Tucker

by Lori Wilde

  “No, ma’am.” Clem shifted his weight and then met her gaze. “I’m afraid it’s more serious than that.”

  What now? Between her overdue property taxes, an astronomical vet bill, and a busted washing machine, finances loomed as bleak as the West Texas landscape.

  Not to mention Ginger’s wedding expenses.

  A heavy strand of honey-colored hair broke free from her ponytail and flopped across her forehead. Irritated, Savannah brushed away the uncooperative lock and rose to her feet.

  “Clem?” she asked. His grim manner alarmed her. “What’s happened?”

  “Fourteen of the Gerts are missing.”

  “What?” The herd of purebred Santa Gertrudis cattle had been Gary’s pride and joy. She furrowed her brow. “Are you sure?”

  Clem winced and nodded. “I figure somebody stole ’em in the wee hours of the morning, Miss Savannah. I’m sorry I didn’t discover it sooner.”

  Savannah blew out her breath through puffed cheeks. No point in panicking yet. “Maybe there’s a break in the fence line, and they’ve wandered out onto the road.”

  Clem shook his gray head. “’Fraid not. Julio and I scouted the whole spread for two hours. Didn’t find a single downed fence, but we found something I think you should see.”

  Savannah whispered a curse. When she’d promised her late husband that she would continue running the ranch as an investment in Cody’s future, she hadn’t realized just how much responsibility she’d be assuming.

  Family, friends, neighbors, nearly everyone she knew advised her to sell out. But she’d signed a prenup that prevented her from selling the ranch. She didn’t tell people about the prenup because it was none of their business. In a town like Rascal, everyone felt like they had a right to snoop in your personal affairs.

  Her relationship with her late husband was complicated. Although she had cared for Gary—he’d been a kind man—their marriage had been one of convenience. Gary gave her stability and a soft place to land after the chaos of her mother’s death to breast cancer. She’d given the Markum ranch a legacy it would otherwise not have had.

  Cody.

  Savannah felt the old guilt swell inside her. She wouldn’t break her vow to keep their secret. She owed Gary that much.

  “Let’s go.” Savannah headed for the door.

  Cody let out a squeal of delight. She turned to see her son gleefully digging in a pot of ivy and shoveling a fistful of dirt into his mouth.

  “Could you catch him, Ginger?”

  “Can’t. I’m still pinned into my wedding dress.” Ginger lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug.

  Savannah sighed. She needed twenty hands and two heads. In two long-legged strides, she crossed the floor and reached down to pull her son onto her hip.

  “Shew.” She gently brushed the dirt from his tongue with her fingers. “Nasty.”

  Cody grinned. The baby looked so much like his father it hurt.

  Conflicting emotions knotted Savannah’s chest. The pain was as sharp now as it had been two years ago when she’d learned she was pregnant, just as her mother lay dying.

  “We’ll be right back,” she told Ginger, then followed Clem outside, Cody still clinging to her neck. She savored the solid feel of her son pressed to her side and smelled his sweet baby scent.

  The elderly ranch hand led her to the battered old work truck and opened the door for Savannah to climb inside. He pumped the starter, coaxed the ailing engine to life, drove a quarter mile down the bumpy, rutted road and braked at the west pasture gate.

  They got out and walked through the high Johnson grass slapping at their shins.

  “Padlock’s been cut.” Clem pointed out the severed lock dangling from the rusty hasp.

  “Don’t touch it,” Savannah said. “Evidence for the sheriff.”

  Clem grunted, tugging the baseball cap’s bill down on his forehead. “There’s more. See those tire tracks?”

  Savannah studied the fresh tracks rutted into the moist earth where it had rained several days earlier. “Yes.”

  “Trailer tracks. Don’t belong to none of our vehicles. Weren’t out here yesterday.”

  “How did the thieves get this far back on the ranch without you or Julio hearing them?” Savannah asked.

  Cody squirmed in her arms, and she shifted him to the other hip.

  Clem shrugged, looked sheepish. “We both had a little too much to drink last night. Slept pretty soundly.”

  Savannah caught her bottom lip between her teeth, gazed at the ten Santa Gertrudis left grazing in the field. Who had stolen her cattle? She hated to think it was someone from Rascal. She thought briefly about calling her nearest neighbor, a former Chicago cop, Keegan Winslow. Keegan had recently married her best friend, Wren, who taught English at Rascal High and ran a small dairy. Keegan would be happy to look around and give her his opinion, but she needed official help.

  “What are you gonna do?” Clem asked.

  “The only thing I can do,” Savannah said. “Call the sheriff.”

  Detective Matthew Forrester guided his brand-spanking-new, government-issue four-wheel-drive Jeep Cherokee down the gravel country road. His heart raced like a Palomino on steroids.

  What in the Sam Hill was wrong with him? He was going to the Circle B to investigate the report of stolen cattle. The fact that Savannah Markum owned the ranch would not affect his objectivity in any way.

  Liar.

  Who was he kidding?

  The idea of seeing her again had him sweating.

  Despite what he’d told himself during the past two years, he hadn’t gotten over her. Not for a day. Not for an hour. Not for one minute. Savannah Prentiss Markum had broken his heart. But he would never, ever let her know that. He refused to give her that much power over him again.

  He turned into the Circle B’s driveway and killed the engine. For a moment, he sat there, hands on the wheel, the air inside the Jeep growing heated, heavy. Even taking a breath required his complete concentration.

  Be cool as granite. You’re a professional, he coached himself. Not some head-over-heels kid.

  Grabbing his notebook, Matt unlatched his seatbelt and slid out of the vehicle. “Geronimo,” he mumbled and started up the front steps.

  At the front door, he paused, fist poised to knock, when he saw the baby.

  The toddler stood knee-high, his face pressed against the screen door. He looked up at Matt and grinned a big, toothless grin. Jolting pain stronger than any electrical current lambasted Matt’s heart.

  Savannah’s kid.

  Gary Markum’s kid.

  The baby that should have been his.

  Staggered, Matt took a step backward. He knew that she’d had a baby, but he hadn’t expected to react like this. The local gossips had made it their duty to keep him abreast of Savannah’s doings. Someone had informed him when her mother had finally lost her battle with breast cancer and when Markum had also died of cancer the following year.

  But even to himself, Matt refused to admit that Savannah’s widow status had persuaded him to come back to Rascal. He’d returned because Patrick Langley had offered him a job as a detective for Presidio County and for no other reason.

  Well, that and Rascal was home.

  The baby wriggled with excitement, then promptly fell onto his diapered bottom.

  “Cody?” Savannah’s voice wafted through the screen door, freezing Matt to the front porch. He wasn’t ready for this—seeing her up close and personal for the first time in two years.

  “What are you doing, Cody Coo?” She stepped to the foyer, bent down to retrieve her child, and stopped in mid-motion. Straightening, she turned her head to meet his stare.

  Time hung suspended.

  The past and future did not exist.

  Only the present.

  Savannah was even more beautiful than he remembered. Her hair, the color of light brown sugar frosted with streaks of honey, feathered back from her oval face in attractive layers. Her hazel eye
s, a tantalizing shade of golden green, rounded in surprise.

  She wore cutoff blue jeans, a white sleeveless blouse, and flip-flops. Her once skinny figure had blossomed with childbearing, spreading out into delightful curves. Her wonderful vanilla scent floated through the mesh wire of the screen door and enveloped him in a glove of warm, soft memories. She smelled just the same. Like Christmas cookies and ice cream.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked at last. The sound of her rich, coffee-and-cream voice rocked his very soul. She seemed so cool, so calm, so detached.

  It hurt, that detachment. His throat narrowed, and he feared he couldn’t speak. Matt fixed his gaze on her long, slender arms.

  Scooping up the baby, she cradled him to her as if using her child as a buffer between them.

  “Sheriff Langley sent me,” he explained. “I’m the new investigator for Presidio County.”

  Savannah hesitated only a second before reaching over and unlatching the screen door. “Won’t you come in?”

  Goodness gracious, Savannah thought, struggling valiantly to keep her face from reflecting her feelings. She had no idea Matt Forrester was back in town and working for the sheriff’s department.

  She felt dizzy, breathless. The man still held the astounding ability to affect her unlike anyone else on earth.

  He crossed the threshold just inches from her.

  Savannah stepped back and cradled her free arm against her body because she longed to reach out and touch him, to run her fingers over his tanned skin, to convince herself that he was real. But she’d willingly relinquished any proprietary hold on him long ago.

  They stood in silence, each of them warily assessing the other.

  Matt’s shoulders had broadened, Savannah noted. His jaw had hardened, too, giving him an authoritative air. Tiny lines etched his forehead, and his eyes held a suspicious glint. He’d definitely changed, grown tougher, more rugged. He had a different aura about him—calculated, controlled, contained—less like TNT, more like cyanide.

  The thought jarred her.

  He wore snakeskin cowboy boots, a casual-cut gray sports jacket over an aqua Western-style shirt. Matt had always looked good in that color. It complemented his jet-black hair and straight, white teeth.

  She caught herself studying his mouth and quickly jerked her gaze away. Helplessly, she remembered his passionate yet gentle kisses, the gruff sounds of his throaty laughter, the security of his sheltering arms.

  But this Matt differed from the man of her memory. She sensed kissing this Matt would not be the same. Time and circumstance had altered them both.

  “Tell me about your missing cattle,” he said businesslike, as if they shared no collective memories.

  Does he have any lingering feelings for me at all? Savannah wondered, then immediately squelched the thought. It didn’t matter. Yesterday was gone forever.

  “We believe someone stole them.”

  Cody reached for a strand of her hair and stuck it into his mouth. She disentangled herself from her baby’s soggy grasp.

  “Is this your son?” His tone was even.

  Fear fluttered in her heart. “Yes. His name is Cody.”

  Cody was Matt’s middle name. Did a fleeting glimpse of agony flash through Matt’s eyes, or was it her imagination? If only she hadn’t—well, she had, hadn’t she—no point rehashing a past she could not change.

  Matt cleared his throat. “Handsome boy. He takes after you.”

  She ducked her head, embarrassed. “Thanks.”

  Ginger trotted into the living room, swatches of fabric in her hand. “Vannah, should I go with the rose or mauve for the tablecloths?” She stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh,” she exclaimed, looking from Savannah to Matt and back again. “Oh.”

  “Hello, Ginger. Nice to see you,” Matt greeted her politely.

  Ginger lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “Um… hi.”

  “Matt’s here to investigate the stolen cattle,” Savannah explained. “He’s working for the sheriff’s department now.”

  “Well, I hope you catch whoever did it,” Ginger blurted. “Losing those Santa Gertrudis could send Savannah into bankruptcy.”

  She shot her sister a dirty look. Too often Ginger spoke before she thought. The last thing Savannah wanted was for Matt Forrester to know about her dire financial straits. She couldn’t bear his pity.

  Matt pursed his lips in a pensive expression but said nothing.

  “Here, watch Cody.” Savannah handed the baby to her sister.

  Ginger dropped her swatches on the coffee table and accepted her nephew.

  “Come on.” Savannah waved at Matt. “Let me show you the west pasture.”

  Matt followed her though the farmhouse and out the back door. His eyes locked on her swaying backside. Sharp shards of pure sexual need jabbed his gut. Would he ever stop desiring this woman? And why did he still want her after the hell she’d put him through?

  She stopped and turned to face him. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the mesquite trees, highlighting her classic features in a rosy glow. He tried desperately to ignore the arousal growing inside him.

  “Let’s take my Jeep,” he said.

  They got inside, and Matt maneuvered the vehicle across the pasture. He noticed she gripped the hand strap with her right arm, her muscles tense.

  “Just follow the path,” she directed. “Turn right at the fork.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Savannah lean forward, holding herself stiffly as if relaxing against the seat might make her more vulnerable somehow. She stared straight ahead.

  He remembered a time when she would have plastered herself against his side, her arm tucked through his as they drove, her head nestled on his shoulder while her sly little tongue snaked out to burn hot licks and kisses along his neck.

  Matt shivered at the thought.

  Other memories rushed through his mind—the possessive thirst they’d had for each other, the desperate need to be together, all ruined by Savannah’s fickleness. He’d been unable to assuage her fears. Unable to prove his loyalty to her no matter how hard he’d tried. She’d been so certain he would leave her, that she’d shut the door on their love before it ever really flourished.

  And then that fateful night, when he finally told her he loved her, and she’d told him that she did not love him back.

  Matt winced. Unrequited love was the pits.

  Lord knows he’d tried to talk to her, to ask if they could at least remain friends while he held on to the hope that she could come to love him the way he loved her. But she’d told him a clean break was best. Then she’d stopped taking his calls and returning his texts. After a while, he stopped trying. She’d been clear enough. And a man had his pride.

  If she didn’t want him, she didn’t want him.

  That’s all there was to it.

  The next thing he knew, she’d married Gary Markum, and that had killed the last of his hopes.

  The old pain crested in his heart—sharp, raw, as fresh as yesterday. God, he thought he’d put all that behind him. Thought he could handle coming home to Rascal. Thought he could handle seeing her again.

  He’d miscalculated her power over him. Even now, two years later.

  Matt gripped the steering wheel and peered through the windshield at the narrow pasture road. He shouldn’t keep torturing himself like this. The past was over. His purpose for being here had nothing to do with Savannah and everything to do with the recent rash of cattle thefts in Presidio County.

  Concentrate, Forrester, he chided himself. You’ve got a job to tend.

  He could ignore Savannah's cool vanilla scent and those firm, tanned legs stretched long across the floorboard. He could overlook the husky tones of her deep velvet voice. Deny the smoky fires she kindled inside him. Or, if he had to think about her, he would remember the misery she’d caused him.

  They jostled over a bump in the road, and Matt felt the Jeep’s throbbing vibration clean through the seat.

&
nbsp; “Stop here,” she said.

  Relieved, Matt trod on the brakes. He wasted no time bailing out of the vehicle then shook his head to dispel his disturbing thoughts. He walked to the gate. Instinct and training kicked in. Matt squatted, and scanned the site.

  A damaged lock. Rutted tire marks. Heavy vehicle, trailer probably. A jumble of cattle hoofprints.

  Something red caught his eye. A plastic cocktail straw chewed up on the end. He sighed and ran a hand across his stubbled jaw. Bagged and tagged the straw in case it meant anything.

  “I need a detailed description of the cattle,” he said.

  Savannah crossed her arms over her chest, tipped her head back, and looked down her nose at him as she described the cattle.

  “Were they branded?”

  “Of course.” She pointed at the ten remaining Gerts clustered along the fence row. “A circle with a backward B.”

  “How much were they worth?”

  “Three grand apiece. Six for the bull.”

  Matt nodded. “That’s felony larceny, and since they broke the padlock and came at night, we might add a burglary charge. Carries a stiffer sentence.” He got to his feet and dusted his fingertips together. “I want to interview your ranch hands. Who are they?”

  “I’ve only got two left—Clem Olson and Julio Diaz.”

  “I don’t know this Julio fellow. Is he new in town?”

  “Hired him about three months ago.”

  “What kind of references does he have?”

  She lifted her shoulders in a defensive gesture. “He showed up willing to work for what I could pay.”

  Matt stared at her, incredulous. “You didn’t check his references?”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t have the luxury of being choosy. He’s the only one who applied for the job.”

  “How do you know he’s not an illegal alien?” Matt chided, disturbed by her glib trust in a total stranger.

  “I don’t.”

  “You’d be breaking the law, Savannah.”

  “He showed me a social security card.”

  “They can be faked.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Are you going to arrest me, Matt?”