“Colt,” her sweet voice called from the front of the cabin he’d been working to get ready for Tanner to move into next week.
“Back here, honey.” He set the paint roller in the tray at his feet and wiped his hands on the bandana he pulled from his back pocket.
Luna appeared in the doorway, her hands braced on the frame. He smiled at his rocker country girl, wearing tight jeans with a frayed hole in the thigh, her favorite black cowboy boots, and a tight black Def Leppard T-shirt stretched across her breasts. Her dark hair hung forward, but it fell back when she looked up and past him at the new color he’d painted the walls.
“I like it.”
“Let’s hope Tanner does.” This was the third time he’d had to change the color because Tanner didn’t quite like it. It had to be the perfect shade of tan. The first had too much brown in it. The second turned out too yellow. This much lighter and brighter tone better be right, because Colt didn’t want to paint again.
“If he doesn’t, bring him back at a different time of day and tell him it’s a different color. Eventually, he’ll accept it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that after I painted the last time?”
“Because I didn’t like that color either. This one is perfect.” She walked into the room and right into his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck. She stared up at him. “You’re perfect.”
He eyed her. “I take it you’re not mad at me anymore for running into town to buy more of your favorite ice cream.” A treat and a surprise he’d hoped would take her mind off everything, if only for a little while. Instead, he’d run into an old buddy in the parking lot and gotten to talking about the cop following him, getting married, and moving to Rambling Range. A half hour later, he’d gone back into the store to get a new container of ice cream because the first melted. Then he’d headed home and straight into Luna letting loose her pent-up emotions, which had left her out of breath and apologizing when he’d handed her the tub of rocky road.
“I wasn’t mad.” The words rushed out of her mouth. Her gaze fell to his chest. She slipped one hand down his still sore left shoulder and the trail of bruises that led straight over his heart. “I was scared,” she admitted, her voice soft.
He pulled her close and kissed her soft hair. “Nothing is going to happen to me.”
“It already did.” She touched the stitches on his head. “They nearly killed you. If I lost you . . .” Sadness laced with the fear in her voice. Her nails bit into his back, she held him so tight.
“Luna, honey, you’ve got to stop worrying so much. We can’t keep living our lives waiting for the next bad thing to happen. We need to find a way to let it go and live the life we want.”
“I’m trying.”
“Then stop treating me like a two-year-old who can’t be out of your sight.”
“They want to use you as a target to get me to do what they want.”
He held her by the shoulders. “There is nothing they can do now. You own this place. It’s done.”
“Tell them that.”
“Dex told them. He’ll keep telling them. We talked about this.” Every day for the last week. “Wayne would want you and me to run this ranch, to raise our family here. To protect what he built and make it better.”
“I don’t like that his family is so upset and aggressive.”
“Is that a polite way of saying, They’re out of their ever-loving minds?”
“Wayne wouldn’t have wanted this for us.”
“He wanted you to be happy. We’re newlyweds, yet my wife barely smiles anymore. People are going to start thinking you regret marrying me.”
Her mouth opened on a gasp. She smacked him on the chest. “No they won’t.” Her eyes narrowed and turned sultry. “Not when they see the way we kiss.”
Her mouth swept over his in a light caress. That’s all they needed to dive in for more. No, no one would think his wife unhappy with him. He pleased her well in and out of bed when it came to the physical stuff. He wished he knew how to erase all this upset. He wanted her to go back to being the carefree, happy, fun-loving woman he fell so hard for he couldn’t help but be drawn into her world and want to be a part of it forever.
Lost in her, he ignored the first time someone cleared their throat to get their attention. And the second.
“Hey, you two. Get a room,” Ed said from behind Luna.
Colt cupped Luna’s beautiful face, pressed his forehead to hers, and stared down into her hungry eyes. “Later,” he whispered, a promise filled with intent he meant to keep.
To Ed he said, “We’re in a room. Alone. Until you showed up.”
“The paint color looks great. I think Tanner will like this one.”
Colt didn’t want to go there. He’d paint the room a dozen more times if it meant Tanner felt at home and at peace here, but Colt didn’t have to like it.
He wanted Luna to feel safe here more than anything.
“What are you doing here?” he asked Ed.
“Patrol car and Dex just showed up in the driveway. They’re waiting up by the house for the two of you.”
Luna shot him a worried look.
Colt spread his hands wide, then let them fall and hit the sides of his legs. “Let’s go see what they want.”
“Do you think they finally got the evidence they need to arrest the Traverses?”
“Let’s go find out.”
Luna hesitated. He suspected she feared getting more bad news. One more delay. One more day they’d live wondering if the Traverses would pull another stunt and hurt one of the animals, one of them. She feared something happening to him so much that she clung to him in the night and watched him like a hawk during the day.
He wanted this to be over just as much as her. If the cops didn’t get it done soon, he might just issue a few threats himself to get them to stop. Enough was enough. He refused to watch his wife tie herself up in knots every second of the day. The toll it took on her was too much for him to bear.
“Ed, would you mind cleaning up the paintbrushes and roller, and pull the tape off the trim?”
“I’m on it.” Ed moved into the room and dropped to one knee. He closed up the paint can and gathered all the other supplies into the tray to take to the sink and wash out.
Colt took Luna’s hand, brought it up to his mouth, and kissed her palm. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and walked out of the cabin with her by his side. She tried to keep the pace slow, but he ushered her up the gravel road to the main house. Sure enough, Dex and Deputy Foster stood on the porch waiting for them.
“We got them,” Dex called, a big smile spreading across his face.
Luna stopped short. “Them?”
Deputy Foster stepped down from the porch and met them on the path. “Harry and Josh. Harry will be charged with theft for stealing your truck, a handful of other misdemeanor charges, and the much more serious attempted murder for hitting Colt.”
“Are you sure it was him?” Colt asked, surprised the older man would do such a thing. In his mind, he’d pegged Josh for the crime.
“During the accident, Harry face-planted into the airbag. We’ve got his DNA.”
“How did you match it to him?” Colt asked.
“We didn’t yet, but we will now that we have him in custody and a warrant to compel him to give us a sample to compare. We lifted his print from the door panel and driver’s-side window. The latex gloves he wore when he stole the truck must have broken during the accident when the air bag went off. Stunned by the force of the accident, he didn’t realize it until it was too late and he was getting away. His prints are on file from a DUI arrest a couple of years ago. Wayne got him out of that trouble.”
“And this is how he repays that kindness, by undermining Wayne’s wishes.” Luna shook her head, her lips drawn into a tight line. “How did he get away? Did his wife help him?”
“He says no, that he had another vehicle stashed nearby.”
Luna’s brows drew togeth
er. “Who made the call to me?”
“All the prints on Colt’s phone were smudged. Harry says he made the call.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute.” Luna swept her bangs aside. “He’s quiet. His wife does all the talking. She made that call.”
“When I left the station to come here and tell you what we’ve got, she was raising the roof. Still, we have no proof she was in on it. Harry refuses to give her up.”
“Blind love,” Colt said. “He did it on her order.”
With nothing more to say about Bea’s involvement, Deputy Foster moved on. “We put Josh here the night he made that call to you and threatened to shoot Colt.”
“His name wasn’t on the caller ID, how do you know for sure it was him?” Luna brushed her hands up her arms and kept them crossed over her middle, thinking of that asshole creeping around outside their windows.
“We checked local places within a ten-mile radius of his home to see if anyone remembered him buying a disposable cell phone. We actually got a hit. Some teenage girl working behind the counter at a drugstore remembered him.”
“He’s a good-looking guy. I can see that,” Luna said, drawing Colt’s What the hell? glare. She smiled indulgently at him and patted his arm. “He’s cute. You’re gorgeous, honey. Relax.”
“Stop checking out other dudes, especially when they’re pieces of shit like Josh. You’re my wife.”
“Yes, I am. Now. And forever more.”
“Damn right.”
“Anyway,” Deputy Foster broke in, “we got a copy of the receipt and the number for the phone. We got a warrant to have the phone company triangulate where the phone was used on the day in question. Then he went and made things easy on us and kept the phone hidden between the seats in his car with your number still in the call log.”
“Idiot.” Colt grinned at Josh’s stupidity.
“Criminals get caught all the time for making stupid mistakes. Josh is arrogant. He never thought he’d get caught.”
“Compared to what Harry did, his offense isn’t that bad,” Luna pointed out.
“No. But he will be charged with peeping, trespassing, threatening Colt, and, uh, I don’t know how to tell you this, but he, uh, took pictures of you two . . .” Deputy Foster made a suggestive gesture with his hands in a kind of clapping motion to symbolize her and Colt making love.
Luna’s face flushed red, partially from embarrassment, but mostly with a rage that made her gasp and narrow her fury-filled eyes. “That bastard.”
“Exactly,” Deputy Foster agreed.
“And Simon? What has he done?”
“Nothing as far as we can tell, or prove. If he was in on any of it, Josh and Harry didn’t say.”
“Have you spoken to Agent Montrose? Any movement on the computer front?”
“Nothing,” Deputy Foster confirmed.
“Okay, so who poisoned the horses?”
“While we’ve confirmed someone tainted the food, we have no evidence of who did it. Simon seems the likely suspect as he had access and motive, but we also placed Josh on the property, so it could be him.”
“So Simon is still a wild card.” Luna turned to Colt. “What do you think?”
“He did the work asked of him here. He seemed genuinely surprised by the vandalism when you moved in. While I don’t think he’d have lasted doing the manual labor here on the ranch, he might have finally come around to realizing there is a lot of other work he could have done and shared the burden with you. I think he was still on the fence between playing things straight and taking the easy way out and robbing you blind.”
“I think so, too. But the horses, that still gets to me. If he’s capable of doing that, what else might he do now that he’s got no chance to earn his piece of this place?”
“I know it’s way out there, but I peg Bea for the rats and the horses,” Colt said. “It’s cruel, and she comes off as not caring about anyone but herself if she’d put her husband up to killing me.”
Luna held herself tighter, shaking her head. With nothing to say about Bea, because Colt’s assessment rang unbelievably true, Luna went back to Simon. “Now that Harry and Josh have been arrested, let’s see what Simon does. Side with them? Turn his back on the family and renounce what they did? Help with the investigation against Bea? Or come after us again?”
“Harry and Josh will be arraigned tomorrow. Josh will probably get bail. Harry may be denied, unless he’s got a really good lawyer,” Deputy Foster said, putting things back on track. “I’ll keep you up to date as I get information. Until then, enjoy your evening knowing we got them.”
Dex stepped forward. “Let me know if you need me to do anything, Luna.”
“Get a judge to issue a restraining order against all of them,” Colt demanded.
“Now that we have actual evidence, you should be able to get it,” Deputy Foster acknowledged.
“I’ll get started on it immediately. I’ll ask Judge Spitzer to hear our argument. Since he married you, I think he’ll be sympathetic to putting it through immediately.” Dex shook Colt’s hand and patted Luna’s shoulder before heading to his car.
Deputy Foster followed and got into his own.
Alone in front of their house, Colt held Luna by the shoulders and stared down at her. “What’s wrong?”
A shiver rocked her body and vibrated up his arms. “Why don’t I feel like this is over?”
“Even if they don’t pin anything on Simon and Bea, Harry and Josh’s arrest should make them back off now.”
“It should.” She said the words with so little conviction even Colt didn’t believe it.
Maybe it was her uncertainty and fear that gave him a creepy sense of inevitability that they hadn’t heard the last of the Travers family.
Chapter 34
Simon walked into the sheriff’s department and didn’t need to be directed where to go. Aunt Bea stood over a deputy sitting at his desk and pointed one perfectly manicured pink nail right in the poor guy’s face.
“You let him out right this minute,” she demanded. “This is his lawyer.”
“Ma’am, I told you a hundred times, he’ll be arraigned in the morning. Until then, he’s not going anywhere.”
“Mrs. Murphy, please come over here and let’s discuss our options,” some guy in a suit pleaded with his aunt. Had to be the lawyer she hired. He’d gotten here fast. Simon just got the call from Josh about his arrest not even half an hour ago.
His cousins, Anne and Kelly, took their mother’s arms and pulled her back from the deputy, though they still remained standing in a clump next to his desk.
“They can’t hold him like this. He didn’t do it. She paid the police to fabricate evidence,” Aunt Bea ranted, a touch of hysteria in her voice.
Simon rolled his eyes, wishing he could be anywhere else. Maybe he should just walk out the door and leave them all to face the consequences of their plotting and scheming.
“Mom, please, we need to talk to Mr. Lindy about getting Dad out of jail,” Kelly pleaded.
Mr. Lindy took the opening. “Mrs. Murphy, the judge will hear the evidence tomorrow and we can ask for bail.”
“Yes, we’ll bail him out.” His aunt eyed the deputy, letting him know she was still pissed he didn’t do her bidding.
“Do you have sufficient funds available? With the charges against him, the bail sum could be substantial,” Mr. Lindy explained.
“We can put up the house,” his aunt spat out.
“Do you own the home or have enough equity to do so?”
The realization that widened his aunt’s eyes and made her gasp hit Simon at the same time. “Wayne bought me the house and property.”
His dad had done the same for Simon and Josh. Holy shit, they didn’t own their houses. Luna did. Simon had never put it together until right now. She’d never said a word about it. Neither had his father’s lawyer. But he and Aunt Bea both got it right now. Luna got fucking everything, including the roofs over their head
s.
“So you don’t own the house.” Mr. Lindy confirmed the worst.
“No.” Aunt Bea’s denial came out on a soft exhale of disbelief. “That fucking bitch who stole everything does. This is all her fault.”
“Mom, you have the money Uncle Wayne left you. You can use that to get Dad out of jail,” Anne pleaded.
Anne and Kelly read the sad, resigned, and shameful look that came into Aunt Bea’s eyes better than Simon did, because the two women released their mother’s arms and their faces turned into angry scowls.
“You spent it all, didn’t you?” Kelly accused.
“You wasted it on online shopping and TV shopping networks.” Anne swept her hand up and down in front of his aunt. “When will all the shiny things you buy be enough? When will you finally get it that no matter how sparkly you look on the outside, it will never make you feel happy on the inside.” Anne’s eyes teared up.
“Your shopping addiction cost us everything,” Kelly accused. “You’re the reason Uncle Wayne had to buy us a house after you and Dad filed for bankruptcy and lost the other one.”
“If your father had only followed in my brother’s footsteps and built the business into something that made us money instead of sucking us dry.” The words dripped with Bea’s unwarranted scorn.
Kelly fumed. “You sucked the business dry. Daddy had to pay off all those debts you racked up. Every time he tried to get ahead, you dragged him down. You dragged all of us down, stealing money from Anne and me when we worked part-time jobs in high school. Our babysitting money. We had to hide every dime we ever had, to keep you from taking it.” Kelly’s eyes shined with unshed tears.
“How many times did we have to leave the grocery store without any food because the credit cards were maxed out and the bank account was empty? No one would take a check from you,” Anne spat out, her hands clenched at her sides.
“And still you wouldn’t part with one of your precious baubles. All that crap you bought, but never once did you think of us,” Kelly accused.
“I bought you things, too,” Aunt Bea responded, trying to justify her behavior.
Her Renegade Rancher EPB Page 29
