Deadly Texas Summer

by Colleen Thompson

  “All right, then. Thanks,” Emma said as a petite blonde nurse whose pink scrubs were stretched over her midsection arrived with discharge papers.

  Giving Beau a speculative look, she asked, “You’re her ride?”

  “Sure, I could be.” Beau looked to Emma for confirmation. “Let me drive you over to check on your Jeep and collect River. Then we’ll figure out where to go from there.”

  “Wherever it is, I won’t be driving.” She gestured toward her lower right leg. “I’m still so sore, there’s no way I could manage. I doubt I could even tolerate the ride back to Austin.”

  The nurse ran through the doctor’s orders, which included a schedule for Emma’s medications, the elevation of her injured leg and instructions to return if signs of infection appeared. Once she’d finished, she said, “I have the wheelchair in the hallway for your discharge, but it might be a little while before I can round up an orderly to push it.” Her face colored as she laid a hand on what was certainly a baby bump. “Right now, I’m afraid, I’m restricted from lifting or pushing anything heavier than—”

  “Don’t trouble yourself about it,” Beau said. “I’ll push the wheelchair.”

  “And congratulations to you,” Emma added.

  “Thank you.” The nurse flushed, and her nose crinkled. “My husband and I are so excited. We just found out that it’s a little girl.”

  “H-how wonderful for you.”

  As Emma turned away to pick up the bag she’d packed, Beau caught the sadness flickering across her features. Maybe once she had dreamed, too, of a loving marriage and a future that included motherhood. A future that had given way to a present filled with pain and fear...and loneliness, he suspected, for other than her students and employers, whom did she have in her life? The friends she’d mentioned, sure, but no one who’d appeared this past hellish week to help her.

  But isolation could be a choice, he knew. After the rollover in Colorado, his grief, guilt and self-loathing had gradually driven away everyone, from his partners in the firm he and two marine corps buddies had started, which offered private security in an upscale ski resort town, to Melissa’s sisters, who had put their own grief and their lives on hold to tend to his boys until Beau was well enough to leave with them for Texas. It had taken far longer, and an extremely tough talk from Aunt Alicia about what his behavior was doing to his sons, before he’d taken his first tentative steps toward normalcy...

  Or at least to faking it, as best he could, one day at a time.

  With this in mind, he loaded Emma’s few items in the rear seat of his truck at the passenger pickup area a few minutes later.

  “Do you want to sit back here and try to prop your leg up?” he offered, thinking he could move the booster seats.

  “Thanks, but I should be fine up front.” She smiled and gave a small shrug. “That pain pill they gave me right before you came in is pretty good stuff.”

  “I thought you were starting to droop a little.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she insisted, but he couldn’t help noticing, once they both were situated in the front seat, how she hid a yawn behind her hand.

  He left the hospital’s loading area and pulled into a nearby parking lot. “Why don’t we skip the shop, and I’ll just have one of my guys pick up your Jeep for you?”

  “That would be great,” she said. “They can drop it by the motel and leave the keys for me at the front desk.”

  “You’re sure that’s a good idea? Going back to the same spot where you’ve been staying all along?”

  “It’s the only dog-friendly place in town.”

  Beau shook his head, mentally reviewing the aging structure, a one-story horseshoe-shaped bank of connected rooms. “I don’t like it. Exterior entrances and exits, impossible to secure, and worst of all, whoever’s out to harm you will be able to track you down in no time flat.”

  “River’ll sound the alarm if there’s a problem,” she ventured.

  “I remember she barked at Wallace, but we both know that dog’s more likely to lick a man to death than bite him. You need to hightail it back to Austin instead of tempting fate again.”

  “So I’ve been told, repeatedly, by many people. Some of them even using the same words.” Brittle as glass, her voice was sharp with anger. “They keep saying I need to leave immediately. Forget Russell and the study. Forget everything and go back to what’s left of my life. Well, maybe I don’t want the life they’re offering. Maybe I don’t want to tuck my tail and turn my back on murder.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, certain he had to be missing something. What the hell had he said to set her off like this? “You can tell me.”

  “Can I? Because you’re doing it again. Ordering me to behave myself and leave town—”

  “Nobody’s ordering you to do anyth—”

  “Next thing I know you’ll be saying it’s for my own ‘mental and physical health and safety,’ just like the others did.”

  Shaking his head, he put the truck into Park and looked at her. “You’re not making sense. What others? I can’t help you, Emma, if you don’t help me understand.”

  She shook her head. “Mrs. Reddy, with the university, for starters.” Her hands clenched, she told Beau about a call regarding the cancellation of another research project, followed by a demand that she return to teaching for her own “mental and physical health and safety.”

  Nothing about that seemed particularly odd to Beau, until she explained how the sheriff had, only hours later, tried to convince her to leave town using those exact words.

  “I get it now,” Beau said, “why you went to the Texas Rangers. But that doesn’t mean I want them to end up coming to look into your death.” The thought of sitting through a memorial service with Emma’s photo on a placard hit him like a gut punch. He couldn’t let it happen. Couldn’t let her take the risk.

  “I don’t want that, either,” she said. “But do you know what else I don’t want? To be intimidated any longer by a man telling me if I do this or don’t do that, or don’t keep my mouth shut about what he’s done already, he’s going to make me pay. Because I’ve already paid—and dearly—and poor Russell... I’m afraid he’s paid a price on my behalf, too.”

  “So what do you intend to do then?” Beau asked.

  “To find the truth and see whoever’s behind this brought to justice. And to prove to my ex-husband that I’m through living in fear of his intimidation. Even with only one good leg under me, I’m more than strong enough to stand my ground.”

  “And probably to kick his ass, too, if guts were all it took,” Beau said, wondering if he’d ever met a braver, more determined woman. But as much as her attitude impressed him, he also wondered how much of it was a facade covering the cracks in her foundation. “You’ve already proven to me—to anyone with eyes to see—that you’re no shrinking violet. But during my years with the marines, I saw a lot of tough guys learn even tougher lessons. One of them was that all the bluster in the world won’t stop a blade or bullet.”

  She frowned, her forehead creasing. “So I’ll start checking around after we get River, try to find another place where we can stay. Maybe on one of these online vacation rental websites, where people rent out little guest houses or rooms in their own homes.”

  Beau was familiar with the concept, which was popular in the mountain town where he and his wife had lived in Colorado. “This isn’t exactly vacation country, so I doubt you’d find much like that close by.”

  “I’ll check the web anyway, and ask the manager at the motel if she has any better ideas. Nadine’s been so helpful, especially since Russell...”

  “I can almost guarantee you Nadine’ll have some good ideas.” Back in their school days, she’d always been the type to walk a kid with a stomachache to the nurse or whisper a quiet word to the teacher if she noticed a classmate was coming to schoo
l without lunch, and he knew she’d been involved for years in raising funds to support the community food bank and purchase school supplies for foster kids. Beau felt certain she’d step up and make sure Emma found a safe place, where no one would ever find her.

  Which meant she would no longer be his problem, or his responsibility...

  No matter how the pressure in his chest tried to tell him otherwise.

  * * *

  As they headed toward the ranch to collect River, Emma couldn’t help but notice how quiet Beau had fallen, his profile seemingly carved of granite, the hands that gripped the wheel chiseled out of some even more unyielding stone.

  Distancing himself from the mistakes he’s sure I’m making. Or maybe he was simmering beneath the surface, angry that he couldn’t control her. Why should he be different from every other man on earth?

  If she’d come to feel anything else toward him, from the warmth that had blossomed in her cheeks when the older woman who’d delivered the yellow roses had peeked at the tag and said, “From Mr. Kingston himself—you lucky girl!” To the fresh fizz of pleasure that had caught her unaware when he’d reappeared this afternoon, Emma needed to remember that it wasn’t safe to trust him. No matter how many kindnesses he offered, she’d be a fool to drop her guard. Instead, she told herself that any man who’d spent the time and, with the repair of her Jeep, money that he had on her had to have his motives. Motives he hadn’t seen fit to explain.

  As the miles passed, however, she found herself relaxing in his silent presence. She watched puffy white clouds blossom in an otherwise blue sky until her worries drifted away.

  Sometime later, she woke to the bumping of the truck’s tires over the cattle guard.

  “Sorry about the jostling,” Beau said. “Having a nice sleep?”

  “Mmm.” She rubbed her neck, kinked from the way she had been leaning. “I’m afraid that pain pill had a little more kick to it than I expected. But at least the leg’s not hurting.”

  She felt oddly disconnected from her body. Except for the weight of her eyelids, which she could scarcely keep open.

  Glancing over at her, Beau frowned. “If I’d been halfway thinking earlier, I would’ve taken you straight to Nadine’s so you could put your leg up. I could’ve brought River to you instead of dragging you all the way out here. You’re obviously in no condition to—”

  “It’s fine,” Emma said, raising one anchor-heavy hand to rub her eyes. “Just a little...”

  The world dimmed once again, until she awakened to a dream. It had to be a dream, with Beau standing outside the passenger door of the parked pickup, opening it and smiling at her.

  “We’re here,” he said, offering his hand. “My home.”

  Except this couldn’t be his home. Or any house at all. In Emma’s sleep-hazed vision, the massive, two-story structure, with its gleaming white stucco walls, its flat red-tile roof and the high castle-like crenellations, looked like a spa for billionaires or an exclusive boutique hotel somewhere on the Mediterranean. She squinted in the light, struggling to take it all in, from the lush plantings, an oasis of graceful palms, tropical flowers and citrus trees, to the fountains—she counted three—along the front to the red steps leading up beneath an arch-covered portico several times her height. Beside that doorway hung a placard, engraved with the ranch’s distinctive running-K brand and a year more than a century in the past.

  “This is where you grew up?”

  “Not exactly,” he admitted. “But it’s the place I’m calling home now, with my sons and my aunt Alicia.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, thinking that she’d known, at least on some level, that the Kingston name meant wealth. But wealth on this scale, with this kind of history behind it, was more than she’d ever imagined.

  “My great-grandfather built this place after the original homestead burned down.” Beau handed her her crutches and then retrieved her bags and the flowers from the rear seat. “It was used mostly to entertain dignitaries, and later for family gatherings before most of the relations sold their stakes. My father decided to move in after he inherited. He believed that whoever headed the ranch should always be in residence.”

  “You didn’t live with him?”

  “After my mother passed away when I was little, my father thought—he thought I’d be better off living in one of the property’s smaller residences with my widowed aunt.”

  “Was he right?” she blurted before she could stop herself, prompted by the shadow she saw pass over his face. A flush of heat had her shaking her head. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business. I must still be half-asleep, to pry into your—”

  From somewhere nearby, she heard barking. A familiar, joyful sound that echoed along the portico, followed by the scrabbling of toenails against tile.

  “River!” she cried as her dog raced down the brick staircase and ran to her, wagging, crying and rolling over to paw the air as Emma squatted awkwardly to greet her. “Where did you come from, girl?”

  Emma hadn’t long to wonder, as the two small dark-haired boys she’d seen with Beau at the memorial service came tearing outside, both in shorts and T-shirts, frantically calling after her dog. At the sight of their father, the taller, freckled boy stopped short and grabbed his little brother’s hand to explain.

  “I didn’t mean to let her out. I promise! She heard a noise and got excited, and when I went to check the door, she pushed right past me and went flying.”

  “We tried to catch her so she wouldn’t get lost,” the little one piped up, giving Emma a glimpse of a missing front top tooth. “But she was too fast.”

  “It’s fine, boys. She’s right here,” their father reassured them as River wriggled insistently nearby, angling for a belly rub. “And it doesn’t look as if she’s going anywhere.”

  “She must’ve heard my voice.” Emma gave the dog another pat before using the crutches to lever back to her feet. “I’m just glad I had such responsible young men looking after her.”

  “Did you know she likes marshmallows?” asked the smaller boy, looking so serious that Emma had to bite back a laugh. “The little ones. Aunt ’Licia told me not to, but I sneaked her two of mine.”

  “It was three. I saw you!” his older brother insisted.

  “The marshmallow fiend’s Leland,” Beau said. “And the marshmallow transgression authority is my big guy, Cort.”

  Emma couldn’t help but smile. Did he have any concept of how adorable the three of them were together?

  “I’m going into third grade,” Cort boasted.

  “And Aunt Alicia says he’s out to read a whole book for every freckle,” Leland told her.

  “Two books, and chapter books, too. I’m not any little first-grade baby.”

  When Leland opened his mouth to argue, Beau said, “That’s enough of that, you two. How about you carry inside Miss Emma’s flowers, Leland, and Cort can open that door like a young gentleman.”

  As the boys squabbled over which was the more prestigious task, Emma told Beau, “I really didn’t come to visit, just to get my dog.”

  His brilliant smile showcased a set of dimples that she hadn’t noticed. The same dimples evident in both of his sons. “Are you trying to get me horsewhipped, Dr. Copley?”

  “It’s Emma, please,” she reminded him, wanting to look over those photos before she could be charmed into forgetting her vow to remain cautious when it came to this man, “and I don’t know what you mean by—”

  “Because if I don’t bring you in and introduce you to my aunt, you have no idea the tongue-lashing I’m in for.”

  “Really, Beau,” scolded a petite blonde older woman Emma hadn’t heard approaching. She wore an ivory linen pantsuit perfectly complemented by her coral-colored lips and nails. “You’ll have our guest believing I’m a dreadful shrew. I’m Alicia Kingston Parker, dear. Welcome to the ranch. A
nd please don’t judge us by my nephew’s latest project here.”

  Shifting her cane, the woman nodded toward the leggy, flop-eared pup who was now play-bowing before River in an attempt to entice the retriever into a game of chase.

  Emma accepted the woman’s right hand gently, mindful of the swollen knuckles. “Thank you so much,” she said. “I’m—”

  “This is Dr. Emma Copley, Aunt Alicia,” Beau said before nodding toward the young dog. “And that hot mess is Maverick.”

  Annoyed when River ignored his antics, Maverick boomed a thunderous woof that echoed beneath the archway.

  “Let me take him out to his run,” Beau said, “before he deafens us all and knocks you off your crutches.”

  Snagging the young dog by the collar, Beau enlisted his sons’ help to lead Maverick around the side of the house.

  Left alone with Mrs. Parker, Emma repeated her request to be called by her first name before adding, “And thank you for allowing River to spend a few days in your lovely home. I’d heard that it was something special, but words don’t do it justice.”

  “River has been a first-class guest,” the older woman said. “But let’s not keep you on your feet in this heat. Come in, where you can sit and rest your poor leg. Beau told me about your unfortunate encounter with the snake.”

  Emma wondered if he’d shared anything about her run-in with the man behind the wheel of the truck, or if he’d kept that detail to himself to avoid frightening the older woman. Either way, there was no way to politely avoid Mrs. Parker’s invitation to come inside the entryway, an airy space whose tall white walls were lined with large paintings featuring beefy red-brown bulls, a sleek, dark racehorse garlanded in roses and numerous framed photos. Many were black-and-white prints of what Emma took to be Kingston ancestors standing with various well-dressed men and women, including one she recognized as a former US president.