Rancher's Redemption

She pressed a hand to her stomach, hoping to calm the buzz of bees swarming inside her. When she drew a deep breath for composure, she smelled the sunscreen he’d smeared on her nose, and a fresh ripple of nervous energy sluiced over her. A full day in the sun couldn’t have burned her more than the heat of his touch when he’d dabbed the cream on her. She had far too many memories of his callused hands working their magic on her not to be affected by even such casual contact.

Her heart contracted with longing. No one had ever held such a powerful sway over her senses as Clay had. Not one of the men she’d dated since her divorce from Clay could hold a candle to the fiery attraction she felt for her first love. Her cowboy lover. The man she’d thought she’d grow old with.

Tamara sighed. She had to focus, get a grip. Emotion had no place in crime scene investigation, and she had work to do. She stepped over to where the team photographer was clicking shots of the Taurus’s trunk. “You finished up front, Pete?”

“Yep. All yours. Do your thing.”

Tamara pulled out her notepad and circled to the front of the stolen sedan. She noted a small scrape on the side panel and called it to Pete’s attention.

“Saw it. Got it,” the photographer called back to her.

Tamara moved on. She scoured the ground, the hood, the windshield, the roof and the driver’s side before she opened the car door to case the interior with the same careful scrutiny. Any scratch, stain, dent, hair or foreign object had the potential of being the clue that cracked the case. Nothing was overlooked or dismissed.

As she collected a sample of fibers from the carpet, she heard a familiar bass voice and glanced toward the perimeter of the scene where Jericho Yates and his deputy stood observing.

Clay had joined his friend and was watching her work with a keen, unnerving gaze. Tamara’s pulse scrambled, and she jerked her attention back to the carpet fibers. Sheriff Yates made another quiet comment, and Clay answered, his deep timbre as smooth and rich as dark chocolate. Tamara remembered the sound of Clay’s low voice stroking her as he murmured sexy promises while they made love. Just the silky bass thrum could turn her insides to mush.

Her hand shook as she bagged the fibers and moved on to pluck an auburn hair from the passenger’s seat. She huffed her frustration with herself. She had to regain control, forget Clay was watching her and get back to business. She closed her eyes and steeled her nerves, steadying her hands and forcing thoughts of Clay from her mind.

“What you got?” said Eric Forsyth, her superior in the CSI lab, as he bent at the waist to peer through the open driver’s door.

Tamara bagged the hair and labeled it. “Not much. I’ve never seen such a clean car. It’s odd.”

Eric shrugged. “Not surprising. It’s a rental car. A company typically washes and vacuums the cars after every customer.”

“That’s not what I mean. I’m not finding fingerprints or stray threads. No footprints or tire tracks around the car. Not much of anything.”

Eric scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “What’s more, anything we do find is gonna be hard to pin to whatever happened here. God knows how many people have been in this car in the past month.” He motioned to the bag in her hand. “That hair could belong to a schoolteacher from Dallas who rented the car two weeks ago.”

Tamara sighed. “Exactly why it doesn’t feel right. Even with the rental agency’s regular maintenance, we should be finding at least traces of evidence. I think someone wiped the scene.”

“You’re sure?” Her boss adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses.

“The evidence—or lack of evidence—seems to point that way.” She frowned. “Which tells me something bad happened here. Something someone doesn’t want anyone to know about.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time. Well, keep looking. Maybe whoever wiped the scene missed something.”

Tamara nodded. “Got it.”

Clay tensed as the lanky man with glasses who’d been speaking with Tamara walked up to Jericho and shrugged. “My team isn’t getting much for you to build a case on, Sheriff. In fact, our professional opinion is the scene has been wiped clean.”

Jericho furrowed his brow and stroked his mustache. “Nothing?”

Clay turned his attention back to Tamara as he listened to the exchange between the crime scene investigator and the sheriff.

“Well, we found a partial print on the trunk. A hair on the front seat. A scratch on the front fender—but it looks old. There’s already a little rust formed.”

“No signs of foul play or a struggle?” Jericho asked.

“Not yet. But we’re still looking.”

Clay watched Tamara comb the Taurus with a calm, methodical gaze. She moved like a cat, her movements graceful, strong and certain as she inched through the interior, pausing long enough to bag tiny bits of God-knows-what and securing the evidence. Her professionalism and confidence as she processed the scene was awe-inspiring.

He remembered her awkwardness during her first weeks on the ranch as she learned to use the equipment and handle the horses. Though she soon picked up the finer points of ranching—he didn’t know of much Tamara couldn’t do once she set her mind to it—she’d never had the passion for the daily workings of the Bar None that he’d hoped.

Today, as she scoured the stolen car, her love for her job was obvious. She had been flustered when she questioned him, but seeing her again after five years had thrown him, too. Despite the awkwardness, she’d rallied and fired her questions at him like a pro.

“I did an initial survey of the area and didn’t find much either,” Rawlings said.

“Have you found anything that’d tell us what happened to the driver? Tracks of a second car for a getaway? Footprints leaving the scene? The fact that the money is still here bothers me.” Jericho shook his head. “Who’d leave that much money behind unprotected?”

The crime scene investigator with the wire-rimmed glasses gave Clay a wary look then glanced to Jericho. “Good point. And, no. No footprints or tire tracks.”

“It’s been too dry,” Clay volunteered. “Only rain we’ve had in weeks was a couple nights ago. A squall passed through. Hard and short. Any surface impressions that might have been left in the dust would have been washed away.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” the investigator asked, sending Clay a skeptical frown.

Clay offered his hand, choosing to ignore the man’s churlish tone. “Clay Colton. You’re on my ranch. I found the car. Reported it.”

The man shook his hand. “Eric Forsyth. San Antonio CSI. I believe you already met my assistant, Tamara Brown?”

“Yep. Met, married and divorced.” He gave the man a level stare. “She’s my ex.”

Forsyth arched an eyebrow. “Oh? She failed to mention that.”

Clay quickly squashed the disappointment that plucked him. Apparently she’d cut him cleanly out of her new life. Setting his jaw, he angled his gaze to watch Tamara again. She was giving the driver’s door a thorough go over, her jeans hugging her fanny as she squatted to study the contents of the map pocket. “She had no reason to mention it. It has no bearing on anything related to this case.”

“We’ll see about that.” Forsyth turned to the sheriff, effectively dismissing Clay.

Clay ground his teeth and did his best to ignore the affront.

“Colton is right,” Sheriff Yates said. “About the dry weather and the brief rain on Tuesday night. Whatever slight impressions might have been around before that storm were almost certainly lost to the rain.”

Forsyth crossed his arms over his chest and grunted. “Yeah. There’s a puddle of water in the trunk with the money. If the hood of the trunk was ajar, we can assume it’s rainwater that leaked in.”

“Which helps establish a time frame. If the car sat out here in the rain, we’re looking at events that happened before Tuesday night.” Jericho rubbed his jaw as he thought. “The car was reported missing Wednesday morning when the first shift arrived at the rental place and checked the inventory.”

“I’ll call the rental agency and ask them to send copies of the images from their security cameras for Tuesday. Maybe the theft was caught on tape,” Deputy Rawlings said.

“Good thinking,” Jericho said.

“You oughta talk to my neighbor, Samuel Hawkins, too.” Clay crossed his arms over his chest as he spoke to Rawlings. “He came out here Tuesday evening to investigate a commotion he’d heard and found one of his longhorns tangled in that fence I was working on.”

“Could the commotion have been something besides the steer?” Rawlings asked.

Clay shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him.”

“Why didn’t your neighbor see the car when he was out here?” Forsyth asked.

“It gets mighty dark out here at night.” Clay poked his thumbs in his back pockets and shifted his attention from his ex-wife’s sultry curves and confident investigative technique to Eric Forsyth.

“The moon would have been behind the clouds, making it even blacker. He was on the lower side of that ravine—” Clay hitched his chin toward the steep drop-off a few hundred yards away “—with his hands full, tending an injured and agitated longhorn. Not surprising he didn’t notice anything.”

The crime scene investigator narrowed his eyes on Clay, but before he could reply, Tamara called out.

“Eric! Sheriff! I found something.”

Clay whipped his gaze back to his ex. She lay on her back studying the underside of the driver’s door.

Jericho, Rawlings and Forsyth all trotted closer to the abandoned vehicle. Clay hesitated only a moment before ducking under the crime scene tape and following.

“What do you have?” Forsyth asked, squatting beside Tamara.

“Hand me a swab.” She extended her hand and wiggled her fingers.

Forsyth fished a clean cotton swab from the toolbox-like kit on the ground a few feet away and handed it to Tamara. With meticulous focus on her task, Tamara swiped a spot on the door. After rolling out from under the door and sitting up, she held the swab up to the sunlight and squinted closely at the sample she’d gathered.

“That’s what I thought,” she murmured, then tipped her head back to meet the expectant gazes of the men circled around her. “Our first sign of foul play, gentlemen. This is blood.”

Chapter 3

After bagging the blood sample and wrapping up her sweep of the abandoned car and surrounding area, Tamara collected her equipment and prepared to leave for San Antonio. She was eager to start processing and analyzing the evidence she’d collected.

Blood.

Sure, a past driver could have gotten a bloody nose, and the rental company might have missed this drop during their routine cleanup. But coupled with the curious circumstances surrounding the scene—the money, the indications that the car had been wiped clean, the fact the sedan had been stolen—Tamara’s bets were on the blood pointing to a violent confrontation involving the missing driver. That was the theory she would be trying to prove or disprove back at her lab.

She had ridden over from San Antonio with Pete, and the team’s photographer was loading the last of his equipment into his SUV. Time to go.

But not before she took care of one last item.

She marched across the hard Texas dirt to where Clay stood beyond the yellow crime scene tape talking to Sheriff Yates.

“All finished, Sheriff. We’ll let you know as soon as our test results come in.”

Clay’s gaze stroked her like a physical touch as she offered her hand to Jericho.

The sheriff clasped her hand in a firm grip. “It was good to see you again, Tamara. Take care and thanks for your help.”

She pivoted on her heel to face Clay. Her stomach somersaulted when she met his dark brown eyes. Fighting to keep her arm from shaking, she stuck her hand out. “Clay, thank you for your help.”

She was fortunate she’d finished speaking by the time he wrapped his long fingers around hers, because the moment he grasped her hand, her voice fled. A tornado of emotions sucked the air from her lungs, and heady sensations churned through her.

“No problem.” The intimacy in his tone, the fire that lit his eyes sparked a heated flush over her skin. “If there’s anything else I can do to help, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Was there any hidden meaning behind that offer, or had she imagined the intimate warmth in his tone? Fighting for oxygen, she tried to pull her hand back. But Clay refused to release her. He squeezed her fingers, his hot gaze scorching her, and he stroked the tender skin at her wrist with his thumb. “It was good to see you, Tee.”

Her heart leaped when he used his pet name for her.

She nodded her head stiffly. “You, too.”

“You’re as beautiful as ever.” The soft, deep rumble of his voice vibrated in her chest and stirred an ache she’d thought time had put to rest.

“Thank you,” she rasped. This time when she tugged her hand, he let her fingers slip from his grasp.

Tamara curled her tingling hand into a fist and wrapped her other hand around it, as if nursing a wound. But her scars were internal, and seeing Clay today had only resurrected the pain she’d worked five years to move beyond.

Spinning away, she hurried to the SUV where Pete was waiting. She climbed into the passenger seat and angled the air-conditioning vents to blow directly on her face. If the summer sun weren’t enough to induce heatstroke, the fiery look in Clay’s eyes and the warmth of his sultry tone could surely cause spontaneous combustion.

“You okay?” Pete asked as they pulled away.

Not trusting her voice, Tamara nodded. She leaned her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes. The image of Clay’s square jaw, straight nose, stubbled cheeks and thick eyebrows flashed in her mind. Her ex was pure testosterone. All male. Grit and determination.

Suddenly Tamara was blindsided by a need to see for herself what Clay had accomplished at the ranch, to revisit the haunts of her married days. She clutched the photographer’s arm as he started to turn toward the highway. “Wait, Pete. Let’s not go yet. I want to drive through the ranch. See the property, the house, the stables.”

“What’s up? You thinking Colton might be hiding something?”

She jerked a startled glance to Pete. “Heavens, no! Clay’s as honest and forthright as a Boy Scout. He had nothing to do with that money or car.”

“And you know this because…” He drew out the last syllable, inviting her explanation.

“I was married to him.”

A startled laugh erupted from Pete. “Excuse me?”

“Before I came to San Antonio, I lived here. With Clay.” Tamara tucked her hands under her legs and stared straight ahead. “We were high-school sweethearts and got married just hours after he signed the deed to this ranch.”

Pete frowned. “Does Eric know? Are you objective enough to work this case?”

“I’m fine. There’s no conflict of interest, because Clay’s not involved. We can prove that easily enough if you’re worried. And Eric knows…now. I heard Clay tell him.”

“I suppose you know Sheriff Yates, too, if you lived out here for a while.”

She bobbed her head, grinned. “I had a crush on Jericho for a while in tenth grade. Before I started dating Clay. Jericho’s a good man. Salt of the earth.”

Pete drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “So what is it you want me to do here?” He waved a finger toward the windshield.

“Go left. I want to see how things have changed…or not. For old times’ sake.”

Pete complied, and Tamara sat back in the front seat, holding her breath as familiar landscape and outbuildings came into view. They drove past a corral where three magnificent stallions grazed. The horses looked up, tossing their manes as the SUV rolled by. As Tamara admired the striking males, melancholy twanged her heartstrings.

Lone Star had been a beautiful animal, too. After years of feeding and grooming the stud, Tamara had bonded with the best stallion in Clay’s breeding operation. She’d been heartsick when she learned he’d contracted strangles, a bacterial disease that affects the lymph nodes, and devastated when Clay had chosen to put the horse to sleep rather than treat him for the illness. She still couldn’t understand how her ex-husband could have been so clinical and emotionless about his decision, especially when she’d begged him to save the horse she’d grown to love.

“Quinn thinks putting him down is our best option,” Clay had said.

“Quinn? It’s not his decision! He’s our horse!”

“He’s the vet, Tee. His professional opinion counts—”

“More than mine? I’m your wife! What about what I want, what I think is best?”

“Ranching is a business, Tamara. I have to do what is best for the ranch.”

“But why can’t we even try—”

“My decision is made. Quinn knows what he’s doing.”

Tamara squeezed her eyes shut as revived pain shot through her chest. Resentment for the veterinarian who’d held more sway over Clay than all her pleading churned with a bitter edge in her gut. Quinn Logan may have been Clay’s friend, but Tamara had no respect for the man’s medical choices. Every rancher she’d spoken to after Lone Star was put down told her strangles had a vaccine, could be treated with antibiotics.

Why hadn’t Quinn taken measures to prevent the illness in the stud? And why had the vet dismissed the option of treating the animal’s illness so quickly? Was he trying to cover his ass? Prevent a malpractice suit? The whole scenario seemed highly suspicious to Tamara, yet Clay had sided with Quinn.

The crunch of gravel beneath the SUV’s tires told Tamara they’d reached the main drive to the ranch house. She peeked out in time to see them pass the barn where Lone Star had been quarantined—and put down. A sharp ache sliced through her, and she swallowed hard to force down the knot of sorrow and bitterness that rose in her throat.

What was it about this ranch that brought all her emotions to the surface, left her feeling raw and exposed? In San Antonio, in her lab, at a crime scene, she’d become a pro at suppressing her emotions and keeping a professional distance in her job. Yet a few hours in Esperanza had her dredging up old hurts, recalling the passion she’d once shared with Clay and longing for the early days in her marriage when life had seemed so golden.

“Nice place. How many acres does Colton have?” Pete asked, pulling her from her thoughts. His gaze swept over Clay’s spread.

“He started with thirty acres. I’d guess he’s up to about three hundred acres now.” Tamara glanced through the open door of the building where Clay still parked his 1978 Ford pickup.

Still runs. Why should I get rid of it?

A grin ghosted across her lips. Practical, frugal Clay. He still had no use for waste.

Yet, for all his prudence, Clay had gotten rid of his wife.

Her smile dimmed.

After three years, their marriage had been damaged. The incident with Lone Star had just been the final straw. For months, Tamara had felt herself suffocating, her dreams of working in criminal investigation withering on the vine. When they married, she’d put her aspirations on the back burner to help Clay get his new ranch on its feet. But the longer she’d stayed at the Bar None, the dimmer her hope of fulfilling her life’s goals grew.

She’d awakened every morning to a sense of spinning her wheels, going nowhere. At night, she’d tumbled into bed, sore and tired to the bone from the arduous labor involved in running a ranch. Even her happy-new-bride glow had tarnished as, time and again, she’d taken second place in Clay’s life to his land and his horses. Like the night he and Quinn ignored her opinion and put down the stallion she’d loved.

“Wow. That house is huge!” Pete sent her a wide-eyed glance.

She angled her gaze to the ranch house, a two-story wood-frame structure with a wide front porch and a warmth that had welcomed her home for three years.

She hummed her acknowledgment. “The previous owner had a big family and needed all four bedrooms. Clay and I kinda rattled around in all the extra space. We used the spare rooms for storage mostly.”

Fresh pain squeezed her heart. She and Clay had planned to fill the bedrooms with their own children, had dreamed of outgrowing the house as their family multiplied.

Pete slowed to take a long look at the Bar None homestead. “Sweet digs. And you gave it up for a tiny apartment in the city?”

She gave him a withering glance. “We got divorced. Remember?”

“Ever miss the wide-open land and smell of horse manure? Or does the glamour of big-city life and crime solving fill the void?” His tone was teasing, but Pete’s jibe touched a nerve.

Tamara scowled. “I’ve seen enough. Let’s go.”

The realization that she missed a lot of things about the Bar None caught her by surprise. The night she’d left Clay, she couldn’t get away from the ranch fast enough.

But she missed the fresh air, the solitude, the animals…and Clay.

She huffed and shook her head. Fine. She admitted it. She missed her ex.

That didn’t mean she was ready to run back to him and beg for a second chance. Nothing had changed between them. He was still a dedicated rancher, and she had her life, her work, her dreams that pointed her in a different direction.

As they bounced down the gravel driveway toward the old farm-to-market road into Esperanza proper, Tamara noticed the foals in the fields, the abundant supply of hay in the barn, the fleet of farm equipment, the full stables. Signs of prosperity and success.

Clay had his dream. His ranch was thriving. Bittersweet pride swelled in her chest. As happy as she was for Clay, she wondered if he ever regretted the costs of building the ranch. Did he ever miss the early days, miss their marriage? Miss her?

Chances were, she’d never know.

Clay climbed into the saddle and turned Crockett toward the main stable.

Thanks to finding the stolen car, he was well behind schedule for the day.

He didn’t know what bothered him more, the evidence that a violent crime had taken place on his property or the reappearance of his ex-wife in his life. One could mean trouble for the ranch, the other could stir up past events better left alone. As a kid, Clay had learned the hard way what happened when you poked a hornet’s nest. The summer after first grade, he’d spent two weeks recovering from that foolish bit of boyhood curiosity. His divorce from Tamara was still too fresh in his memory to dwell on the could-have-beens.

Still, he sighed. Having Tamara at the ranch again had felt natural. As if five years and countless lonely nights didn’t stand between them.

He gave Crockett a pat on the neck. “You sure seemed glad to see her. Bet you thought she had some of those sweet treats she used to spoil you with, didn’t you?”

Clay sat straighter in the saddle and rolled his stiff shoulders. The simple joy that had filtered across Tamara’s face when she’d recognized Crockett and patted the bay gelding made his breath lodge in his throat. Tamara’s love of animals had been one of the reasons he fell for her, one of the reasons he’d believed she’d be happy on the ranch.

One of the reasons she ended up heartbroken. One of the reasons they’d fought the night she left. What would she think if she knew how much it had hurt him to have Quinn put down his prize stallion?

Clay shook his head and scoffed. There he went poking that hornet’s nest again.

As they crested the rise at the north end of the main pasture, Crockett saw the shady barn where his evening hay and cool water waited. The bay picked up his pace.

Clay was just as eager to get a cold shower and a hot meal. But before he could call it a day, he had animals to feed and groom, stalls to clean, and financial reports to review. Hired hands helped with the daily chores and a part-time housekeeper cooked for him three nights a week, but ranching still filled every waking hour. Many times those hours extended late into the night if a horse got sick or a mare was ready to foal. Clay couldn’t complain, though. Ranching was his life, his passion.