help!”
As she neared the huge house, a shadow detached itself from the porch and ran toward her.
On her last leg, her strength giving out, Jacie flung herself into the man’s arms. “Please help me.”
Chapter Two
Zach staggered back, the force with which the woman with the long brown ponytail hit him knocking him back several steps before he could get his balance. He wrapped his arm around her automatically, steadying her as her knees buckled and she slipped toward the floor.
“Please help me,” she sobbed.
“What’s wrong?” He scooped her into his arms and carried her through the open French doors into his bedroom and laid her on the bed.
Boots clattered on the wooden slats of the porch and more came running down the hallway. Two of Hank’s security guards burst into Zach’s room through the French doors at the same time Hank entered from the hallway.
The security guards stood with guns drawn, their black-clad bodies looking more like ninjas than billionaire bodyguards.
“It’s okay, I have everything under control,” Zach said. Though he doubted seriously he had anything under control. He had no idea who this woman was or what she’d meant by help me.
Hank burst through the bedroom door, his face drawn in tense lines. “What’s going on? I heard the sound of an engine outside and shouting coming from this side of the house.” He glanced at Zach’s bed and the woman stirring against the comforter. “What do we have here?”
She pushed to a sitting position and blinked up at Zach. “Where am I?”
“You’re on the Raging Bull Ranch.”
“Oh, dear God.” She pushed to the edge of the bed and tried to stand. “I have to get back. They have her. Oh, sweet Jesus, they have Tracie.”
Zach slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him to keep her from falling flat on her face again. “Where do you have to get back to? And who’s Tracie?”
“Tracie’s my twin. We were leading a hunting party on the Big Elk. They shot, she fell, now they have her.” The woman grabbed Zach’s shirt with both fists. “You have to help her.”
“You’re not making sense. Slow down, take a deep breath and start over.”
“We don’t have time!” The woman pushed away from Zach and raced for the French doors. “We have to get back before they kill her.” She stumbled over a throw rug and hit the hardwood floor on her knees. “I shouldn’t have left her.” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
Zach stared at the woman, a flash of memory anchoring his feet to the floor. He remembered his partner, Antoinette Gutierrez—Toni—in a similar position, her face battered, her hair matted with her own blood, begging for her life.
The room spun around him, the air growing thick, hard to breathe.
Not until Hank ran forward and helped the woman to her feet did Zach snap out of it.
“We’ll help,” Hank promised. “Where is your sister?”
The woman looked up and blinked the tears from her eyes, her shoulders straightening. “Wild Horse Canyon.”
“Joe.” Hank addressed one of his bodyguards. “Wake the foreman and tell him we need all the four-wheelers gassed up and ready to go immediately.”
Joe jammed his weapon into his shoulder holster and ran out the open French doors.
Hank turned to the other bodyguard. “Max, grab the first aid supplies from the pantry, along with one of the blankets kept in the hall closet. Meet us at the barn in two minutes.”
“A woman needs our help.” Hank turned to Zach. “Are you coming or not?”
The woman in question’s eyes narrowed as she stared from Hank to Zach. “I don’t care who comes, but we need to get there fast. If they take her hostage, the longer we wait, the harder it will be to find them.”
“Understood.”
Zach stared at the woman, his pulse pounding against his eardrums, his palms damp and clammy. “I’ll come.” The words echoed in the room, bouncing off the walls to hit him square in the gut. He’d committed to helping an unknown woman when he’d failed to help the partner he’d been with for three years.
Hank steered the woman toward Zach. “Find out what you can while I call the sheriff and let him know what’s going on.”
When Hank left the room, the woman glanced at Zach. “Are you coming or not?”
Having committed to the task at hand, Zach hooked the woman’s arm, ready to get the job over with as quickly as possible. “It would help if we knew who you are.”
“Jacie Kosart. I work on the Big Elk Ranch. It’s a three-hundred-fifty-thousand-acre spread bordering the Raging Bull and the Big Bend National Park.”
“Jacie.” He rolled the name on his tongue for a second, then dove in. “What were you doing out this late?”
“My sister and I were leading a big-game hunting party for my boss, Richard Giddings. The two men who’d commissioned us didn’t want to hunt on the normal trails the deer like to travel.” Jacie explained how they’d come to the canyon, the subsequent shootings and her escape. “We have to get back. I think they killed the two hunters. If not, they need medical help.” She gulped, tears welling again. “Tracie has to be all right. She just has to.”
“We’ll do the best we can to find her and bring her home.” Zach tried to sound confident when he felt nothing like it. If the men in the canyon had anything to do with the drug cartels, Jacie’s sister was as good as dead.
The sound of engines revving outside signaled the end of their conversation and the need to move.
Zach cupped Jacie’s elbow and led her through the French doors and out to the barn where five ATVs idled in neutral. The man Zach assumed was Hank’s foreman sat astride one of them giving the engine gas.
Hank, dressed in jeans, a denim jacket and cowboy boots, jogged down from the house flanked by his two bodyguards, each carrying an automatic assault weapon. Hank carried two, one of which he tossed to Zach. “In case we run into some trouble.”
Zach dropped his hold on the woman’s arm and caught the high-powered weapon, slipping it into the scabbard on one of the four-wheelers.
“You all right?” he asked Jacie.
She nodded. “Yeah. I just want to find my sister.”
The two bodyguards mounted a four-wheeler each and Hank took another, leaving only one left.
“The girl can ride with you. I don’t want her falling off and injuring herself. This way you can keep an eye on her and lead the way.”
Zach frowned but mounted the ATV and scooted forward
