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Twelve-Gauge Guardian
B.J. Daniels
Twelve-Gauge Guardian
B.J. Daniels
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#ud05c70c4-20f5-52ca-93d5-79721a761212)
Title Page (#u996eaafb-958a-5a04-8155-26dbd5f74ecd)
About the Author (#ulink_74c9baa9-31b1-5c5e-a83d-388927956899)
Dedication (#u3801a449-52c8-54c2-9cfe-587bdfb444f7)
Chapter One (#ulink_b9055e76-fb20-5936-9cf8-9946ce60573c)
Chapter Two (#ulink_9bf4f6c9-dfde-5689-97bf-7f60458b3aaf)
Chapter Three (#ulink_c63b3c32-cd1c-5fcf-9031-39abf21ef0db)
Chapter Four (#ulink_ef06e77c-36b2-59db-8f8d-a8b8d329a1df)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#ulink_d05f3c7c-46e4-5a89-944e-e64dff26dace)
B.J. DANIELS wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of thirty-seven published short stories. Since then she has won numerous awards, including a career achievement award for romantic suspense and many nominations and awards for best book.
Daniels lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and two springer spaniels, Spot and Jem. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis. Daniels is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, Kiss of Death and Romance Writers of America.
To contact her, write to BJ Daniels, PO Box 1173, Malta, MT 59538, USA or e-mail her at bjdaniels@mtintouch. net. Check out her webpage at www.bjdaniels.com.
This book is dedicated to mothers.
Please warn your children not only about strangers
but what to do if they are approached by them. we need
to keep our little ones safe.
Chapter One (#ulink_19d07d15-b93d-5c73-87db-d4ae7547f5b8)
Cordell Winchester almost missed the Whitehorse Hotel. The old four-story brick building sat in a grove of cottonwoods on the far edge of town, the morning sun glinting off the worn structure.
More than a hundred years old, the place looked deserted. He took note of the vacant surroundings as he parked and went inside. The first thing that struck him was the aging smell, reminding him unpleasantly of his grandmother’s lodge. It wasn’t a reminder he needed this morning.
He’d been seven the last time he’d seen the Winchester Ranch—twenty-seven years ago—but he recalled the rambling old place only too well. He had always thought nothing could get him back to Whitehorse—let alone to the ranch.
The hotel lobby was done in overstuffed couches and chairs, the upholstery fabrics as dated as the furniture. At the unoccupied registration desk, he rang the bell, then turned to look toward the small parking area outside. No sign of his brother’s black pickup.
Where was Cyrus? Not at Winchester Ranch. Cordell had called out there and their grandmother hadn’t seen or heard from him. So where the hell was he?
Cordell took off his Stetson and raked a hand through his thick dark hair as he studied the small Western town in the distance. At a sound, he spun around to find an ancient man had appeared behind the counter as if out of nowhere.
“May I help you?” asked the stooped, gray-headed old man.
“My brother Cyrus Winchester is staying with you,” he said, settling the Stetson back on his head.
The man nodded, showing no sign of surprise at seeing Cyrus’s identical twin. Clearly this man hadn’t checked in his brother last night. The clerk thumbed through a file with gnarled fingers. “412. Shall I ring him for you?” He’d already picked up the phone and dialed the room.
Just as Cordell had expected, Cyrus didn’t answer. He’d been trying his brother’s cell since late last night and gotten no answer and Cyrus’s truck was missing. A sure sign Cyrus wasn’t here.
Cordell wished now that he’d insisted his brother wait and they ride together, but Cyrus wanted to leave a few days earlier and stop to see friends in Wyoming. Cordell had been tied up with a case and couldn’t leave until yesterday. He’d flown into Billings, spent the night and had driven the rest of the way this morning.
He and Cyrus had planned to go out for breakfast when he arrived, where Cordell had planned to make one last attempt to try to talk his brother out of this visit to their grandmother.
“I’m afraid there is no answer in his room.”
“Did you happen to see him leave?” Cordell asked even though he figured that was doubtful. The parking area, he’d noticed when he’d driven in, was at the back of the hotel. The clerk couldn’t see it from the front desk.
The old man’s head wobbled back and forth. “I just came on duty.”
“I’m worried about him.” He couldn’t put his finger on what had him so worried, but it was more than just being unable to reach his brother by phone since yesterday afternoon. “I’d like to check his room.”
The elderly clerk hesitated.
Cordell took out his wallet, flashed his driver’s license ID and Colorado private investigator license, explaining he was Cyrus’s twin brother. He also laid a twenty on the counter. “I wouldn’t ask except my brother hasn’t been himself lately.” Unfortunately true. Cyrus had been acting strangely since getting the letter from their grandmother’s attorney inviting them back to the ranch.
The letter implied that their grandmother, Pepper Winchester, who’d spent the past twenty-seven years as a recluse, was dying and anyone who didn’t come to the ranch would be exempt from a share of the legendary Winchester fortune.
Neither of them believed the fortune existed. And if it did, they weren’t about to let their grandmother manipulate them with it. They’d seen the way their grandmother had used it to control their father and his brothers and sister.
But Cyrus had been insistent about wanting to go back to the ranch one last time. “Remember Enid and Alfred? I wonder if they’re still alive. Come on, Cordell, haven’t you ever wanted to see the ranch again?”
“No.”
“Maybe I just want to see if that rambling old lodge is as scary as I remember it or the ranch is as vast as I recall.”
Cordell didn’t get it and said as much.
“You just don’t want to go because Grandmother liked me best,” his twin joked, a joke because their grandmother hadn’t given a damn about any of her grandchildren even before she’d holed up at the ranch.
“I suppose it would be all right if you had a look in his room,” the hotel clerk said now as he pocketed the twenty. He reached behind him and removed a key attached to an orange piece of plastic with the number 412 engraved on it and laid the key on the counter.
Cordell noticed that the other key to 412 was missing.
Rather than take the antiquated elevator, he ran up the stairs. He’d never liked small spaces. They reminded him of a room on the ranch that had been used as punishment when his father was a boy. The room had given him the creeps.
Just the thought made his stomach knot. What the hell was he doing here? Whitehorse, Montana, was the last place on earth he wanted to be. He had no desire to see his grandmother. Nor did he have any desire to return to the ranch and dredge up even some of the happier memories because, in his mind, the ranch was—if not haunted—then definitely cursed.
From the get-go, Cordell had had a bad feeling. That was why he hadn’t been about to let Cyrus go out there alone. Cyrus and trouble just seemed to find each other.
And that was what had Cordell worried now. He should have heard from his twin by now.
At room 412, he knocked lightly as he studied the worn carpet under his boots. A warm breeze blew in through a window at the end of the hallway near the old-fashioned metal fire escape exit. The place smelled of decay and cleaner. It was just like Cyrus to pick a hotel like this to stay in, what his brother would have called “authentic.”
He knocked again, a little louder this time just in case his brother had hung one on last night at the four bars in town and walked the half mile back from town, leaving his pickup wherever it had been parked.
“Cyrus,” he called as he used the key and opened the door.
“He’s not in there,” said a female voice from down the hall.
Cordell turned to see an older woman with a cleaning cart.
“From the looks of his room, he didn’t sleep here last night,” she said and pursed her lips scornfully.
Cordell didn’t like the sound of that and felt his anxiety multiply. He’d always “felt” his identical twin, sensed him on some cell-deep level even when they were miles apart.
He couldn’t feel his brother. It was as if Cyrus was … The thought that his twin might be dead sent a gut-wrenching terror through him.
Pushing open the door to the room, he saw Cyrus’s bag next to the undisturbed bed. The housekeeper was right. It didn’t appear Cyrus had spent any time in the room other than to drop off his bag.
Moving through the small hotel room, he saw that his brother hadn’t even dirtied a glass or broken the paper band on the toilet seat and his fear intensified.
Cordell pulled out his cell, saw that he hadn’t received any calls from his twin, and started to call the ranch again when he spied Cyrus’s cell phone on the table by the window.
Cyrus didn’t go anywhere without his cell phone.
Heart pounding, he walked over and started to pick it up when he saw his brother’s room key lying on the floor next to the wall where it must have fallen. Next to it was a paper convenience-mart cup on its side on the carpet in the middle of a dark stain that looked like spilled coffee.
Cordell fought to remain calm as he surveyed the scene, noticing that the curtain was pulled back, the window opened a few inches as if his brother had heard something and looked out and seen … what?
The room was located at the back of the hotel. A strip of pavement made up the parking area. Beyond it was a stand of huge old cottonwoods that grew along what could have once been a ditch or creek.
Past that were piles of old lumber and scrap iron, and in the distance, Cordell could make out a weathered old run-down farmhouse. Several old cars were up on blocks and the yard was littered with toys. A bunch of sorry-looking kids were outside. They seemed to be hunting for something. He heard them calling for someone.
A large woman stood on the front steps of the farmhouse, her hands on her hefty hips. She appeared to be giving the children orders in a strident voice.
Cordell turned his attention back to the parking lot below the window. He could see the glitter of glass on the patched pavement under the only light post. When his brother had arrived last night, it would have already been dark—especially in the parking lot without a light.
What could he have seen?
There were two cars parked between the faded painted lines, an old brown sedan with local plates and a blue VW bug with California plates. The VW had a flat tire on the left rear.
He stared at the flat tire unable to shake the bad feeling that had settled over him. Cyrus must have seen something down there last night. Something that had made him drop everything and run down to help?
He picked up his brother’s cell phone and checked to see if he’d gotten any messages other than Cordell’s this morning, then checked Cyrus’s outgoing calls.
Fear settled like a boulder in his belly when he saw that the last number his twin had called was 911.
Chapter Two (#ulink_a9e6ea74-4ffa-5495-944a-96333f6f9819)
As Cordell started to look for a phone book to call the sheriff’s department, he saw his brother’s pickup coming up the road. Relief flooded him and yet at the same time he wanted to throttle his twin for scaring him like this.
He watched the pickup come in from a back way and wondered why he couldn’t feel that connection that had always been there between the two of them.
It unsettled him and made him more anxious as he glanced at his watch. Cyrus was more than three hours late. Not only that, he’d also apparently spent the night elsewhere. It wasn’t like his brother to have met a woman and been tom-cattin’ around all night.
Cordell couldn’t throw off the feeling that something had happened.
As the pickup pulled into the back lot and parked, he watched anxiously, just needing to see that his brother was all right.
The door of the pickup opened and with a start Cordell watched as a woman wearing a baseball cap over her short bluntly cut black hair climbed out. She was dressed in jeans, a jean jacket over a T-shirt and sneakers. Not really Cyrus’s type, he thought.
Then she did something that sent a jolt through him.
She glanced nervously around the parking lot before her gaze shot up to the window where he stood. Cordell stepped back at the same instant and watched from behind the edge of the curtain as she opened the VW, took out something and seemed to stuff it under her jacket before heading for the back door of the hotel.
He quickly pocketed his brother’s cell phone and room key and stepped into the closet, leaving the door open just enough that he could see most of the room.
It wasn’t long before he heard voices out in the hallway, both female. He knew without hearing all the conversation that the young woman driving his brother’s truck had conned the maid into opening Cyrus’s room for her.
He heard the door open, then close and lock. For a moment, she stood perfectly still as if listening, as well. Then she quickly moved to Cyrus’s overnight bag on the end of the bed.
Cordell had a good view of her backside from where he was hidden. The woman appeared to be five-six or seven, slim with an athletic build and enough curves to fill out her jeans nicely. Had this woman been in trouble, Cyrus would have jumped to her defense without a second thought.
She unzipped the bag and hurriedly rummaged through it. He wondered what she was looking for. She definitely hadn’t come to get something for his brother. So what was she doing with his pickup?
That was when he got a glimpse of the pistol stuck into the back waistband of her jeans. It peeked out from the hem of her jean jacket as she bent over the bag. Was that what she’d gotten out of the car?
Cordell moved swiftly, knowing the minute she heard the closet door roll back, she’d reach for the weapon.
She was fast, faster than he’d anticipated. Just not as fast as he was. He came out of the closet, diving for her and the weapon. At the sound behind her, she spun around, her hand going for the gun and coming out with it in her left hand.
As she swung toward him, leading with the weapon, he grabbed her wrist, driving her back and onto the bed. He wrenched the gun from her hand, tossing it across the room. It skittered to a stop near the door.
The woman got in a kick that only missed his groin by a couple of inches. Her right hook, though, caught him squarely in the jaw, surprising him by the force of her punch, before he could grab both her wrists and pin them and her to the bed.
Her eyes widened in alarm. “You?!” she cried, looking at him as if she’d seen a ghost and confirming that she’d at least seen his twin before she took his pickup.
“Where is my brother?” he demanded, holding her down on the bed.
“Your brother?” She stared at him as if dumbfounded.
“You’re driving his pickup. You’re in his room going through this stuff. Where is my brother?”
“I thought you—”
“I asked you a question.” He knew what she thought. Few people could tell him and Cyrus apart.
Cordell pulled her arms up over her head, secured both wrists with one hand and reached for his cell phone. “You want to tell me or the sheriff? Your choice.”
“Could you get off me? I can’t breathe.”
He studied her face. She was pretty but she hid it well with too much eye makeup along with a small silver nose ring and dyed black hair cut in a sleek bob that made her pale porcelain skin even paler.
“Come on. You’re hurting me. Let me up and I’ll tell you everything.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, seeing something in her blue eyes that warned him this woman couldn’t be trusted. “Let me say this again. My brother, where is he?”
As he started to dial 911, she said, “The last time I saw him, he was being taken to the hospital.”
“The hospital? What happened to him?”
“I’m not sure. I think he was struck by a vehicle in the parking lot last night,” she said, motioning with the snap of her head toward the back of the hotel.
The open drapes, the spilled coffee, Cyrus’s cell phone on the table and the 911 call to the sheriff’s department. Cordell felt his heart drop. “Is he all right?”
“I don’t know.”
Cordell shook his head in confusion. “Why did he go down there unless … You! You didn’t just witness this. You were involved somehow. How else did you get his pickup?” He could only assume his brother had rushed downstairs to save her. But from what?
She seemed to relent. “I was crossing the parking lot. I stopped, surprised to see that I had a flat tire on my car. Just then I heard an engine rev and this van came roaring out of the darkness.”
“My brother saved you.” It was the only thing that made sense. Cyrus must have seen the van and realized it was waiting for her.
“He shoved me out of the way. I fell. When I came to, a man who looks a lot like you was lying nearby.” Her gaze skidded away. “I heard sirens. I didn’t know what had happened. I was afraid the van would come back. I saw your brother’s keys lying next to him and took his pickup.”
“The sirens—”
“It was an ambulance,” she said.
“Did you happen to notice while you were taking his keys if he was still alive?” Cordell asked with sarcasm that she seemed to ignore.
“He was still breathing from what I could tell.”
Cordell couldn’t hide his relief. “Nice of you to stick around and make sure he was all right.”
She glared at him. “I’d had a scare. I didn’t know your brother from Adam. For all I knew he was with the guys in the van.”
He studied her. This whole mess sounded just like Cyrus. Maybe he’d even seen the driver of the van flatten her tire. The moment the man went back to his van to wait for her to come out of the hotel, Cyrus would have started to call 911. How, though, had the man in the van known she would come back out again last night?
“You’d just returned to the hotel? Wasn’t it late?” he asked her. She looked surprised he’d figured that out. “So why leave again so soon?”
“I came back to check out. I’d changed motels.”
“Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I didn’t like the feel of this place, too far from town and it’s old and crumby.”
Maybe she was telling the truth, though he had his doubts. He was still shaken by the news that his brother had been taken to the hospital after possibly being hit by a van to save this ungrateful woman’s neck.
Fortunately Cyrus was tough. He would be all right. He had to. And yet that foreboding feeling was still with Cordell.
“So my brother saves you, first you take off and just leave him lying there and then you come back here to go through his belongings?”
“I’m not a thief,” she snapped, her blue eyes darkening.
“What’s your name?”
Again her gaze shifted away. “Raine Chandler.”
“I’d like to see some identification.”
She shot him a disbelieving look that said she’d couldn’t show him anything with him on top of her.
He eased off and she reached as if to get something out of her hip pocket. The blow took him completely by surprise, knocking him back. As her fist connected with his nose, the pain radiating up through his skull, she wriggled out from under him. His vision blurred as his eyes filled. Blood poured from his nose as he reached for her.
But she was too fast. Through the film of tears, he saw her vault over the bed to the spot where he’d tossed her pistol by the door. She came up with the gun.
For a split second he thought she’d turn it on him. But then she was out the door.
He didn’t try to stop her. A few moments later he heard her rev his brother’s pickup engine and tear off, tires spitting gravel. No reason to give her chase. He was more concerned right now with getting to the hospital and seeing his brother.
Cyrus could deal with retrieving his pickup, Cordell thought as he went into the bathroom to clean himself up. He couldn’t wait to hear his brother’s side of the story. Downstairs, the hotel clerk gave him directions to the hospital.
“They’re in the process of moving from the old hospital to the new one,” the clerk told him.
It wasn’t hard to find since the entire town of Whitehorse was only about ten blocks square. The new hospital was on the far east side of town in the opposite direction from the hotel where Cyrus had gotten a room he hadn’t used.
When Cordell walked into the small reception area, the nurse behind the desk looked at him as if she’d seen a ghost. He’d gotten used to being an identical twin and often forgot about the effect it had on other people. They always did a double take when he and Cyrus were together.
When they were younger they played tricks on their teachers and even their girlfriends. The tricks often backfired, landing them in hot water.
Now as private investigators in Denver, he and Cyrus used being identical to their benefit. It was almost as if they could be in two places at one time.
Their grandmother had never been able to tell them apart, he remembered, then chastised himself for letting her creep into her thoughts. He knew he was just trying not to worry about Cyrus.
“I’m Cyrus Winchester’s brother. Twin brother,” he said to the nurse now as if that wasn’t obvious.
“Oh,” she said, both hands going over her heart. “You did give me a start when I saw you standing there.” She patted herself as if trying to still that heart. “I thought, �It’s a miracle.’”
His stomach dipped. “A miracle?”
She seemed to realize what she’d said. “I’m sorry. Hasn’t anyone told you? Of course not. Until you walked in here we didn’t know the patient’s name so we haven’t been able to notify his next of kin. Your brother is in a coma and has been since he was brought in last night.”
SOMEONE HAD BEEN in her room.
Raine realized it the moment she opened the motel-room door and saw the tiny piece of cardboard from the coffee cup she’d stuck in the jamb lying on the floor.
She froze, her gaze taking in the cheap motel room. She’d put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and it was clear that the maid hadn’t been in.
The bed was rumpled from the few hours of sleep she’d managed to get the night before and her towels were on the bathroom floor where she’d dropped them after a quick shower this morning.
She glanced behind the door, then at the open closet. She didn’t like surprises and almost laughed out loud at the thought as she stepped cautiously in, pulling the pistol and closing the door and locking it silently behind her.
The room was small. Lumpy double bed, bathroom, closet. Not a lot of places for a person to hide. She checked under the bed, in the closet and behind the bathtub shower curtain. Empty.
Tucking the pistol back into the waist of her jeans, she checked her overnight bag. Someone had gone through it. What had they been looking for? Evidence, she thought. Or identification? She’d left neither in the bag.
Walking over to the window, she saw how they’d gotten in. The latch was broken on the sill. She’d planned to go to another motel tonight anyway. The window looked out on the alley, a stand of trees and an old house that had once been painted white.
Raine felt her pulse thrum in her veins and her heart began to pound at the sight of the aging house. She could almost smell the rank mustiness. She hated old houses.
Closing the curtain on both the window and the past, she quickly packed up the few belongings that she hadn’t put in storage when she’d left home, then placed a call to a local car repair shop and made arrangements to have her flat tire fixed and her car brought into town, saying she would pick it up later.
She knew it was just a matter of time before that cowboy came looking for her. She was still shaken by her run-in with him at the hotel. He’d looked so much like the man she’d seen lying in the parking lot last night that it had taken her completely off guard.
Glancing around the room, she made sure she hadn’t left anything, then walked to the door with her overnight bag in hand. She opened it a crack to look out. The hallway was empty.
She pulled the gun from her waistband and, unzipping her overnight bag, laid it on top, making the weapon more accessible should she need it.
As she pushed open the outside door, she scanned the parking lot. The lot was empty except for the pickup she was driving and a large, luxury car with Texas plates parked at the opposite end.
Trying not to hurry, she walked to the pickup, tossed in her bag and climbed in after it. For a moment, with the doors locked and the gun handy, she just sat, not sure what to do next.
Run. Just drive in any direction and get the hell out of here. She could dump the pickup somewhere down the road. Early this morning, she’d dug in the pickup’s glove box looking for information on the man who’d shoved her out of the way of the van last night and had pulled up short when she’d seen who the truck was registered to. Cyrus Winchester of Winchester Investigations of Denver, Colorado.
What were the chances that the man who’d come to her rescue just happened to be a private eye?
She started the pickup but still didn’t hit the road. She was kidding herself if she thought she could leave. Even if she had her car and had left this pickup where Cyrus’s twin brother could find it, she couldn’t run. She’d hate herself the rest of her life if she didn’t follow through with this. Wasn’t it time she learned the truth—not to mention got the justice she deserved?
Last night the parking area behind the old hotel had been too dark to see the person driving the van. But Raine figured he had to be the same one who’d slashed her tire. He’d been waiting for her.
You were set up, girl.
It certainly looked that way. But why had someone gone to the trouble of luring her to Whitehorse? Surely not just to run her down in the hotel parking lot. They could have killed her in L.A. since at least one of them obviously knew where to find her—and where to send the messages that had gotten her here in the first place.
Why, after all these years, try to kill her? It made no sense. They had no reason to believe anyone was after them. But now the sheriff’s department would be looking for the dark-colored van because the driver had put Cyrus Winchester in the hospital.
And his brother would be looking for Raine. Finding her in a town the size of Whitehorse would be child’s play—for both the cowboy and the attempted killer.
Any woman in her right mind would hightail it out of town and not look back.
But Raine Chandler wasn’t just any woman, she thought with a curse.
Chapter Three (#ulink_b5b6a995-7203-5237-bebe-9a6405ea8679)
Cyrus looked pale, his head bandaged and a series of tubes and cords running from his lifeless body.
Cordell took his brother’s limp hand in both of his and sat down hard on the chair next to the hospital bed. No wonder he’d felt the connection broken between them.
“Cy, I’m here,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m going to find out who did this to you and take care of it. In the meantime …” He glanced away from his brother’s face, trying to compose himself. He didn’t want his brother to hear the fear in his voice. “I just want you to rest so you can wake up soon.”
He heard the scuff of a shoe sole behind him and turned to see the doctor standing in the doorway. He squeezed his brother’s hand and, reluctantly letting go, rose.
“Tell me about my brother’s condition,” he said, motioning for the doctor to come out into the hallway with him. He didn’t want to talk about it in front of Cyrus. He’d heard that comatose patients could hear what was being said to them and around them, and from the doctor’s grave expression the diagnosis wasn’t good.
“I’m Dr. Hanson,” the elderly man said, searching Cordell’s face. “Identical twins. You certainly gave my nurse a start.” He grew more sober. “As she told you, your brother is in a coma. He was already comatose when he was brought in so we were unable to get any information from him.”
“What caused the coma?”
“Blunt force trauma to the back of his head. There was also some bruising around the hip and left leg as if he’d been struck.”
“Like being struck by a vehicle?” Cordell asked. “Apparently he pushed a woman out of the way of a speeding van. She didn’t see what happened to Cyrus, but found him lying on the pavement.”
The doctor nodded. “That would be consistent with his injuries.”
Cordell had thought he would get the whole story from his brother once he reached the hospital. Now he saw that if he wanted to know any more about the accident he’d have to ask the woman. But first he had to make sure Cyrus was going to be all right.
“What can we do for him?” he asked the doctor.
“There appears to be no bleeding or swelling of the brain that requires surgery, but we will continue to monitor your brother closely. Right now he is stable, his vital signs strong. A coma rarely lasts more than two to four weeks.”
Others last for years, Cordell thought. “I know my brother. He’s a fighter. He’ll come out of this.” Soon, he prayed.
The doctor gave him a sympathetic smile. “We certainly hope so. Some patients recover full awareness. Others require some therapy.” His look said some were never the same. “We won’t know the full extent of your brother’s injury until he regains consciousness.”
If he ever does. Cordell kept hearing the words the doctor didn’t say. He felt helpless. But there was one thing he could do while he waited for his twin to come back and that was to get the bastard who’d done this to him.
That meant finding Raine Chandler, and getting the truth out of her.
AS RAINE DROVE THROUGH a residential neighborhood in Whitehorse, she pulled out her cell phone and hit a speed dial number, realizing she was calling in late.
“I was just about to call out the cavalry,” Marias drawled.
“Sorry, I’ve been a little busy.”
“Uh-huh.” Her friend had been against her coming to Whitehorse from the get-go. “What happened?” Marias knew her too well.
“I ran into a little trouble last night, but I’m fine.”
“They know you’re there already?” Marias let out an unladylike oath. But then there was nothing ladylike about the biker-turned-cop-turned-P.I.
“Not a huge surprise under the circumstances. I’m not sure where I’m going to be staying so I might not be able to get Internet or cell phone coverage. Seriously,” she said when Marias snorted in disbelief. “Whitehorse is in the middle of nowhere and once you get outside the city limits, all bets are off when it comes to high-tech devices.”
“You’re leaving?” Just like Marias to latch on to that.
“No, just maybe staying outside town if I can find a place.” Up the block, Raine spotted a tan sedan like the one she’d seen behind the hotel this morning. The car was parked in front of the new hospital. Of course he would go see how his brother was doing and his brother would tell him everything.
He would find out she’d been telling the truth. She hoped that would be the last she’d see of the cowboy.
Unless, of course, he and his P.I. brother were somehow involved. What if the plan last night hadn’t been to kill her but to save her? She would have been indebted to Cyrus Winchester. Maybe something had gone wrong and instead of saving her, he’d ended up in the hospital.
And now his identical twin was putting the strong arm on her.
A little paranoid, are you?
No, just covering all her bases, Raine thought. “I promise to try to stay in touch.” She hung up before Marias could argue that this trip was nothing more than a suicide mission. If she only knew how complicated this had become.
Raine pulled over under a large tree next to a house just down the block from the hospital. This might be the perfect opportunity to check out the car—and the man driving it.
She was about to get out of the pickup when she saw the twin come out and climb into the tan mid-size sedan. It had rental car written all over it. At least she’d been right about the car being the same one she’d seen parked behind the hotel this morning.
Sliding down in her seat, she peered through the steering wheel as he pulled out and headed toward downtown. Where was he going? She decided to follow at a safe distance and find out.
She was surprised though when the trail led to the sheriff’s department. If last night’s attack had been a ploy, then this cowboy wouldn’t be going to the sheriff about it. He would want to keep all this as quiet as possible—and handle it himself.
She pulled over again and dialed information for Winchester Investigations in Denver, Colorado. The phone rang three times before a woman picked up and from the brisk way she answered, Raine guessed it was an answering service.
“I’m calling for Cyrus Winchester.”
“I’m sorry, he’s not available. Both Cyrus and Cordell Winchester are out of the office. If you’d like to leave a message—”
Raine hung up. Both Winchesters were private detectives? No way would a P.I. go to the cops unless he was on the up-and-up.
So what were they doing in Whitehorse?
THE WHITEHORSE COUNTY Sheriff’s Department was located along the main drag in an old brick building. As Cordell climbed out of the rental car, he scanned the street.
In the diagonal parking spaces were a half-dozen trucks in front of the various businesses from a couple of bars and a café to a clothing store, beauty parlor, hardware and a knitting shop. None of the pickups were his brother’s, though.
Inside the sheriff’s department, Cordell spoke first to the dispatcher.
“I’ll see if the sheriff is busy,” she said.
He watched the street while he waited, feeling anxious. His fear was that the woman who’d called herself Raine Chandler would flee town. Her VW had California plates on it. What was she doing in Whitehorse? Apparently not just passing through. He’d had the good sense to take down the car’s license plate, assuming it wasn’t stolen. He wouldn’t put anything past the woman given that she was toting a gun and clearly involved in something more than a near hit-and-run.
“Yes?”
He turned at the sound of a female voice to find an attractive dark-haired woman in a sheriff’s uniform. Her head was cocked to one side as she perused him, her lips turning up into an amused smile.
“Which one are you?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m sorry. I’m McCall Winchester, acting sheriff. I recognized you from some photographs my grandmother showed me of you as a boy.”
He caught her name and couldn’t help frowning.
“Trace Winchester’s daughter,” she said.
He felt his eyes widen.
She let out a laugh. “Yes, I did turn out to be his daughter no matter what my grandmother said at the time. I’m the true black sheep of the family.”
Cordell smiled at that. “It’s a family of black sheep.”
“Why don’t we step back to my office?”
He followed her down the hallway, surprised that his cousin was the acting sheriff. She took a chair behind her desk and he settled into one of the others facing her. “My brother and I are up here because of our grandmother’s letter.”
McCall nodded. She didn’t look happy about it.
“I’m guessing she isn’t dying and wants something from us.”
“That would be my guess,” McCall agreed.
Cordell hadn’t come here to talk about his grandmother and didn’t give a damn what she was up to. He was too worried about Cyrus.
“Do you know about my brother’s accident?” He saw that she didn’t, probably because Cyrus hadn’t had any identification on him. Which meant either the woman took Cyrus’s wallet—or the van driver had stopped long enough to take it.
“Cyrus was attacked last night behind the Whitehorse Hotel. He’s in a coma at the hospital.”
“I’m so sorry. I’d heard a man had been injured and taken to the hospital but I had no idea it was your brother. The deputy on duty last night talked to the clerk who’d apparently called for an ambulance, but he said the only vehicle in the lot belonged to a woman.”
Cordell nodded, thinking of the woman he’d tangled with earlier at the hotel. “The woman took my brother’s pickup. She told me a crazy story about almost being run down by a person driving a dark-colored van. Her tire was flat on her VW, she said she was scared and saw Cyrus’s keys on the ground and took off.”
“So you talked to her?”
He looked away embarrassed that he’d let her go. “I was about to check her identification when she got away.”
McCall raised an eyebrow at that. “I suppose that explains the blood on your shirt. It’s yours?”
He looked down, not realizing some had dripped onto his sleeve. “She said her name was Raine Chandler, but I really doubt—”
“The VW bug with the flat behind the hotel is registered to a Raine Chandler of Los Angeles, California.”
So she had been telling the truth—at least about that.
“Do you have some reason to doubt her story?” the sheriff asked.
Did he? Just a gut feeling that she was leaving out a whole lot of it. “I’m not sure. But with Cyrus in a coma, she is the only one who knows what really happened last night.”
McCall frowned. “I heard that you and your brother are private investigators, but I hope you’re not planning to take this matter into your own hands again. I’ll put out an APB on her and your brother’s pickup since she apparently didn’t have permission to take his truck and she left the scene of an accident and possible crime last night.”
“When you pick her up, I want to talk to her.”
His cousin seemed to consider that. “I think we can work something out. I take it you haven’t seen Grandmother yet.”
“No.”
“I’ll let her bring you up to speed on everything that’s been going on out there.” His cousin shook her head as if whatever it was wasn’t good.
Cordell rose from the chair, not bothering to tell her he had no intention of seeing Pepper Winchester. He had to find out who had injured his twin. He knew it was his way of dealing with Cyrus’s coma. He told himself that by the time he found the bad guys and at least saw that they were behind bars, Cyrus would be all right again.
“It was nice meeting you.” He reached into his wallet and took out his card. “My cell phone number is on there, but I’ll check back with you.”
RAINE CALLED MARIAS AGAIN. “I need your computer expertise. Can you check on a couple of private investigators out of Denver? The name is Winchester, Cordell and Cyrus Winchester of Winchester Investigations. See what you can find out.”
“Anything special you’re looking for?”
“Why they’re in Whitehorse, Montana, would be helpful.”
“I see. If you want to hang on … Do you happen to have a license plate number?” Marias asked.
“I can do better than that. I have Cyrus’s pickup registration.”
“I don’t want to know, right?”
“Right.” Raine reached over and opened the glove box. “Hold on, he’s about to move again.”
“He?”
“Cordell Winchester.” From down the street, he had just come out of the sheriff’s department. Raine leaned over out of view as she dug through the glove box, found the registration, then peered out cautiously as he climbed into his car.
Where to now? she wondered as she watched him start his car and pull away from the curb.
“What information would you like?” she asked her friend, then read what Marias asked for from the registration form as she waited for two cars to go by, then followed Cordell Winchester.
“Two brothers apparently,” Marias said into the phone. “Same birth dates?”
“Identical twins.”
“Really? Handsome?”
“As sin.”
“This is a professional request, right?”
“Strictly business,” Raine said and winced as she remembered the way her fist had connected with his nose. “No love lost between us.”
“Oh, so that means you’ve �met,’” her friend said with a laugh. “I hope it was romantic.”
“If romance is him holding me down in the middle of a queen-size bed.”
“Sounds good to me,” Marias quipped. “Hell, sounds damned good now that I think about it. Hmm, that’s interesting.”
“Are you going to tell me?” Raine asked as she tried to keep Cordell’s rental car in sight.
“I just did a little familial search. Father’s name Brand. Mother a Karla Rose French. Divorced. Grandfather Call Winchester, deceased. Grandmother Pepper Winchester, still living. Got to be a nickname, wouldn’t you think?”
“That’s what you thought was interesting?”
“No, it’s the part where Pepper Winchester’s address is Whitehorse, Montana.”
Cyrus and Cordell Winchester’s grandmother lived here? Pepper Winchester. “Why does that name sound so familiar?” Raine said more to herself than Marias. Up the street, Cordell Winchester made a quick turn at the corner two blocks ahead of her. He’d tagged her. “Gotta go.”
CORDELL COULDN’T BELIEVE it. He’d glanced in his rearview mirror and seen his brother’s pickup a dozen car lengths behind him. The woman was following him?!
He made a quick turn, then another down an alley. Unfortunately, he met a delivery truck coming in and had to back up and take another street.
Around the next corner …
No sign of the pickup.
Cursing under his breath, he searched each side street. She couldn’t have gotten away that quickly. No way.
Then he got lucky. Down a side street he spotted his brother’s truck go past a few blocks away. She was headed out of town!
Unfortunately, he had a stop sign, then several cars pulled out that he had to wait for. But the second he’d gotten the chance, he’d gone after her, not surprised to see the pickup hightailing it out on one of the secondary roads south.
He had to floor the rental car to keep the pickup in sight. Cyrus would have had a heart attack if he saw the way this woman was driving his truck. The thought brought a stab of pain.
The pavement ran out. Dust boiled up behind the truck. She took a curve, throwing up gravel from the tires. Cordell backed off a little after getting the windshield of the rental car pelted, several bits of gravel pitting the glass.
He fished out his cell phone to call the sheriff’s department, but found there was no cell phone service. It was just as well. At least now he could say he’d tried to call. The truth was he wanted to talk to Raine Chandler alone. He didn’t want her pleading the Fifth and getting locked away behind bars where he couldn’t get the truth out of her.
The narrow dirt road wound south over the rolling prairie, a roller coaster ride at this speed. He just prayed they didn’t meet another vehicle coming up the road. There was barely enough room for one car. Going this fast, Raine would never be able to get far enough over to let another car pass.
At first he was convinced he would come up over a hill and find Cyrus’s pickup wrecked at the bottom. But this apparently wasn’t her first time driving on roads like these. He wondered what part of California she was from that she’d learned to drive on narrow dirt roads rutted with washboard.
He gave her a little space, confident that with all the dust she was throwing up, she wouldn’t be able to lose him.
They left Whitehorse long behind them. As the country began to get more rugged, he realized they must be nearing the Missouri Breaks. He’d driven through the Breaks on the way to Whitehorse, crossing the Missouri River as it cut a deep gorge through this desolate, isolated country.
The country was familiar, too familiar, since he’d spent his first seven years living out here in the middle of nowhere on the Winchester Ranch. Unless he was mistaken, they weren’t that far from the ranch.
Cordell was beginning to worry he’d never be able to catch her if she cut across to Highway 191. But then he saw the pickup fly over a cattle guard and come down hard, the right rear wheel hitting loose gravel on the edge of the road. He got on his brakes to keep from going airborne off the cattle guard, as well, and saw the rear of the truck fishtailing.
He could see her fighting to regain control. She almost pulled it off. Then she hit a stretch of deep washboard. The pickup tires lost traction and the next thing Cordell knew the truck was headed for the ditch adjacent to the road.
Fortunately, the ditch wasn’t deep, but it was filled with water and mud which streamed up and over the truck before the vehicle finally came to a stop bogged down in the gumbo. Raine Chandler wasn’t going anywhere.
Cordell was already out of his car and running toward the pickup before the driver’s-side door swung open. He grabbed her and dragged her out, this time not giving her chance to go for her weapon.
Taking the gun from her jacket pocket, he stuck her pistol barrel against her temple, forcing her to her knees in the dirt next to the ditch as he held both wrists behind her. “Who put my brother in the hospital?”
“I told you—”
“I swear I will drown you in that ditch if you don’t start telling me the truth.”
He heard her take a deep breath and let it out slowly. She was shaking, no doubt from the adrenaline of the chase—certainly not from fear of him. There was a determination in her eyes that he’d misjudged before. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“If you let me up, I’ll tell you everything.”
He let out a bark of a laugh. “You think I’m going to fall for that again?”
“I already told you. I was crossing the parking lot behind the hotel when someone tried to run me down. Your brother shoved me out of the way, I fell and that’s all I remember. I must have blacked out for a moment because when I came to, your brother was lying there on the ground and I could hear sirens.”
He pushed her down harder, pressing the gun barrel into her temple. “Why didn’t you stay and tell the sheriff’s deputy what had happened?”
She shook her head, making him want to throttle her. “I told you. I was scared. I panicked.”
“Bull. You didn’t want to be involved. Why?”
“I was scared.”
He couldn’t imagine anything scaring this woman. He also didn’t believe she’d come back to the hotel this morning to find out Cyrus’s name. So what had she been looking for?
“Do you have a permit to carry this gun?”
She hesitated a little too long. “Not in Montana.”
“Why are you carrying a gun anyway?” he demanded.
“I live in L.A. You’d carry a gun, too.”
Cordell didn’t know what to think. Was it possible Cyrus had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or was this woman lying through her teeth?
“Why would someone want to run you down?”
“How would I know? Maybe they mistook me for someone else. Or maybe it was an accident. Now would you please let me up?”
“Like your tire on your car just happened to be slashed?”
He sighed. He was getting nowhere with her. He let go of her hands, standing back in case she came up fighting, which he half expected. To his surprise, she got slowly to her feet.
“How is your brother?” she asked quietly.
“He’s in a coma.” Cordell had to look away. Just saying the words made it all too real.
“I’m sorry.” She sounded surprised and sympathetic.
“Good,” he said. “Because you’re going to help me find the person who did this to him.”
“I told you I don’t know who was behind the wheel of that van.”
That, he thought, might actually be the truth. But he suspected she knew damned well why the person had cut her tire and then tried to run her down. Cyrus couldn’t have gotten downstairs from the fourth floor fast enough, unless he’d seen the man knife her tire and then go wait for her in the van with the motor running.
Cordell stepped to the open door of the pickup and took out her purse, an overnight bag with a small laptop computer tucked in the side and a large leather satchel. Laying each in the grass, he began to go through them, keeping the gun within reach should he need it.
“Please, that’s my personal—”
“Stay right where you are,” he warned her.
She stopped moving toward him, looking resigned as he opened her purse and quickly searched it. A little over two hundred in cash, most in crisp new twenties probably straight from the ATM machine. A California driver’s license. He glanced at the information on it. Twenty-six.
Nothing unusual in her overnight bag.
He was beginning to wonder if she might really be telling the truth when he opened the large leather satchel. “What the hell?”
Chapter Four (#ulink_36439861-a1f5-5239-b0dc-caaa6f2ea7ec)
Raine was still reeling from what he’d told her. His brother was in a coma? She felt sick to her stomach even before Cordell opened her satchel.
“I asked you what the hell this is,” he demanded, taking a step toward her, shock and disbelief contorting his handsome face.
“I’m a journalist.” The lie didn’t come easily even though it was the one she’d been using for her cover. She hated lying to him. She’d inadvertently gotten his brother into this. She felt guilty enough. Lying didn’t make it any easier. But she still couldn’t be sure she could trust this man….
“A journalist?” Cordell grimaced as he glanced again at the photographs in the satchel. “This is about some article?”
“Are you going to question everything I say to you?” she demanded, going on the offensive.
“I am until I hear something I can believe.”
She tried a little truth on him. “I’m working on an old missing person’s case, a child who was abducted sixteen years ago from Whitehorse. Her name was Emily Frank.”
Cordell studied her openly before pulling out the stack of photographs from the abductions. As many times as she had looked at the photos, she never failed to be moved to tears by the piles of charred bones, the rusted fifty-five-gallon barrels where the remains were found or the faces of the children still missing—and presumed dead.
Cordell shoved back his Stetson, looking shaken and uncertain, as he pulled out all the research material she’d gathered. “All this is related to the article you’re working on?” he asked in disbelief.
She nodded.
“This child, Emily Frank … Tell me you aren’t here looking for her remains.”
“No. I’m interviewing the people who knew her.”
He was watching her closely as if he knew she was leaving out some key piece of information—and wondering why. “So how many people have you interviewed?”
She knew where he was headed with this. He was trying to decide if her article research was connected to his brother’s accident.
“None. I only got to the town yesterday,” she said. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to anyone yet.”
He frowned. “Someone knows you’re in town.”
He was right about that, she thought and added truthfully, “I have no idea how they might have found out.”
Cordell sighed. “What newspaper or magazine do you work for?”
She tried not to glance away from his black bottomless gaze. “I’m freelancing this one.”
“How about a home address, a former newspaper or magazine, someone who can verify your story.”
She felt her eyes narrow as she met his gaze. “My mother took off when I was a baby. I never knew my father. I’ve been on my own since I was eighteen. I put all my things into storage before I left California. I wasn’t sure how long I’d be gone. So, no, I don’t have a home address or anyone who can verify what I’m working on.”
“Someone knows,” he snapped and pulled off his Stetson to rake his fingers through his hair. “Chucking it all for a story, that’s some dedication to your work. Why Montana? I’m sure there are missing children in California. There must be hundreds of stories you could have done there, if not thousands. Why this particular case?”
She was forced to look away. “I saw a picture of her. There was just something in her eyes …” She swallowed back the lump in her throat.
“I’m going to have to go through all of your notes, everything you have on this case.”
She balked, just as she was sure he’d known she would.
“I should mention,” he said, his words like thrown stones, “I went to the sheriff this morning. She just happens to be my cousin. I told her you stole my brother’s pickup and might have been involved in the attack on him. She’s already put an APB out on you because you left the scene. Unless you want to go to jail, I suggest you reconsider.”
“I’ve told you what I’m doing here,” she said, shaken to hear that his cousin was sheriff. “Why don’t you tell me what brings two private investigators to Whitehorse, Montana?”
His eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t expected her to find out who he was. Along with surprise though, there was grudging admiration in his gaze. “Not that it’s any of your business but my brother and I came here to see our grandmother, Pepper Winchester. She’s … dying.”
She flinched as a shaft of guilt pierced her conscience. She believed him. Just as she believed his shocked reaction to the photographs in her satchel. This man wasn’t working for a sexual child predator. At least she hoped not.
“Come on, we need to go somewhere so I can go through all of this,” he said. “Or are you going to lie to me and tell me that all of this doesn’t have something to do with you and the article you’re writing?”
She wasn’t.
He nodded, seeming relieved for once she wasn’t going to argue the point. “Since my brother’s pickup isn’t going anywhere until a wrecker pulls it out, you’re riding with me.”
“I’d like to speak to the nurse at the hospital first,” she said.
He turned back to look at her.
“I just want to verify what you’ve told me about your brother.”
“I’ve heard that journalists don’t take anyone’s word on anything without at least a backup source, but do you really think I’d lie about my brother being in a coma?” Even under the shade of his cowboy hat, she could see the piercing black of his gaze. He was angry and she really couldn’t blame him.
He shook his head in obvious disgust. “Fine. When we get to a place where my phone works, you’re welcome to call the hospital.” He swore under his breath. “Are you always this paranoid?”
“Only when people really are after me.”
He sighed and pulled out his cell phone. “No coverage. Or do you want to check yourself?”
“I’ll take your word for it until cell phone service is available.”
He shook his head. “That’s real damned big of you. Let me make something clear, I’m not sure what happened last night but I have a pretty good idea. You and your article got my brother into this. If guilt or the threat of jail doesn’t work, then I’ll use whatever methods I have to, but you will help me find the people who did this to him, one way or another.”
CORDELL COULDN’T believe this mess. Cyrus in a coma and him saddled with this journalist and her paranoia.
Now what the hell was he going to do with her? he asked himself as he studied Raine Chandler. The cool breeze stirred the hair at the nape of his neck and he turned to see a dark bank of clouds on the horizon to the west. Great, just what he needed. A thunderstorm and him miles from a paved road.
He remembered as a kid how the roads would be impassable until after a storm when the wind and sun dried things out.
He considered making a run for town, but he could tell by the way the clouds were moving in that he would never make it before the storm hit. The rental car would be worthless and his brother’s pickup was buried in the mud and not going anywhere. He swore under his breath again.
There was only one place to go.
As much as he hated it, he knew it was the best plan given the storm and the fact that he needed to take Raine somewhere so he could go through all of her research materials. His brother might have stumbled onto trouble last night, but Raine Chandler was up to her neck in it.
All he had to do was find the people after her.
That meant going to a private spot where she didn’t try to get away from him until he found out what he needed. Cordell groaned at the thought though. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“To my grandmother’s ranch. It’s closer than town.” He saw something flicker in her eyes. “Or would you rather go to jail?”
“Maybe I’d be safer there.”
He stopped to give her his full attention. “If you think your virtue might be at risk coming with me, then let me set you straight. You aren’t my type and I have much more important things on my mind than sex. That blunt enough for you?”
“Quite. Did I mention that I believe Emily Frank was taken by someone in one of Whitehorse’s more prominent seemingly upstanding families?”
Cordell let out a hoot of laughter. “Like the Winchesters? Think again. We’ve never been upstanding. Not even seemingly.”
“You might be surprised how money and power tip the scales toward upstanding.”
“No, actually I wouldn’t be surprised.” He eyed her, realizing she’d researched his family. Before or after Cyrus had crossed her path? “Winchester is just a name to me. I haven’t been back here in twenty-seven years and if there were any money or power, my father and brother and I have never been a part of it.”
She cocked a brow at him. “What about your grandmother?”
“Not that it is any of your business, but until recently my grandmother was a recluse who hadn’t left the ranch in all those years. None of the rest of us had seen her in all that time or lived anywhere near here. Even if she hadn’t been locked away for twenty-seven years, I can assure you she wouldn’t abduct a child.”
“If you haven’t seen her, then you have no way of knowing—”
“My grandmother,” he interrupted, “is so fond of children she doesn’t even know how many grandchildren she has. She had to pay her lawyer to try to track us all down. I won’t even go into how she treated her own children, even her favorite son.”
“And this is where you’re taking me? To see this grandmother?” She sounded incredulous.
“It wouldn’t be my first choice, but you’ve left us no other option.” Thunder rumbled in the distance. “You know anything about storms up in this country? Unless we get moving and damned soon, that storm is going to catch us and we are going to be stuck, literally, out here until someone comes along and that could be a damned long time. Once it starts raining, this road will become gumbo. We’d never be able to get back to town before the storm hits so we’re going to wait out the storm at the Winchester Ranch. And believe me, I’m much unhappier about that prospect than you could ever be.”
What in her research was she trying so desperately to keep from him? he wondered. Well, he’d soon find out. Once they reached the ranch, he’d go through everything in that satchel. She was his only possible connection to the men who’d put his brother in a coma. She was going to help him even if he had to wring her pretty little neck.
It would make it easier if she trusted him though, but he didn’t take it personally. If he’d learned anything from his first marriage and subsequent divorce, it was that trust is a fragile thing that once broken badly is impossible to get back again.
He wondered, though, who had broken Raine Chandler’s trust. Whoever it was had done a bang-up job.
RAINE REALIZED SHE had little choice but to go with him to the Winchester Ranch. Fighting Cordell would be futile since right now he held all the cards.
Also she wanted the man who’d hurt his brother just as badly as he did. If it was true and Cyrus Winchester was now fighting for his life, she owed him for his chivalry in saving her last night.
Cordell Winchester was another story. He didn’t have a chivalrous bone in his body and she balked at being forced into anything, especially by him.
But she also realized it couldn’t hurt having an obviously high-priced private investigator now helping her find the person who’d been driving that van last night—the same person she’d come to Whitehorse to find.
As she started to gather up her things he’d dumped in the grass, Cordell stopped her. “I’ll take care of this.”
“I’d prefer to carry my own things.”
He smiled. “I’d prefer you not bloody my nose or kick me in the groin or pull a gun on me.”
“That’s right, you have my gun. I’d like that back.”
“I’m sure you would. But you don’t need to worry. From now until we’re finished with this, I will keep you safe.”
She lifted a brow questioning whether he thought he really could handle that job. Fortunately she’d learned to take care of herself. “I’m not sure you won’t need my help.”
He gave her a look that said she was pushing her luck. She heard him swear under his breath as he walked away. She watched him, trying to gauge what kind of man he really was. One thing was for sure—he had no idea who the woman he’d just taken captive really was.
As she watched him, for the first time, she took a good look at Cordell Winchester. She was suddenly aware of the man on some primitive level. He looked like an ad for Montana, a cowboy who was just as comfortable in the wild outdoors as in a large city or a boardroom.
She must have been blind not to have noticed before this how his jeans hugged his tight behind, the legs long, the hips slim. His shoulders seemed broad enough to block out the sun.
Raine felt desire warm her blood. It had been a long time since she’d been even remotely aware of a man. She’d been too busy with her career. She’d apparently forgotten what it felt like to want a man so much it made her ache. Or maybe she’d just never known a man like Cordell Winchester, a man who could unleash that kind of primal need even when she couldn’t stand the sight of him.
This was a man who had to be used to getting what he wanted from women. She was glad she wasn’t that type of woman. But the thought also came with a little regret that she wouldn’t be finding out if Cordell was as sexy as he looked.
As he started to the car with her things, he saw her eyeing him. “Something wrong?”
She scoffed at that. Everything was wrong. She couldn’t wait to see the last of this Winchester and, judging by the expression on Cordell’s face, he felt the same way.
CORDELL HATED THE IDEA of dragging this woman out to the ranch with him as much as he hated going there in the first place. He knew he had no business taking her prisoner and the last person he wanted to see was his grandmother.
But the storm had given him no other option other than being trapped in the small rental car with her. That, he thought, could definitely be worse than the ranch. At least at his grandmother’s they should be able to get something to eat and drink and, if they were stuck there overnight, a place to sleep.
He didn’t trust Raine Chandler as far as he could toss her and needed this time to find out everything he could about her—and this article she was writing.
As it was, he’d have to watch her 24/7. At least at the ranch, she was far enough from Whitehorse that taking off would require she hoof it forty miles. Or take a horse. He couldn’t see that happening.
“This is just temporary,” he said as they climbed into the car. Once he found the person who hurt his brother, Raine Chandler was free to do whatever the hell she wanted.
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