скачать книгу бесплатно
There would be another lesson. She may have discovered some new sides to Jake Thorne during the past few days, but there was one thing about the man she’d always known.
He never backed down from a dare. He wouldn’t back down from this one.
“Bring it on,” she said aloud. Whatever he fired at her, she was up to it. “The new me is up to it.”
The new her wasn’t deluding herself into believing that what was going on between her and Jake was a long-term notion. She wasn’t foolish enough to think that she was the one who could tame him for a serious relationship when any number of beautiful, sexy women hadn’t been able to accomplish the same.
No, she wasn’t that foolish. She simply was ready to experience life. For some reason, she trusted Jake to be the man to help her. And when the challenge was over and she’d had her fill, she’d be ready to walk away.
It helped to know what Jake Thorne was—a game player. He couldn’t help it. And she wouldn’t change him. Even if she wanted to.
The thought of things between them ending—before they’d even really begun—flooded her with an unexpected sadness. She turned up the radio and, at the top of her lungs, sang along with the Boss about being born to run.
Jake left the office early that day and hightailed it to the Cattleman’s Club for a little diversion. He breathed a sigh of relief when one of his buddies, Logan Voss, spotted him and motioned him over to join a poker game. A friendly game of five-card stud was exactly what Jake needed to take his mind off Chrissie and the way she’d turned him inside out yet again.
“So, how’s it shakin’, Jake?” Logan asked as Jake hung his black Stetson on a brass hat rack in the corner of the bar.
“Can’t complain. How about you boys?”
He got what he’d expected—mumbled “fines” and head nods. While members of the club often tackled matters of grave importance and danger within these walls, it was also a haven. As a rule, a man didn’t come to the Cattleman’s Club to talk about his troubles. He came here to get away from them, to simply hang out with men of like minds.
Of all of his friends at the club, he felt a particular kinship to Logan Voss. Voss ran a large cattle ranch just outside of town. Like Jake, the rugged rancher, who was a hands-on owner, was divorced. Unlike Jake who took pains to see that no one saw his pain, Logan’s scars occasionally showed in the bleak look in his eyes and the weary set of his shoulders. Or maybe Jake was just sensitive to Logan’s situation since he’d gone through an ugly divorce himself.
“You in, Thorne?” Mark Hartman asked. “Or you gonna sit there and admire your cards the rest of the night?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m in,” Jake said and called Hartman’s good-natured haranguing.
Jake didn’t know Mark Hartman as well as he knew Logan, but he liked what the guy stood for. Jake didn’t know the entire story, but the retired soldier had lost his wife in a violent mugging. Mark played his cards—and his feelings—pretty close to the vest, too. The African-American appeared to be independently wealthy but still spent hours at his gym where he gave self-defense classes to women. No one had to wonder what motivated him.
“Read ’em and weep, boys.” This came from the fourth man at the table, Gavin O’Neal, as he laid down a diamond flush.
Jake groaned and tossed in his cards. He hated this run of luck. But how loudly could one complain about losing to the sheriff? A decent one at that. O’Neal had been a wild man in his day, but he took the shiny badge that he wore on his chest seriously. The badge also didn’t hurt his standing with women. As a rule, Jake loved to give O’Neal grief about his reputation.
Tonight, though, Jake just wasn’t in much of a joking mood—mainly because of one particular woman giving him so much grief.
O’Neal dealt Jake another stellar hand. Not. He arranged his cards, rolled his eyes and folded. When Voss won the hand, Jake was down fifty bucks—and he hadn’t been in the game a full hour. He was starting to think his luck had deserted him altogether when Voss dealt him a pair of queens. Finally. A bidding hand. He was about to raise Gavin’s bet when a commotion by the front door had the entire table on their feet.
“What the hell?”
It was Nita Windcroft. Her violet eyes were shooting sparks and the slim young woman, who had recently taken on one helluva responsibility when she’d assumed management of her father’s horse farm, appeared to be in one high and mighty snit.
“Sheriff,” she said, marching toward the table. “You’ve got to do something.”
O’Neal met her halfway across the bar and laid a settling hand on her arm. “Good Lord, Nita, settle down before you bust a vein. Not another word until you calm down. Take a deep breath now. That’s it. Give me another one. Okay. Now tell me what’s wrong.” He steered her toward the table where the men had been playing.
Even off duty and out of uniform, Gavin had an air of command that Nita responded to.
“The Devlins are at it again,” she said, rage coloring her voice. “And if you don’t put a stop to it, so help me, I will. I can’t let them destroy my ranch.”
“Okay, Nita. Settle down,” Gavin repeated with a soothing calm that seemed to make Nita at least stop and take stock of her surroundings.
Besides their table, only a half a dozen other TCC members sat in the bar. After Nita’s initial outburst, they all returned to their respective conversations.
“You want to talk to me in private?” Gavin asked.
“I don’t care if the whole county hears what those snakes have been up to! You’ve got to do something.”
The Windcrofts and the Devlins had nursed a Hat-field-and-McCoy-style feud for close to a century. Old Jonathan Devlin had liked to keep the situation stirred up, but Jake had thought things would settle down now that Jonathan was gone.
Judging from the look on Nita’s face, he’d thought wrong.
If he had his facts straight, the Windcroft-Devlin feud had started when Richard Windcroft lost over half of his land to Nicholas Devlin in a poker game. The Windcrofts always had maintained the game was rigged. A Devlin ended up getting shot and killed over it, and of course, the Windcrofts got the blame. The accusations and squabbles had been going on ever since.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on out at the ranch that’s got you so upset, Nita,” Gavin suggested.
“In the past few weeks I’ve been dealing with downed rails, cut fence lines and spooked horses. At first I tried to write it off as wear and tear, but then I found wire cutters by a downed section and some of my new board fences have been broken, as well. I spent three days rounding up stock from the last time those bastards did their dirty work. But the last straw, the very last straw—they poisoned my horse feed.”
Nita’s cheeks were fiery red. “If my foreman hadn’t noticed something off, there’s no telling how much stock I would have lost. It’s bad enough I’m treating over a dozen head of very sick horses—some of them my customers’—but it will cost me a small fortune to replace that tainted feed. And do you have any idea what this is going to do to my business once word gets out? It could ruin me. Not to mention, I’m worried sick about the horses. Only a Devlin would stoop so low as to try to kill innocent animals.”
No wonder Nita was upset, Jake thought. The Wind-croft ranch boarded and trained horses. She’d start to lose customers if they felt the safety of their stock was compromised. She was leveling some pretty serious charges, and the Devlins were prominent citizens in Royal. Tom Devlin was even a member of the Cattleman’s Club and Jake considered him a friend.
“Those are pretty strong allegations, Nita,” Gavin warned, echoing Jake’s thoughts. “You have some proof that the Devlins are behind this?”
“Who else would it be? They’ve finally come up with a way to ruin us. It’s what they’ve always wanted. And they’ll shut us down if they aren’t stopped!”
“Have you had any direct threats on your life?” Gavin asked.
“My life is my ranch, so you can play it anyway you like.
“Okay, no,” she admitted when Gavin gave her a stern look. “I haven’t been personally threatened, but that doesn’t mean it won’t come to that. I’m worried about my stock. I’m worried about my help. Now, what are you going to do about it?”
“Come on,” Gavin said. “Let’s go down to the station. You can write out a statement and I’ll dispatch an officer to your ranch to take stock of all that’s happened. Maybe he can find a lead on who’s doing this.”
“I told you who’s doing it. And I want to press charges,” Nita insisted.
“Do you have anything—anything but your gut instinct—tying the Devlins to this?”
Nita’s silence was Gavin’s answer.
“Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll meet you at the station.”
“I know what that means,” she said, her tone expressing her anger. “It means you can’t do anything. Okay fine. You can’t. You have to follow the letter of the law. But what about you?” she asked, turning to Jake, Mark and Logan. “I know it’s supposed to be a secret but it’s common knowledge that you TCC guys get involved in situations like this when people are in danger.”
Whoa, Jake thought. The club’s missions were kept under wraps, so it was a little unsettling to hear Nita announce that their covert operations weren’t all that covert. But more unsettling was the fact that Nita felt she was in danger at the hands of a fellow club member and wanted them to investigate. Even though from the sound of things there was really nothing definitive to indicate either danger or Tom Devlin’s involvement.
“Nita,” Jake said, “I feel real bad for what’s happening out there, sweetie. Hell, I’m sure we all do. But for all we know, you’re just the unfortunate and random victim of some ugly pranks. Anyone could be responsible. Kids. Vagrants. As to the feed, have you had it tested? Is it possible you just got a bad batch from the elevator?”
“No, I haven’t had it tested. It just happened today and I’ve been too busy saving horses to investigate.”
“So, when did you get your last batch of feed?” he pressed.
“Yesterday,” she said defensively, “but we always order the same mix from the same elevator, so it’s not likely that they’re responsible.”
Jake cut a glance at the others. Mark, Logan and Gavin all wore looks that said exactly what Jake was thinking. Most likely she’d just gotten a bad batch of feed, but in her panic over the possibility of losing the horses, she’d decided someone needed to take the rap and the Devlins were the most likely target.
“Check with the elevator,” Jake said gently. “If you come up blank there after the feed is tested, then maybe we’ll consider looking into it.”
“Consider?” Her eyes snapped with fire. “Thanks. Thanks so much for nothing.”
She stomped out of the club in as much of a huff as when she’d stomped in.
“That’s one upset woman,” Logan remarked.
“Can’t blame her,” Jake said. “She’s stubborn and outspoken and I’ve known her to go to great lengths to get her way, but I’ve never known her to lie about anything. This is her livelihood that’s being threatened. I’m sure she’s scared.”
“Let’s keep our ears open for word from the elevator regarding the feed,” Mark suggested.
“What about the fences?” Logan asked.
Jake shrugged. “Who knows? Could be kids. Could be any number of possibilities. What do you guys think of checking with Tom Devlin to see if he has any ideas on what’s going on?”
“He’s out of town right now. Business trip,” Gavin said.
“When he comes back, then,” Jake said. “We’ll find out what he thinks. Man, when old Jonathan was alive, he loved to stir the fire on the Windcroft-Devlin feud every chance he got. I thought maybe after he died that this stupid feud business would die a quiet death, too.”
“I should be so lucky,” Gavin said on a weary breath. “See you boys. I’d better get down to the station before Nita raises hell with my officers.”
“But I was about to get into you for some serious coin,” Jake complained, thinking about his pair of queens.
“You can break my bank another night, buddy. I’ve got a mad woman waiting and it’s not going to do any of us any good if I keep her that way too long.”
Didn’t it just figure? Jake thought. These days there always seemed to be a woman complicating things for him. Nita was leaning on the club members for help, and his pair of queens hadn’t shown up until after he’d dropped a bundle and the game was over. Then there was Chrissie. Lord. She had materialized this afternoon as a different woman, then issued a challenge he couldn’t see his way clear to walk away from.
Chapter Eight
“My place. Tonight. Midnight. Wear jeans and boots.”
Christine’s heart knocked her a couple of good ones in her chest when she listened to the message on her answering machine.
That the message was from Jake was without question. She’d recognize his barbed-wire-and-velvet voice anywhere. That he’d answered her challenge so soon—the day after she’d lain her metaphorical cards on the table—was a big surprise.
“So, what are you going to do?”
Christine looked at Alison, who had dropped by after work to check out Chris’s sports car.
“I’m going to go. It’s what I want.”
Alison eyed her with appreciation. “You are serious about this personal alteration, aren’t you?”
“Like I said—” Christine made a concentrated attempt not to chew nervously on her lower lip “—I’m tired of playing it safe and dull. I know it sounds funny given our history, but I trust Jake not to hurt me.”
“Jake is it? He’s not the evil twin or the insensitive jerk anymore? My, my. That must have been some dinner date Saturday night.”
“Let’s just say the evening opened me up to new possibilities.”
“Well, I say, you go, girl. Just…well, be a little careful, okay? I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“I’ll be fine,” Christine assured Alison even though she wasn’t one hundred percent sure herself. “I know what I’m doing.”
Six hours later, however, as Christine pulled into the drive of Jake Thorne’s ranch south of Royal, one burning question kept surfacing like a stubborn cork in a choppy sea: What am I doing?
She eased her convertible around the circular drive, then stopped in front of a portico that flanked a pair of massive double doors framed in a stucco structure the color of sand.
Money. The place reeked of it with its understated elegance and style. The house was new—one of many in this area where land was sold in five-hundred-acre parcels of rolling hills and the occasional thicket of timber. Only the wealthy and privileged could afford the property here.
Lot of house for one man, she thought as her gaze roamed over the impressive facade. A light mounted under the portico came on and the front door swung open.
Make that, a lot of man for one woman.
Neither the businessman nor the tease strode out to meet her. A cowboy did. And Jake Thorne as an icon of the American west personified the cowboy mystic in resounding three-dimensional color.
His boots were a rusty-brown color. His Wranglers looked soft and worn and tight. On his head was a black, well-shaped Stetson—black for bad guy, she thought—and his shirt was as white as snow with mother-of-pearl snaps running down his torso and on the breast pockets. The blue bandanna he’d tied around his neck lay in stark contrast against his white shirt and tanned throat. Spurs jingled with every long, purposeful stride.
The only thing missing was a pair of six-shooters strapped on his lean hips. Still, she got the feeling that he was gunning for her.
“Nice wheels,” he said by way of greeting as he looked her car over.
“It’s new,” she said inanely.
One corner of his mouth turned up. Not a smile. Not a sneer. Small clue as to what he was thinking.
“Got your boots on?”
She got out of the car and showed him. And his nota-smile-not-a-sneer expression turned into a frown. Big clue as to what he was thinking.
“Let met guess—those would be new, too?”
She glanced away from his look of disgust at her pretty red boots. “What’s wrong with them?”
“I was thinking cowboy boots.”
“These are cowboy boots.”
“If you’re strutting down Rodeo Drive in California maybe. Not if you’re planning to ride a horse.”
She’d suspected he had a midnight ride in mind, even though she’d held out hope for something else. She didn’t ride. In fact, she’d never ridden—guess the choice of boots might have given that away. Somehow she figured he already knew that, too, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it.
“These boots will do just fine,” she said.
