Colton 911--Caught in the Crossfire

by Linda O. Johnston

  First, though, Casey did wonder about, and considered asking more about, the lone GPS dot Melody had shown him. A cow who’d wandered away from the herd, or a problem with the GPS? Melody didn’t seem certain and, in fact, had mentioned some of the app’s quirks—which could spell disaster if there was a glitch taking them in the wrong direction somehow.

  But he was just speculating, worrying for nothing, hopefully. Time to ask those questions.

  “I like how you suggested those dogs to Clarence,” he began. “Not that I know much about ranching, but that sounded like a good addition for a ranch owner to help ensure that he always knows where his cattle are. And yes, I know it’s not as technologically advanced to have a dog or two compared with a satellite-assisted GPS system, but it still sounds good and potentially useful. You said that you came from Texas and worked on a ranch there. Did they have dogs?”

  “The first one did. That was partly because of my father’s suggestions back then, and the owner liked the idea and started always keeping trained dogs to help.”

  Ah. He was getting some of her background. Interesting.

  “So you began working at the same ranch your dad did? He was also a ranch hand?”

  “That’s right. He taught me a lot—and I liked it.”

  Then why had she moved here? he wondered. He wanted to ask, to learn everything, but if she’d left because her dad was no longer around, no longer alive, did he really want to remind her? That might be cruel and also might end any chance at a nice, friendly, neutral conversation as they continued.

  Was she close to her family? Did she have siblings?

  Did she want to have kids someday herself?

  Well, that wasn’t going to be a topic of their conversation.

  He began talking anyway. “I’ll bet your father’s really proud that you decided to follow in his footsteps.” He aimed a smile at her.

  And now he did see some emotion written in her expression. But it didn’t appear to be grief—only pride.

  “Yeah, he was. Still is.”

  “Then why aren’t you still working with him?” Casey blurted. Maybe it wasn’t his business, but he was curious nevertheless.

  He watched as the emotion on Melody’s face changed to—What was it? If he had to guess, it was fury.

  Wow. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea, after all. But his curiosity increased exponentially.

  “This isn’t something I like to talk about,” she finally said, hissing out the words between her teeth. “Or even think about. But I quit working for the ranch where my father was a few years ago. I married a guy I’d known for a long time who wanted to move from Fort Worth to Dallas, which we did. And then—”

  “And then?” Casey repeated, encouraging her to continue when she stopped talking.

  “And then I got a divorce and decided to leave.”

  * * *

  No, Melody didn’t want to think about her past, let alone talk about it. But Casey seemed nice enough in his attempt to make conversation and learn how she’d wound up here, and the only way to prevent telling him would be to lie or to shut up.

  She didn’t want to do either. And now she’d opened the door to describe the rest of it.

  She shook her head as she continued to look forward and not toward her riding companion, concentrating for a moment on the feel of Cal walking beneath her.

  Why had Casey decided to be so nosy? And now, her mind was back on her divorce, at least a bit. She had to think of something else.

  At the moment, Casey seemed to be struggling to find something to say, and she almost smiled at that.

  “Oh, sorry to hear that,” he said finally.

  Oh, what the heck. The subject had been broached.

  She didn’t want Casey’s sympathy or anything else, but she could be frank about it, anyway, now that she was thinking about it, then make things clear, when she was done, that the subject was now off-limits.

  She manipulated the thin, cool leather of the reins in her fingers without communicating any changes in direction to Cal, needing something else to do besides think of what she was talking about.

  “Look, here’s what happened. It doesn’t hurt for you to know about it, and it doesn’t hurt for me to talk about it.” Not much, at least.

  Thinking about it—how she’d been used, how she’d been insulted, then dumped—well, that still hurt.

  She didn’t mention Travis’s name but figured she didn’t have to. If nothing else, Casey might recognize that her married name was Ellison, presuming he had seen her driver’s license as she believed.

  Nor did she have to explain the horrible, hurtful details.

  So she kept it light and somewhat brief, even though she knew she could have talked for hours about what a jerk Travis was.

  “The guy I married I’d known from high school in Fort Worth. He was a smart guy, attended college, even got an MBA. Me? I was happy working alongside my dad as a ranch hand, but my then fiancé didn’t seem to mind. In fact, we married soon after he got his degree. He’d told me by then he wanted to move to Dallas, which was okay with me. I even found a good job there. But...well, things only worked out for about two years. It was a mutual decision to divorce.”

  Yeah. Travis wanted to marry Loretta, whom he considered a “real woman.” He had no interest any longer in the unreal woman, a mere “country girl.”

  And Melody didn’t want to stay married to an SOB like him who insulted her over and over again. And also had an affair that he’d denied, of course—at first. Plus, if he didn’t like being with a “country girl,” why had he married a ranch hand in the first place?

  Not that she’d made a lot of money, but Travis had seemed happy that she was out there doing something productive.

  The thing was, after they were divorced, she just couldn’t see heading back to Fort Worth in shame to work on the ranch with her dad again, around so many people who’d known Travis and her in school. Instead, she looked around and found the job here, in small but enjoyable Cactus Creek, Arizona.

  But she didn’t go into detail about it with Casey. She simply said, “Things just didn’t work out between my ex and me, but I wasn’t about to let my divorce get me down. I decided to use it as an opportunity to try something new, still doing what I loved but finding a new place to do it—right here.”

  “You sound as if you did the right thing,” Casey said. She’d been looking straight ahead, then down at her hands again as she spoke, trying to keep her feelings to herself. But now she glanced at him and saw what appeared to be relief—and was that admiration, too?—on his face. “Exes can be hell, can’t they? You one-upped me, though. I wasn’t married, but mine dumped me at the altar four years ago.”

  “Really?” Melody said. “Wow. That sounds pretty bad, too. What happened?” Poor guy. That must have hurt.

  Maybe she and Casey did have something else in common.

  And they both were single now...

  In any case, she now felt curious. Was what had happened to him as bad as what she’d experienced with that louse Travis? And did he finally feel ready to move on with another woman?

  * * *

  Okay, he didn’t have to talk about being dumped. He definitely didn’t want to think about it—although his thinking about it happened too often.

  Like right now, partly thanks to Melody’s story.

  She was obviously emotionally stressed from having told him about her ex. And he needed to continue riding with her, working with her, conversing with her.

  Maybe if he shared the most miserable part of his life with her, as she’d just done with him...

  He’d just keep it short. And light. Or at least as light as possible.

  “Well, the thing is,” he began, “I met my ex, Georgia, and first became close to her, because her brother Sean was my twin’s best friend when they were
kids.”

  “So what happened?” Melody asked.

  “Georgia never really explained except to say she’d made a mistake. I gathered from Everett that Sean hadn’t been thrilled about our engagement. Didn’t think I was good enough for his sister, and best I could tell he finally convinced her, when we were about to be married, that he was right.”

  “Did you ever talk to Sean about it? Did Everett?”

  “Sean wouldn’t talk to me,” he said. Casey had tried, though. Wanted to know whether what he’d come to understand was true.

  He had even tried talking to Sean’s wife, Delilah, an accountant who seemed to be fairly levelheaded, to see what he could learn from her, but she’d avoided him, too.

  And Georgia? She’d been pretty, though not as pretty as Melody—at least not the way he remembered her. She’d been closer to his age than Melody.

  Not that it mattered. He’d been dating Georgia for a while before they got engaged and were nearly married. He’d loved her. A lot. Which had turned out to be a big mistake.

  He had no romantic interest in Melody, so her age didn’t matter.

  But he had no intention, after what had gone on with Georgia, in getting romantically involved with a woman anytime soon. Probably ever.

  He’d seldom seen Georgia after she dumped him so nastily, which was probably a good thing. They’d both actually shown up for the ceremony, but she wasn’t wearing her wedding gown. Instead, she told him then that she wasn’t going through with it.

  Her excuse? She had decided she didn’t love him after all and had no interest in being married to a deputy sheriff.

  He didn’t even know what she did for a living now. She hadn’t had a lot of ambition when they were together, so it was probably for the best that she’d dumped him, or maybe he’d have been their sole breadwinner.

  He did have the impression, though, that Sean, too, wasn’t wild about him partly because he was in law enforcement. That made Casey wonder if Sean had been interested in some kind of criminal activities—or maybe he’d already started back then.

  Casey never tried to find out. None of the cases he’d dealt with had ever involved either Sean or Georgia, or even Delilah. Too bad, in a way. He’d have liked a bit of revenge for the misery he had gone through. Love? Yeah, he’d felt it. Too much.

  But that was then. Now—well, it wasn’t worth going through that hurt ever again.

  “So how did you feel? How do you feel now?” Melody’s tone sounded curious.

  Really? They were going to have a longer conversation about it?

  He should have hated the idea, but somehow, talking with someone he was now working with, someone he liked—and someone who’d suffered through something similar and could most likely understand if he snarled as he spoke about it more—didn’t seem so bad.

  He looked over at Melody to find her watching him. She seemed to be staring at him intensely—just as he’d done to her—in an attempt to read him.

  “It was hard at first,” he admitted, looking away to study the pasture in front of them as if he was concerned about where they were going. Which he was. He took a deep breath and continued. “I’d imagine you, if anyone, can identify with what it’s like to have had expectations and hopes for the future—the long-term future—and believe that it’ll be good, enhanced by a relationship that seems long-term. Forever, even. Fulfilling. Sharing dreams. And...heck, I must be sounding like some kind of oddball idealist. That’s not me. But even so...”

  He heard a small laugh and again glanced toward Melody. She was shaking her head a little, causing her pretty ponytail to sway back and forth. He felt his heart shrink. She didn’t get it. She did consider him an optimistic weirdo or something. And—

  “Oh, yes, I know what you’re talking about,” she said. “In fact—Well, with you, you might have had some wonderful hopes and wishes for the future. Me? I was already married, for more than a year, in fact, before I let myself recognize any problems in the relationship. And at first I imagined I was dreaming it. Maybe even having stupid thoughts of my own that this wasn’t working and that I needed some new guy in my life already.” She stopped for a moment, then blurted out, “But I finally realized, when it was over, that I didn’t. I didn’t need the jerk I was married to, and I didn’t need anyone. Don’t need anyone else.” She went silent for a moment. Casey glanced toward her briefly and saw she was staring at the back of Cal’s head with an expression he couldn’t read. “But it was still damn hard,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Casey agreed. “It was still damn hard.”

  They rode along in silence for the next few minutes. Casey’s mind kept mulling over what Melody had said, and how, though their circumstances were definitely different, they’d both suffered some pretty rough times thanks to relationships gone bad.

  Really bad.

  He had an odd desire to get off his horse and give Melody a hug in understanding, but that would be inappropriate.

  Plus, it might give her the wrong idea. He’d definitely made it clear that he didn’t want another relationship after what had happened before. Not now, certainly, and maybe not ever.

  And he’d understood that Melody had the same opinion of getting too close to another person of the opposite sex.

  Sex. That was not the same thing, even though romantic relationships usually led to it.

  Did he want to sleep with Melody? He certainly wasn’t against it, but it would definitely be a bad idea—even worse now after he’d learned they weren’t just associates with the same assignment from their respective employers.

  They were both smart individuals who’d learned a lot from what being with the wrong person could do to you.

  So for now—

  “I appreciate your understanding of that miserable mess,” he finally said. “And I definitely understand that you went through something similar. We’re comrades in arms in many ways.” He laughed and was delighted to hear laughter from Melody, too. Somehow his recollections seemed to hurt a bit less now after he’d shared them. He was glad she’d shared hers, too.

  “We definitely are,” she said. “Empathy’s the thing between us, for good reason.” She hesitated, then went on. “But let’s leave it alone now, okay?”

  “Unless I think of a way we can each help the other get revenge,” Casey said, keeping his face straight as he looked toward her yet again.

  “Hey, I like that idea,” Melody said, her expression thoughtful as she nodded her head up and down.

  Then they both smiled at one another, and Casey felt the heat of attraction pulse through him even as he told himself that wasn’t what this was about.

  Camaraderie was.

  “Okay,” he finally said. “Let’s think on it. Meanwhile, tell me if you’re aware of anyplace it’d be good to stop for a while and grab our huge, delicious lunch.”

  More laughter. And that made him feel really good.

  Chapter 9

  Melody enjoyed their ride for the rest of the day. Not that she hadn’t before, but they actually now seemed like friends. They’d each experienced a difficult aspect of life in different ways and survived, and shared it.

  Would this new bond survive after they achieved their goals of locating the missing cattle and bringing down the thieves? That remained to be seen. But right now, she hoped so.

  They continued to chat a lot as they rode forward, picking up the pace a bit. No more discussion of their horrible exes, at least not for now.

  But they did see wildlife here and there, which made for some interesting conversation. There were lots of lizards out here, for one thing, and she was the one to win their contest of seeing and identifying the deadliest. She saw a Gila monster and pointed it out, and they were both very careful to guide their horses way off to the side. Gila monsters were dangerous and had some pretty nasty venom.

  But reptiles were
n’t the only wildlife around. They saw more birds flying by. “They look like small hawks,” Casey said, pointing at one that came relatively close.

  “They’re kestrels,” Melody informed him.

  Melody also pointed out some brown-headed cowbirds, which seemed appropriate for their quest—although she also mentioned they were a type of blackbird. They saw a few jackrabbits, a couple of different kinds of rodents that Melody believed were Arizona cotton rats and quite a few mice. There appeared to be more wildlife out here than they’d seen yesterday. Of course, they were a bit farther from civilization—assuming that the ranch house and related buildings were considered civilization.

  Or maybe they were just paying more attention.

  They turned it into a game. “Whoever sees the next animal out here gets to have first choice of which energy and fruit bars to have for dinner tonight,” Melody announced at one point.

  “Hey, that’ll be me,” Casey responded, his tone full of good humor, too.

  As it turned out, Melody was the next one to see a creature. It was another kind of lizard, one not nearly as scary as the Gila monster. She didn’t directly point it out to Casey, but she waved her arm generally in that direction.

  “Hey, I see a lizard,” Casey said, pointing directly toward where Melody had indicated.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, pretending to be surprised. “Looks like it might be a fence lizard to me, though they don’t really need fences to survive, fortunately.”

  “But you saw it first, right?” Casey sounded amused, and when she looked at him, he arched his brown eyebrows and cocked his head to the side.

  “Who, me?” She smiled and batted her eyelashes, and his laughter seemed loud enough to scare that lizard—and it did run off, which caused Melody to chuckle, too.