Deadly Texas Summer
Page 1
Someone murdered her coworker...
Is she the next target?
When her assistant’s death is ruled a suicide, wildlife biologist Emma Copley knows the authorities got it wrong. The killer is still out there, threatening Emma’s work and her life. Launching her own investigation, Emma turns to Beau Kingston, who’ll do anything to protect her—even resist their growing attraction. But the handsome rancher has secrets of his own, secrets that could cost them everything...
“I should pack my things and find another place to stay.”
“You don’t have to do that. In fact, I wish you wouldn’t.”
“This thing, my being here—it clearly isn’t a very good idea.” Emma’s gaze lingered on Beau’s eyes, his lips, her body tingling with memories that refused to fade. “It’s not just us. We’re adults, and I’m sure we can figure out a way to make sure that what happened here this afternoon isn’t repeated.”
Rising from the cushions, he paced a few steps into the room, his muscles flexing as he crossed his arms. “I swear to you, it won’t be.”
“You’re sure? Because those boys of yours—I can already see the wheels spinning in their little brains, and they’re far too precious to hurt.”
“You have my word.” His words had the ring of an oath, serious and solemn. “I’ll be your host, your protector, your friend if you need one. But as for any more than that—”
She frowned at him. “What if I need a partner instead?”
* * *
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Dear Reader,
Do you love road trips or hate them?
As someone who lives in and travels by car through the great, big state of Texas, I spend many hours behind the wheel, often in rural areas beyond the reach of internet or even decent radio reception. I’ve come to enjoy those long days spent talking, snacking and simply watching the road spool out before us, allowing my imagination to play with story ideas as big and fluffy as the cumulus clouds that drift across the sky.
On several such trips, we’ve passed sprawling wind farms, their towering turbines dotting a landscape once better known for oil field pumpjacks, cattle and miles of empty space. The sight prompted me to daydream about changes to the landscape and the conflicts that can occur between the old ways of doing things and the new, as different people learn to occupy the same space—or to fight it out to see which ones will prevail.
In Deadly Texas Summer, not only is wildlife biologist Emma Copley working to make sure wind turbines can operate without harming protected birds of prey, she is also struggling to live in safety after leaving an abusive marriage. Yet her very presence in a tiny coastal South Texas town is seen as a threat by others, including Beau Kingston, the handsome and powerful owner of a sprawling ranch under siege from harsh modern realities. But some changes, he will soon learn, bring far more danger—especially his attraction to the one woman who could destroy his legacy.
I hope you’ll enjoy Emma and Beau’s story. And the next time you’re stuck in a car for a few hours, enjoy a daydream or two on me!
Colleen Thompson
DEADLY TEXAS SUMMER
Colleen Thompson
The Texas-based author of more than thirty novels and novellas, Colleen Thompson is a former teacher with a passion for reading, hiking, kayaking and the last-chance rescue dogs she and her husband have welcomed into their home. With a National Readers’ Choice Award and multiple nominations for the RITA® Award, she has also appeared on the Amazon, BookScan and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists. Visit her online at www.colleen-thompson.com.
Books by Colleen Thompson
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
Passion to Protect
The Colton Heir
Lone Star Redemption
Lone Star Survivor
Deadly Texas Summer
Cowboy Christmas Rescue
“Rescuing the Bride”
Silhouette Romantic Suspense
Deadlier Than the Male
“Lethal Lessons”
Harlequin Intrigue
Capturing the Commando
Phantom of the French Quarter
Relentless Protector
Visit the Author Profile page at
Harlequin.com for more titles.
To all the teachers who inspire, challenge and demand better of their students, including those educators I worked with and those who once upon a time gave me the tools to reach for my dreams.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Excerpt from In Colton’s Custody by Dana Nussio
Excerpt from Ten Days Gone by Beverly Long
Chapter 1
Wildlife biologist Emma Copley gritted her teeth as her silver Jeep bounced along the gravel road, raising a cloud of dust that hazed the stark blue southeast Texas sky. Already running late that humid August morning, she ran through a mental checklist, troubleshooting the device she and her graduate assistant had spent most of the summer testing—a machine meant to reduce the number of protected birds of prey killed each year by the towering wind turbines that dotted the grassy coastal hills.
If she could only figure out why it kept randomly shutting down individual windmills, forcing the two of them to scramble to reset it by hand on four of the past six mornings. “Camera must be picking up on insect swarms,” she murmured, trying out a new idea, “or maybe bats heading back to their roosts for the day.”
From the back seat, River, the young golden retriever mix she’d adopted after last year’s breakup, responded with a sound, half yawn and half yodel, that made Emma smile...
At least until her cell rang, though reception could be hit-or-miss here. Emma grabbed the phone from her cup holder, her heart skipping a beat when she saw the caller was her mother, who was supposed to be in Amsterdam with Emma’s stepdad, on the first leg of the two-week European river cruise they’d been dreaming of for years.
“Everything okay, Mom?” Though her mother had been given the green light for travel, she was still regaining her strength after completing chemo treatments. “Are you feeling all—”
“Hey, there. Remember me?” came an unexpected male voice. The shock of hearing it, all these months later, had Emma braking so hard that River yelped and scrambled to remain on the seat. “Or are you so busy screwing everything in pants, you’ve forgotten all about the only man who’ll ever really love you?”
As a punch of nausea struck hard, nerve endings fired icy harpoons from the back of Emma’s neck and down the length of her spine. But it reminded her, too, she had a backbone. Pulling over on the empty road, she said, “You’ve spoofed her number, haven’t you? My mother’s, this time.”
Late one night a few weeks earlier, her ex-husband of four months had pulled the same stunt, using some sleazy caller ID–altering program to trick her into believing it was her best friend phoning. Instead, Emma had been treated to a clearly
drunken round of accusations: how she’d destroyed their marriage, how he would make her pay. Since his method left neither an electronic trail nor witnesses to produce hard evidence that her ex-husband had violated the no-contact order, she’d had no way to stop his abusive language and his threats short of powering off her phone.
“Would you have picked up otherwise?” Jeremy asked, his voice slurred again, though it was only nine fifteen in the morning. Normally at this time, he’d be working, for the uncle in Waco who’d been kind enough to offer him a fresh start in a new city when others had been hesitant to employ a man on probation.
“You have to stop calling me. You know that.” For all the hell he’d put her through, she didn’t want to see him foul up this second chance.
She was interrupted by the same scoffing noise he’d once made when she’d warned that he’d get caught cutting class in high school. Back when he’d been the exciting sort of dangerous, the kind she’d foolishly imagined her good example could reform. For a while, it seemed she had succeeded, her hard work and academic honors inspiring him to seriously step up his game. After a few years of working alongside his father, he’d established his own home contracting business, then set about—with a focused determination that had left the shy bookworm she’d once been both charmed and flattered—convincing her that, for all their many differences, he was still great husband material.
Had he been playing the long con even then? Or had the loving, attentive man she’d married been the real Jeremy, the man he could still be if he hadn’t let his insecurities—and his attempts to self-medicate them into silence—take over his life?
“I want you to know that, on my attorney’s advice, I’m recording this conversation,” she warned, though she couldn’t get the app to start, probably because of this rural area’s weak cell signal.
In desperation, she bluffed. “The judge’s already warned you that if you violate again, you’ll end up doing jail time.”
“You’re doing him, too, aren’t you?” Jeremy accused, the irrational anger taking hold again. “I saw the looks he kept sneaking your way in the courtroom. And you think I didn’t notice your slutty little signals? You’re nothing but a whoring bit—”
“Not this again. We’re done here.” Blinking back the haze burning her eyes, she disconnected, sick of his endless accusations, which had started not long after his business had gone under just as her professional star began to rise. Sick of who she’d been for too long, with her increasingly desperate efforts to reassure him and convince him to go to counseling and at least scale back his drinking. The whole nightmare had come to a head the day he’d burst into the office of her seventy-four-year-old dean shouting obscene accusations. Fearing the poor man would have a stroke, she’d rushed in and tried to intervene. Jeremy turned on her, shoving her hard into a bank of cabinets before storming out the door. Leaving her to—As her fingers drifted to her lower abdomen, she fought back the darkest memories.
The phone rang again, the call coming this time from an unknown number, likely from some burner phone he’d picked up. She let it go to voice mail, telling herself that Jeremy had no idea that she was working hours from her home in Austin for the summer. Otherwise, he wouldn’t bother with these pathetic phone calls.
“Well, we have better things to do than listen. Right, River?” Emma half hoped that her ex might be tanked enough to leave a message that would result in actual jail time. Though he might’ve talked a good game in the courtroom, tearfully apologizing for “my part in what happened”—as if she were equally to blame—and vowing to attend court-ordered counseling, Emma trusted these raw glimpses of his unguarded anger far more than she would ever believe his rehearsed performances.
When the same caller tried again, she blocked the number. Afterward, she switched off her phone’s ringer just in case before stroking the dog’s broad golden head and whispering, “It’s over now.”
Still agitated, she spun her wheels before they suddenly caught. As the Jeep lurched forward, she fought to shake off her lingering dread. But she scarcely registered the cattle she passed, the grazing animals’ hides a rich red brown against the wispy, sunburned grasses. Scarcely noticed the silhouettes of dozens of wind turbines rising above the coastal hills.
Slowing for her turn, she made a right, only to hear the rhythmic thump of River’s fringed tail against the seat back and the sound of her excited panting.
“That’s right, girl. We’re almost there,” said Emma. “And I’ll bet your friend Russell will throw your squeaky duck a few times.”
At the mention of her beloved toy, River barked.
Laughing at the dog’s excitement, Emma felt a little of the tightness in her rib cage loosen. As late as she was to meet her grad assistant, Russell Jorgenson, who was as passionate as she was about reducing the blade strikes that had killed so many hawks and eagles, she knew he’d be eager for a game of fetch. Anything to put off donning safety harnesses and helmets and undertaking the long, steep climb up the interior steel ladder leading to the top of Turbine Number 43, an ascent that safety regulations forbade either one of them from making solo.
Don’t kid yourself. His willingness wasn’t about delaying the inevitable—or the chance to play with her dog, either.
Her assistant for this summer project, a confident twenty-four-year-old with a winning smile, had made it increasingly clear that he was interested in her, despite the fact that she was nine years older. Emma had done her best to nip it in the bud, telling him in no uncertain terms that she didn’t get involved with students—or anyone she worked with—as soon as she had realized that his attention was more than academic.
To her surprise, he’d only grinned. Then how do you expect to ever meet somebody new?
She’d shut him down with a cool look, but her instincts, along with his puppylike attentiveness to her every word and action, warned her that he hadn’t given up. And part of her—a part she hated—couldn’t help worrying that word of her student’s hopeless crush would somehow get back to Jeremy, who seemed to consider their divorce, like the no-contact order, a mere technicality.
Slowing, she pulled under a gate marked, like practically every pasture in the area, with the name and famous running-K brand of the historic Kingston Ranch. As her wheels bumped over the metal grid of the cattle guard, she vowed to leave behind all thoughts of her ex-husband, along with the lingering fears that hearing his voice had managed to re-trigger.
Filled with fresh determination, she entered the enormous spread, which leased land to Green Horizon Energy for its wind turbines. At Number 43, she pulled up beside her grad assistant’s old blue pickup. Though she’d texted earlier to let Russell know that she was on her way, he wasn’t waiting for her behind the wheel as she’d expected. Nor did she see him sitting on the tailgate or near the massive turbine’s base. Had he tired of waiting and taken a short walk?
She felt a nervous flutter—tiny birds’ wings in her stomach. Exiting her vehicle, she called out his name. The ever-present wind off the Gulf of Mexico, about a dozen miles to the east, snatched the word from her mouth and carried it away. Her hair, too, was blown around, light sandy-colored wisps flapping flag-like in her face.
What she didn’t hear was any answer, though more than three hundred feet above, the normal hum of the turbine remained silent, the stillness of its blades proof that the strike deterrent system remained offline.
She opened the Jeep’s rear door and let out River.
“Find Russell. Go and find him!” Emma pitched her voice high, making it sound like the world’s most exciting game.
The young dog leaped and play-bowed in her direction, not catching on until Emma pulled out the day pack containing the beloved duck and repeated the command.
With a deep chuff of joy, the retriever bounded off, running in widening circles. Meanwhile, Emma grabbed her phone and tried another text.
&nbs
p; I’m at your truck. Where are you?
The hummingbirds’ wings returned, beating even harder with every passing minute that the text message went unanswered. She thought again of Jeremy’s call, his enduring obsession with the delusion that she was sleeping with someone. How could she even be sure that he was still in Waco? What if he had found her, had tracked her to this location and transferred his rage to—
“Stop it,” she told herself. Surely Russell would walk up any second to show her a falcon’s feather he’d found or tell her about an armadillo or a family of piglike javelina he’d spotted on his walk.
Holding the image in her mind, she went to his pickup and opened the unlocked driver’s side door. Reaching over, she grabbed his unzipped backpack from the passenger seat, where she spotted a familiar compact tool kit and sighed in relief. Even if Russell had grown impatient enough to break the rule against climbing up the turbine alone, he never would’ve done so without taking what he needed to attempt repairs.
Uncertain of what else to try, she hit the horn twice—two long blasts that ought to get her assistant’s attention if his cell’s battery had run down. When he still didn’t appear, she closed the truck’s door, listening as the warm wind rushed around the parked vehicles, scouring their paint jobs—and her exposed skin—with abrasive grains of sand and somehow heightening her sense of isolation. Her vulnerability, out here in the open, so far from the things people so often took for granted. Things like witnesses and help.
Something tugged hard at her shoulder. Sucking in a sharp breath, she spun around, heart slamming her sternum, before looking down.
“Darn you, dog! Don’t sneak up on a person like that,” Emma said, realizing that River had returned and grasped the day pack in her strong jaws. Returned alone, and was now backing up, her long tongue lolling and pure duck-lust gleaming in her deep brown eyes.
Knowing she would get no peace until she turned over the squeaky toy, Emma pulled it from the pack and threw it. While River bounded off, Emma tried phoning Russell instead of texting, needing the reassurance of his voice.