Homicide at Whiskey Gulch

by Elle James

  Lily dug her heels in, bringing them to a halt. “Patches.”

  Trace frowned. “Patches?”

  “The mama cat who lives in the barn. She’s due to have kittens anytime. I came out here to check on her.”

  “She’ll know what to do when the time comes. Let’s get you inside and take care of your wound.” Again, he tried to guide her to the door.

  She pulled free of his grip. “You can go ahead. I’m not going until I know where she is. If she’s hidden in the loft, we could trap her in when we stack the hay.” Lily strode toward the stairs leading up into the loft.

  “Wait.” Trace caught her around the waist as she started up the stairs and swung her back to the ground. “If anyone is going up, it’s me.”

  She tipped her head. “If you go up, that leaves me alone on the ground.”

  His lips twisted. “You’ve got a point. Okay. I’ll go up first in case your attacker is hiding up there. You come right after me.”

  Lily didn’t like the idea that the attacker might still be in the barn, waiting for one of them to climb up into the loft. Nor did she like the idea that Trace was going up first and could be coldcocked like she’d been. However, he was bigger, better trained in combat skills and pretty darn intimidating.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Trace grabbed a riding whip from a hook on the wall and started up the stairs.

  The bulb hanging from the ceiling gave just enough light for them to see the loft, except in the far corners where several stacks of last year’s hay stood, three bales high.

  Trace edged his way across the wooden floor to a stack of hay, holding the riding whip in front of him. “Remind me to start carrying my Glock.”

  “Start carrying your Glock,” Lily whispered.

  He snorted. “Remind me when I’m still in the house.” Slowly, he circled the short stack of hay until he stood to the side and could see behind it. The shadow hid anything below the top bale.

  Lily pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket, turned on the flashlight feature and shined it down the back of the bales.

  The light reflected off a pair of red orbs.

  “Patches!” Lily brushed past Trace and knelt beside the gray-and-white cat.

  The mama cat had given birth to five kittens in varying shades of gray, white and wheat gold.

  “Look at you,” Lily cooed. “Five pretty babies and you found a nice warm and dry place to have them.” She studied the kittens, all tiny creatures, their eyes closed, struggling to find purchase at one of their mother’s teats.

  “We need to move her before we stack the hay in here,” Lily said.

  “If we move her, she could move them back,” Trace argued. “She probably had them here because she felt safe.”

  “True.” Lily touched a finger to her chin and looked around the loft and over the railing to the barn below. “Where would she be safe and not feel like she had to move them again?”

  “I don’t know. But let’s leave them here for now. We probably won’t stack hay for a couple of days. We’ll cut tomorrow, let it dry and then rake and bale. When we get close to hauling the hay, we can relocate her to the tack room until we’re finished.”

  Lily nodded. “That would be best.” She smiled down at the tiny kittens crawling across Patches’s belly instinctively looking for something to eat.

  When she pushed to her feet, she swayed a little.

  Trace reached out and pulled her into his arms. “I shouldn’t have let you come up here when you’ve had a head injury.” He brushed her hair away from her temple and stared at the wound. “Let’s get you back to the house.”

  “Yes. I’m worried about your mother. She was sitting alone on the porch.”

  “She was going in for the night when I stepped out of the house.” He walked her to the stairs leading downward. “Need help getting down?”

  Lily shook her head. “No. I got up on my own. I can get down on my own.”

  His lips quirked. “Always were independent.”

  She tipped her chin upward. “You used to like that about me.”

  His gaze shifted from her eyes to her lips. “There were a lot of things I liked about you.”

  Lily’s heart beat a rapid tattoo against her ribs.

  Trace stood so close, she could reach out and touch him. If she stood on her toes, she could press her lips to his and kiss him. Lily swayed toward him, caught herself up before she lost her mind and lurched toward the stairs.

  Trace took her wrist and pulled her back. “Me first.”

  Lily held back, letting him descend to the ground, giving her a little more time to pull herself together. Had he felt that tug of desire, that longing for more than just words? He’d kissed her earlier that day. Had it meant anything to him?

  It meant something to her. It meant all those years of trying to forget him had been a waste of time. Trace had been and always would be the only man she would ever love. When the time came, she’d have to leave. She couldn’t stay around to see him fall in love and marry another woman. That would wreck her, shatter her into a million pieces.

  She couldn’t let that happen. If it meant leaving Whiskey Gulch Ranch and her hometown, so be it.

  Chapter Seven

  After the sheriff’s deputy had come to investigate the attack in the barn, looked around and taken Lily’s statement, Trace went around the house, checking windows and doors to make sure all had been securely locked.

  His mother had doctored the wound on Lily’s face.

  Irish, having been trained as one of the medics on the Delta Force team, had checked Lily’s pupils for possibility of concussion.

  When he’d suggested she see a doctor, Lily had promptly refused, claiming she hadn’t been knocked unconscious and she was feeling much better. Irish then offered to check on her throughout the night to make sure she didn’t show any signs of complications. Again, Lily had thanked him but politely refused.

  Trace spent the night tossing and turning. Sleep eluded him. Worried about Lily, he’d listened for sounds through the wall between their rooms. At one point, he’d left his bed, tiptoed out into the hallway and tried the door to her room.

  It had been unlocked. Feeling a little guilty, he’d stepped inside and checked to make sure she was breathing. For a few long moments, he’d stood beside her bed until he saw the reassuring rise and fall of her chest beneath the sheets. Relieved, he’d wanted more than anything to kiss Lily and hold her like he had when they were younger.

  Unfortunately, they were no longer hormonal teens. They had matured into adults and gone their separate ways. Only now those ways had converged.

  When he’d left his unit, he hadn’t thought far enough ahead of getting home to know where his future would lead. Now that he was back on the Whiskey Gulch Ranch, he couldn’t imagine going back to his unit and leaving his mother with only the help of their foreman and Lily to manage the ranch on their own.

  If his mother planned to stay, he’d have to stay as well. If she wanted to sell the ranch, he couldn’t stop her. As far as he knew, she would inherit his father’s ranch and had the authority to do whatever she wanted with it.

  As he worked in the barn, in the fields and around the house, he remembered growing up with the world at his feet. His father had demanded that he work hard, but he always had chances to play hard as well.

  Many summer afternoons, he’d ridden horses with his friends across the pastures to the creek, where they would swim and lie in the sun until dusk.

  Lily had been with him on many of those occasions. That was how he’d started to fall in love with her in the first place. She’d been his friend before she’d been his lover. She’d been his first love. They’d picnicked by the creek, chased squirrels and lain in the back of his truck to witness the shooting stars in a heaven full of diamonds. The most beautifu
l stars were those reflected in Lily’s eyes.

  He’d been so in love with her that when she’d broken up with him, it had hit him like a physical blow. He had not seen it coming.

  Now that he was back, and she was underfoot, he couldn’t avoid her or the feelings that had resurfaced after all these years.

  Rather than disturb her sleep, he’d left her room, returned to his and lain on top of the covers, willing sleep to take him.

  It hadn’t.

  Unwilling to wait for morning to dawn, he’d left his bed, dressed and gone out to the barn as the sun edged up over the horizon.

  “You’re up early,” a voice called out to him from the open door of the barn. Irish stood in the sunshine, wearing a clean gray T-shirt and jeans. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “No.” He stacked a saddle on a saddle tree, adjusting the stirrups to hang free on either side.

  He’d spent the morning cleaning and rearranging the tack room. With Roy out of commission for the time being, he could get in, assess and decide what needed to stay and what could go. Roy had a tendency to hoard everything, even long after its expiration date or usefulness. Trace made a list of supplies he needed, from horse feed to wormer, fence nails to new curry combs and brushes.

  “Worried about your father’s will?” Irish grabbed a broom and swept dust and straw out of the far corner of the tack room.

  Trace hadn’t really thought about his father’s will. He’d been too busy thinking about Lily and how much he’d wanted to kiss her. Now that Irish had reminded him of the will, he might actually shift his obsession from her to whatever his father had done with his holdings. “My father owned the ranch. He and my mother have every right to do with it whatever they want.”

  Irish’s brow rose. “You don’t want a part of it?”

  “Not if they don’t want me to have it,” Trace said.

  “Would be a shame for it to go out of the family.”

  “Ranching is hard work,” Trace said. “My father and his father before him built this place to what it is today with their own sweat and blood.”

  Irish snorted. “And you didn’t help them in their efforts?”

  “Not as much as my father would have liked.” His father had always found fault with his work, no matter how much effort he put into it.

  “He wanted you to stay and run it, didn’t he?” Irish guessed.

  Trace didn’t respond.

  “This place is amazing.” Irish waved a hand around the interior of the barn. “Why would you want to join the army and barely make a living when you had all this?”

  Anger bubbled up inside Trace. “Because it wasn’t mine, and I had no say in how it should be run. If I’d stayed, my father would have continued to run Whiskey Gulch Ranch the way he saw fit. He didn’t trust me to make any of the decisions. And why should he? I’d never had to be responsible for anything as long as he was in charge.”

  Irish nodded. “I get that.”

  Trace looped a bridle over a peg on the wall and faced Irish. “Yeah, well, he didn’t. You ready for breakfast?” He headed out of the barn and strode toward the house. The scent of bacon made his stomach rumble. Although he was hungry, his gut was knotted in anticipation of the contents of the will. He really did care what happened to Whiskey Gulch Ranch. Like his father and his father’s father before him, they were rooted in the place. Trace had left to prove to himself he could be himself, not the son of James Travis. In the back of his mind, he knew he’d eventually come home. He hadn’t thought it would be for his father’s funeral.

  Irish fell in step beside him. “Just so you know, I don’t expect to be fed and housed by you and your family.”

  “No worries. The ranch employs ranch hands who live here and those who don’t. Most of those who don’t have families and live in town. The single guys have a choice of living here or in town. We have a bunkhouse my father converted into small apartments to give the guys more personal space. It’s up to you. When we have a cook, he—” Trace paused, thinking about Lily “—or she will provide a hot breakfast and dinner and the means to make a sack lunch if you want it.”

  “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I’d like to stay on the ranch at least until I figure out the area. I can help get the bunkhouse ready, so that I don’t take up room in the big house.”

  “No hurry. Our main focus, after hearing what is in the will, is to get the hay in before it rains.” Trace glanced up at the clear blue sky. “It is Texas, and the rain may or may not happen, but we have to be prepared.”

  “Got it.” Irish squared his shoulders. “I’ll do the best I can.”

  Trace clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I know you will. That’s why I asked you to come. I just hope you stick around. Ranching life isn’t for everyone. Especially guys like us who’ve been where we’ve been. It can be boring here. There’s not always that adrenaline rush of going into battle.”

  “I’m looking forward to that,” Irish said. “I could use a little downtime.”

  “Especially to give yourself time to heal.” Trace gave Irish a pointed glance. “We need your help, but only as much as you can do without reinjuring yourself.” Trace frowned. “Will you be all right here alone while the rest of us are in town at the lawyer’s office?”

  Irish nodded. “Someone has to stay here and guard the homestead. I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for danger. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  Trace climbed the porch to the big house. “Be sure to keep your weapons where you can use them.”

  “I’ll pack my pistol when I step outside and keep my rifle handy.” Irish opened the back door to the house and held it for Trace.

  “Whoever is causing trouble is getting cocky and dangerously close. I don’t want you having just come back from a war zone to be injured or killed stateside.”

  Irish gave a crooked smile. “That would be the ultimate irony.”

  “Yeah. Don’t let it happen. Stay close to the house and be careful, my friend.” He clasped Irish’s hand in a firm grasp and pulled him in for a hug. “Don’t make me regret asking you to come.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. I owe you one for saving my butt back in Afghanistan.”

  “You don’t owe me a thing. You’ve saved me more times than I can remember.”

  “Any idea who might be targeting the ranch?” Irish asked.

  “None.” Trace clenched his fists. “Whoever hit Lily in the barn got away clean. He must have come in on foot and left in a hurry.”

  Irish shook his head. “Why do you think he was in the barn? He couldn’t have known Lily would go out after the chores were complete.”

  “I don’t know.” Trace led the way to the kitchen and the smell of bacon cooking. “We’ll just have to be more vigilant.”

  “Who will have to be more vigilant?” his mother asked from her position at the coffee maker.

  “We all will.” Lily stood at the stove, pushing fluffy yellow scrambled eggs around in the pan. “Y’all ready for breakfast?” When she turned, the bruise at her temple and the cut were evident.

  Trace’s blood boiled all over again. If he’d caught the guy who’d hit her, he’d have pummeled him to near death.

  “I’m starving,” Irish said. “What can I do to help?”

  “Tell me what you want to drink and have a seat,” Trace’s mother said. “Everything is ready and on the table except for the eggs, and Lily has that under control.”

  “Done.” Lily scooped eggs into a large bowl and carried it to the table.

  Trace couldn’t help but watch her as she moved across the floor in jeans, a powder blue blouse and her cowboy boots. She had her long blond hair pulled back and secured in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Several tendrils had worked their way loose and curled around her cheeks.

  A deep, physical ache pinched his
chest.

  Irish held a chair for Trace’s mother. “Ma’am.”

  She smiled at him. “Please, don’t call me ma’am. It makes me feel old.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Travis.”

  Her eyes filled. “No.” She drew in a deep breath and forced a bit of a smile. “Call me Rosalynn.”

  Trace had been so focused on Lily and his lingering feelings for her that he hadn’t been nearly as attentive to his mother. He waited for her to take her seat, then sat at the opposite end of the table from her. “You all right?” he asked softly.

  She met his gaze, a tear slipping down her cheek. “You look just like your father when he was in his thirties. Seeing you sometimes hurts.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She laughed, the sound catching in her throat. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I like to think he’s still here, in you. You two were so much alike.”

  Growing up, Trace had wanted to get away from his father as fast as he could. They never saw eye to eye, and they were constantly butting heads. Back then, he’d never considered that they had similar personalities.

  Now he could see what his mother had observed back then. They were both stubborn, driven, and they liked to be in control of a situation. He’d come to grips with this when he’d been in the army and performing operations with his Delta Force team. Until he’d gained enough experience, he’d had to give control to those who’d been at it longer and knew the tricks and techniques that would keep them alive.

  In retrospect, his father had been like the senior member of his Delta Force team, weathered, knowledgeable and full of understanding only experience could give.

  “I checked with the sheriff this morning,” his mother said. “They don’t have anything more on the attack last night. No others have reported anything similar, and they had a rather quiet night otherwise.”

  “I didn’t figure they’d find anything, if we couldn’t.” Trace shook his head. “I’d like to get my hands on the bastard.” He looked from his mother to Lily and back. “Take this threat seriously. No one is to go out after dark to take care of the animals without a backup. You must have a buddy.”