Cowboy Christmas Rescue: Rescuing the Witness / Rescuing the Bride

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“Brady—”

“Do you even have the strength to ride? You could barely stand a few minutes ago.”

“I’ve had time to rest, and I’ve warmed up a little bit.” She paused, considering the reality of his question. “If you help me get on her, I can ride her back to the ranch. It’s not that far.”

“Kara, we need to—”

“I can do it, Brady! I need to make this right. It’s my fault...” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “Please, just take me to her.”

He turned his gaze back to the mare and huffed a sigh. “All right. But I’m following you back to the ranch. As soon as we can turn her over to one of the Wheelers’ hands, you’re coming with me to the station to make a statement and give a description of the shooter.”

Brady turned the ATV and headed toward the horse. Once they’d untied the restless mare’s reins, Kara positioned herself beside the horse, one hand on the saddle horn. “Can I get a boost?”

Brady moved up behind her, stooping to lift her as she swung onto the saddle. Tired though she was, having his hands splayed on her, his intimate grip on her thighs and bottom, sent a prickle of lust to her core. Her leg muscles quivered as she mounted the mare, and not entirely because of fatigue and cold.

He frowned at her exposed legs and rubbed his palms briskly over her red, chapped skin. “Damn, Kara. Look at you! What happened to the rest of your dress? I could’ve sworn it was longer.”

“I made alterations before I swam over to get you. I didn’t want my legs getting tangled up in all that extra material.”

His face darkened, and he opened his mouth as if to comment on her alterations or her rescue but snapped his mouth closed. Instead he said, “I’ll be right behind you if you change your mind.”

With a nod, she snapped the reins and set off, guiding the mare back toward the Wheeler Ranch. She focused on the bright red barn with its Texas flag. The barn’s roof had been trimmed with white Christmas lights that glowed like a beacon in the gloomy weather.

But as she rode nearer the barn, a chest-constricting dread swamped her. Had they found the shooter? Would the man be lying in wait for her? She inhaled a shallow breath trying to calm the skittering of nerves. Brady said he’d left his deputies in charge of securing the scene. Even if the sniper hadn’t been caught, the man would have to be crazy to stick around the crime scene. Surely the shooter was long gone. Though that made her feel better about returning to the Wheeler Ranch, a suspect in the wind was bad for Brady as sheriff...and the community. A sniper loose in Rusted Spur? Her gut roiled. She hated the idea of Brady leading the search for a killer.

And as Brady’s only eyewitness, she would be his best shot at identifying the man.

She gripped the reins tighter and whispered a prayer. “Please, let the man be in custody already. Please, let this be over!”

Chapter 5 (#ulink_d820f708-bf9d-50b8-8184-b57fd7d3217e)

“No dice, boss. We’ve questioned everyone that was at the wedding. No one saw anybody suspicious, and after the shots were fired, everyone was just trying to get to safety,” Wilhite said.

Brady muttered an expletive and shifted the cell phone he’d borrowed from a ranch hand from one ear to the other. “Casualties?”

“One. George Wheeler was hit and got airlifted to the trauma center in Lubbock. Nate and April have driven to over to be with him.” Brady recalled the garbled call he’d made to Nate earlier.

While he was relieved to hear April was all right, he hated knowing that George Wheeler’s condition was grave enough to need an airlift to a trauma center. “So April and Nate have gone to the hospital?”

Hearing half the conversation, Kara gasped and whirled toward him. “What? Were they shot? Is it April’s baby? What—”

He held up a hand and gave a quick head shake to calm her while Wilhite said, “A few other folks had minor injuries as they scurried for cover.”

Kara continued to stare anxiously, waiting for answers.

“And you have no leads yet on who the shooter was or where he is?” Having turned the mare over to the hands and given them directions where to find Rooster, Brady placed a hand at the small of Kara’s back to escort her out of the Wheelers’ stable. They each had a blanket draped around their shoulders, but horse blankets were a poor substitute for dry clothes and a hot meal. Food and a shower would have to wait until he’d found the shooter.

“We’re working a few leads,” Wilhite said. “I’ll fill you in when you get here.”

“I’m on my way. Meantime, tell area agencies to be on the lookout for a white male in his forties, about five foot ten, military haircut, brown eyes, dark hair, wide flat nose and a mole or birthmark...” He sent Kara a querying glance, and she tapped her right cheekbone. “Under his right eye.”

Wilhite read the description back to him for confirmation.

“Oh, and I need you to send someone to Kara Pearson’s house. Make sure nothing’s out of order there. Have the officer bring dry clothes for her. The key is under the flowerpot at the end of her porch.” He heard Wilhite grunt in disapproval and arched an eyebrow at Kara when she scowled at him. “And, yes, I’ve told her such a clichéd hiding place is asking to be robbed, but she contends Rusted Spur is a safe town, and she needs a hidden key for emergencies.”

“I have a better idea. Take me home to change before we go to the sheriff’s department,” Kara said. “Besides getting dry clothes, I have to feed Jerry.”

He arched an eyebrow in query.

“My new cat. A rescue.”

Of course. Kara and her animals...

He held up a hand to quiet her as he continued instructing Wilhite. “I also need a replacement phone. Mine is somewhere in a washed-out arroyo a few miles from the Wheeler Ranch. The department should have one I can use until I can get a personal replacement.”

Exiting the main alley of the stable, Kara stopped walking and crossed her arms over her chest as she glared at him.

Ignoring her pout, he finished his business with Wilhite, adding, “And have the officer that goes to Kara’s check on her cat.” He shot her a look that asked, Satisfied? “We should be there in five minutes. Get an artist in ASAP. I want Kara to help us create a composite of the shooter when we get there.” He handed the borrowed phone back to the hand, who’d followed them to the stable door, and met Kara’s gaze. “What’s that look for?”

“I can’t even go home for a hot shower and change of clothes?”

“Not when we have a violent criminal in the area. Finding the sniper trumps everything else, including our personal comfort. Time is of the essence in locating this guy, and he already has a four-hour lead on us.” He paused and looked her up and down with a dent in his brow. “Unless you need to see a doctor. Do you have any injuries you haven’t mentioned? Any lasting effects from our dunk in the water or the cold?”

She shook her head. “I’m okay now. A warm building, hot coffee and dry clothes are all I need.” When he gave her a skeptical look, she added with a sassy grin, “You can trust me on this. After all, I work for a doctor.”

“A doctor for horses and cows.”

“Close enough.”

“In that case, we’re going to the station.” He took her by the arm, tugging her forward as he marched across the muddy ranch yard toward his F-250.

She jerked her arm from his grasp. “And who died and made you the boss of me?”

Brady faced her, his jaw tight and his hands balled at his sides. “I’m the boss of you, because I’m the sheriff of this town, and you are my key witness to a felony crime. Do I need to take you into custody or are you going to come willingly?”

Kara snorted and shook her head. “Of course, you don’t care what I want. Your job is all that matters. It was ten months ago, and it is now.”

Needles of irritation prodded him. “What are you talking about? I care about what you want.”

“Unless it conflicts with what you want. Namely, your position as sheriff. Right?”

Brady goggled at her. “Really? For months I’ve been trying to talk to you about us and what you want, and you’ve avoided me. But now—when there’s a sniper to track down, when we are both freezing cold, hungry and exhausted—now you want to argue about your issues with my job?”

“My issues?” she hissed. “You make it sound like it’s all my fault! That I’m being a whining prima donna or something!”

“I didn’t say—” Brady cut himself off as a biting gust of wind cut through his wet clothes and sent a chill to his core. He sucked in a deep, calming breath. “Look, I want to have this conversation. Really, I do. But not now. Right now, we need to get to the sheriff’s department and do all we can to catch the guy that shot at our friends and put Nate’s father in the hospital.”

Contrition and grief washed over her face, and her shoulders sagged.

“So are you coming willingly, or do I have to take you into custody?”

Holding her blanket closed with one hand, Kara blew warm breath on her free hand and sent him a disgruntled look. “I’m coming.” As she strode past him, she grumbled quietly, “Your Majesty.”

* * *

Gray dusky light filled the sky as they pulled into the sheriff’s department parking lot, and Kara experienced an unsettling sense of déjà vu. She’d arrived at the sheriff’s department about this same time of evening on the day her father drowned, and she’d been forced to give her account of what happened for the official report. The small beige brick building that housed the sheriff’s department hadn’t changed much in the sixteen years since her father’s death. Nor had the sense of dread and grief knotting her gut. Being back here revived all her memories and emotions from that day, as if the intervening years had never happened.

Only the man sitting beside her was different. Yet having nearly lost Brady today in the same manner in which she’d lost her father added another layer to the eerie and upsetting familiarity of her return to the utilitarian one-story building and cracked pavement parking lot.

Brady grabbed his gym bag from the back seat, then escorted her inside. He held the front door for her and signaled to the first deputy he saw. “Anderson, we need two large cups of hot coffee ASAP and bring Kara whatever she wants to eat.”

His side glance asked her to fill in that blank.

“Uh, just a hamburger is fine.”

Returning his attention to the deputy, he said, “Make it two...no, three burgers from Tumbleweeds. No onions, extra mustard and sweet potato fries.”

Kara blinked her surprise as Brady reeled off her usual customized order. Remembering how she liked her hamburger wasn’t a difficult thing, yet she was moved by his thoughtfulness all the same.

An older woman with her gray hair in a bun walked into the reception area from a back room. “Afternoon, sheriff. Heard you had a rough time today.” She handed him a cell phone. “You asked for a new phone?”

“Yes. Thank you, Earlene.” He took the phone and swiped the screen. The battery needed charging, but it was functional.

“You got lucky. The week before Christmas, this was the last one on the shelf at E-Mart.”

Earlene turned to Kara and smiled. “Hi, Kara, dear. Are you all right, honey?”

“I’ll live.”

Earlene had worked in the department when Kara’s father had been a deputy, and as the wife to a rancher, the older woman was a frequent customer at the large animal veterinary clinic where Kara was an assistant.

Brady waggled the new phone. “Make sure everyone in the department has this new number.” He gave the older woman a wink of appreciation as he ushered Kara down the hall to an interrogation room, and she took a seat at the small scarred table. “I’m going to change and see if Wilhite’s found you dry clothes. I’ll be right back.”

Before he left, he turned up the thermostat, and she grinned, remembering her father telling her how he used to hike up the temperature in the interrogation room to make suspects sweat—literally. Just being inside, out of the cold, damp air, was blissful, and she salivated, thinking about the coffee and burger on the way.