped around the axles. When he pulled up onto the pavement, he turned to Mona. “Want me to follow?”
“Hell, yeah.” Mona slammed her palm against the armrest. “They can’t get away with this. Those are my cattle.”
With the lead the rustlers had, Reed didn’t think they had a chance, but he gunned the truck and flew down the road, gaining speed until the pickup traveled at over one hundred miles per hour. For the next thirty minutes, they raced over deserted highways and back roads, but the truck and tractor-trailer rig had disappeared.
When he came to a crossroad where the county road T-junctioned onto a state highway, Reed pulled to a stop and turned to his new boss. “Which way?”
Instead of looking at the highway stretching to the left or right, she stared straight ahead across an open field in front of them. The lights from the dash glinted off the moisture in her eyes. Once again, her hair had escaped the confines of the elastic band she’d worn earlier and laid across her shoulders in shiny waves of ebony.
Tempted to reach out and touch the strands, Reed gripped the steering wheel tighter. He wanted to comfort her, give her reason to hang on. Something told him she wouldn’t appreciate any sympathy from him or any other man.
She sat there, her jaw firmed, her lips thinning into a straight line. “In case you haven’t gotten the hint, this is the reason why I hired you. Tomorrow we come up with a plan to stop these thieves. Do you still want the job?”
More than ever. The challenge excited him, almost as much as his new boss. “Yes.”
“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She opened the door, climbed down from the truck and threw up in the ditch.
Chapter Three
“Just like you said, the fences were cut and there were tire tracks in the dirt by the road. Other than that, we didn’t find any other evidence.” Sheriff Parker Lee stood with his hat still firmly planted on his head, despite being indoors. A smug look barely hid beneath the surface of his painted-on concern.
Mona’s stomach burbled, the acid churning nonstop since Parker Lee stepped through her door. She swore she’d never let him set foot on her property in her lifetime. But then tough times called for compromises. “You can’t tell me you’re still clueless. That’s three hits in the past month.” Mona stopped midway across the living room to face the one man she hated more than any other. “What’s it gonna take to get you to do something about this problem?”
The sheriff stepped forward and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Now, Mona, if you’d just let me take care of you like I promised, none of this would be happening.”
Her anger turned to deep dark rage. If her eyes could shoot venom, she’d have poisoned Parker Lee with one look. “Get your hands off me.”
“Mona…” His fingers tightened on her arms until they hurt.
Mona cocked her knee, ready to plant it square in his groin.
“The lady told you to get your hands off her.” Reed pushed through the screen door and entered the room. He stood with his feet braced apart, his cowboy hat in one hand.
“Bryson.”
