Christmas Ranch Rescue

by Lynette Eason

  Nathan bolted to his feet and Becca straightened.

  “It’s just me.” Clay stepped back inside, holding a vest in his hands. He walked over and set it on the table. “It won’t protect you from a head shot, but it’ll keep you a lot more safe than wearing nothing.”

  Becca swallowed. “Okay. I’ll wear it.”

  He looked surprised. “Good.”

  Clay made his way out the door once again.

  A few seconds later, the sound of an engine pulling up outside caught her attention, and she went to the window to look out.

  Nathan joined her and she jolted at his nearness. That kiss was still very fresh in her mind. And on her lips. “Who is it?” he asked.

  “Brody Mac’s dad.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “I don’t know. I was just getting ready to find out. Clay and Trent are getting ready to leave, as is Zeb. They’re all at their vehicles watching MacDougal. I think it’s safe to step outside.”

  He handed her the vest. “Not without this.”

  “Right.” Nathan helped her put it on and adjust it.

  “It’s heavy,” she said.

  “That’s the point. You want it to stop any bullets that might come your way.”

  “Right.” She pulled her heavy coat over it and then walked out onto the porch. “Hello, Mr. MacDougal. What can I do for you?”

  “I came to get Brody Mac.”

  She frowned at him. “I’m not sure where he is.”

  “Then go find him.”

  She crossed her arms, then dropped them when the bulk prevented her from doing so comfortably. “You know, it’s awfully convenient for you to show up just now.”

  He rubbed a dirty hand over his chin. “What’re you talking about, girlie?”

  “Someone just took a shot at Nathan and me out behind the house. You know anyone who’d want to do that?”

  “A shot at you? What are you saying?”

  What a thick-headed man. “That someone just tried to kill us.”

  He frowned. “Probably someone you were too interfering with. Now where’s my boy?”

  “Your concern overwhelms me, MacDougal,” Clay said. “And you don’t have any reason to keep Brody Mac from being here.”

  “You stay outta this. This ain’t none of your concern.”

  The sound of a moped reached Becca during their exchange and she saw Brody Mac heading down the drive.

  His father didn’t seem to notice.

  “Why are you so intent on keeping him away from here?” she asked. She’d stall and let Brody Mac get as far away as possible.

  “Because you got drugs on this place! I don’t want him caught up in that mess.”

  She stamped a foot. “I don’t have drugs here! And you’ve been harassing him about not coming here long before those rumors got started, so why don’t you tell the truth for once?”

  His face turned red and she thought she saw a few tendrils of smoke curl from his ears. He started toward her and Nathan stepped forward. “That’s close enough.”

  Becca pulled Nathan back and faced the man who’d stopped at Nathan’s words. But he pointed a nicotine-stained finger at her. “You need to stay out of other people’s lives. You’re messing with my family and I won’t stand for that. If you keep putting your nose where it don’t belong, you’re going to regret it!”

  “What are you going to do? Shoot at me?”

  “I just might, girlie, I just might. Now you keep to yours and leave mine alone.”

  He climbed back in his truck, and with a crunch of tires on the gravel spun around the drive and headed away from the ranch. Her head started to pound. The stress of the day was definitely catching up to her. She raised her hands to massage her temples.

  Clay sighed and shook his head. “Sorry, Becca. I can’t arrest him just because he’s got a loud mouth.”

  “I know.”

  “You handled him well,” Nathan said. “Stood up to him and let him know he’s not going to run over you. Nice.”

  And he hadn’t interfered in her handling of it except for the one protective move when he’d stepped in front of her. All three men had let her deal with the irascible father. But she knew they would have had her back if she’d needed them.

  They were true friends. She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “Thanks, guys.”

  Nathan nodded to Clay and Trent. “Do y’all have time to come back inside for a minute? Becca said something that got me to thinking.”

  “What’s that?” Clay asked.

  “Maybe a way to catch whoever’s got it in for her.”

  “I’m willing to listen to that plan, sure.”

  They all returned to the den area. Trent and Clay settled on her sofa while Nathan took the wingback chair near the fireplace.

  Becca fired up the gas logs and a warm glow filled the room. She didn’t use the logs often because it could get expensive, but right now, she was cold and needed comforting. And since Nathan’s arms weren’t available at the moment, she wrapped the fleece blanket around her shoulders and settled into the matching wingback chair opposite Nathan’s.

  He cleared his throat. “Becca said something about setting a trap to catch whoever’s been trying to kill her. I don’t know about a trap, per se, but what about if we make it look like no one is here at night? While Becca has to be here during the day, she can leave at night while we keep a constant vigil on the property. Someone awake at all times, which means sleeping in shifts. I think it might be a good idea as long as we can keep her safe.”

  Clay leaned forward and clasped his hands. “That’s not a bad idea. How do you propose to make that happen and still make sure everyone gets enough sleep?”

  For the next half hour the four of them outlined a plan to set into motion that night. Nathan wanted her completely gone from the property, but she shook her head. “No. Where would I go?”

  “You could stay with Sabrina,” Clay said.

  “Absolutely not. Somehow, he’ll know it. He’s watching me, following me, keeping track of my every movement. I don’t know how, whether he’s got some high-powered binoculars and is sitting in a tree somewhere or what, but I won’t put Sabrina and your children in danger. And that goes for the rest of the people you’re getting ready to name.”

  Clay sighed. “What about a hotel room?”

  “I can’t afford it and I’m not asking you to pay for it.”

  Nathan scowled. “Then what if we make him think Becca’s gone? Let him think she’s left and not coming back for a while?”

  “What do you have in mind?” Clay asked.

  “Put her in a truck and drive her to the hotel. Make sure it’s obvious she’s checking in and then have her use the restroom in the lobby, don a disguise and then sneak out the back. I can be waiting with a truck our guy wouldn’t recognize.”

  “Where will you get the truck?”

  “I’ll find one.”

  “He might not even fall for it and you all have gone to an awful lot of trouble,” Becca said softly.

  Clay held his hands between his knees and spun it while he thought. “Might not, but we can plan to do this for the next few nights and see what shakes loose. I’ll try to take some time during the day to sleep and I’ll make sure Trent has the time off, as well. Nathan, you get the day shift around here. Our guy probably knows you’re the hired hand. He expects you to be here and working. If something happens at night, we’ll wake you.”

  Nathan’s scowl didn’t lessen, but he didn’t argue the plan.

  Something blipped in Becca’s memory. Someone in the barn. In the feed room. She could only see the back of him, but he looked familiar. “Hey, what are you doing in here?” she’d asked.

  A sharp pain shot
through the front of her head and she winced.

  “Becca?” Nathan asked. “You okay?”

  “Yes.” She blinked and tried to bring the memory back. “I’m okay. I just thought I remembered something about the day of the accident, but now it’s gone.”

  Clay’s phone rang. “Excuse me for a second.”

  He stepped out of the room to take the call and Trent excused himself as well, leaving her alone with Nathan.

  And the memory of that kiss they’d shared.

  And the realization that she wouldn’t mind sharing another one with him. At what point had he stopped being her former friend and newly hired hand, and started being someone she daydreamed about kissing?

  She wasn’t exactly sure, but while kissing Nathan was certainly enjoyable, she needed to focus on who was trying to kill her. Or them. The person didn’t seem worried about collateral damage. The thought sent shivers dancing over her skin and dread straight into her heart. If anything happened to Nathan, she didn’t know how she’d be able to live with herself. If she actually lived.

  “Earth to Becca.”

  She jumped. “Oh. Sorry. Just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  Her gaze dropped to his lips before she could stop it. She jerked her eyes away. “Ah...it doesn’t matter.”

  He eyed her and from the glint that sparkled for a brief moment, she saw he knew exactly what she’d been thinking—the kissing parts of her thoughts anyway. Then his eyes clouded over. “All right. If you’re going to be up most of the night, it’s time for you to grab some shut-eye. I’ll keep watch so you can rest easy.”

  She stood. “Thank you.”

  “How’s your back?”

  “It’s hurting a bit. I’ll take something to take the edge off.”

  Actually, it was killing her. All the jerking around and overusing it had her on the edge of tears. But there was no use crying about it.

  And the fact that her mother still hadn’t returned her call had nothing to do with her weepy feeling.

  Okay, yes, it did.

  She turned the logs off and left Nathan in the den checking his email as she walked down the hall to her bathroom. After she took her meds, she got as comfortable as possible on the bed and closed her eyes. I miss you, Mom. She sighed. Please, God, let me live long enough to reconcile with my parents or at least my mom. I really don’t want to die without some sort of understanding between us all. Please.

  TEN

  Three nights passed with nothing. Becca stayed housebound, staying away from the windows, not answering the door or going to the barn. Nathan was actually impressed with her determination to see the plan through. The hotel had Becca registered as a guest in room 304 if anyone decided to snoop. Since there wasn’t the manpower to keep someone on the hotel room, they set up cameras to monitor the room. So far, no one had made any suspicious moves around the room.

  Or the ranch.

  No strange or suspicious activity, and no problems during the day. Nathan was about ready to think the person was privy to inside information and knew they were watching, waiting to spring a trap. However, they all agreed to give it two more nights and then come back together to revamp the plan.

  In the meantime, with Becca trapped in the house, he had no time to slip into her office to go through her hard-copy files. The computer had turned up nothing and he expected the same for whatever was in the file cabinet next to her desk. The truth is, he didn’t believe she was guilty of anything more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he had no motivation to bother checking.

  He told Clay so as the sun went down on the clear December evening. Clay nodded. “I’m leaning in your direction, but it wouldn’t hurt to just check. At least then I can say I covered all my bases.”

  “Hmm. We’ll see.”

  Clay looked around. “Glad to see she finally got around to decorating.”

  “She had a little help and encouragement.”

  Clay fell silent for a minute. “You still care for her, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re trying not to.”

  “Yep.”

  Clay laughed.

  “It’s not funny. My whole presence here has been a lie. Keeping the truth from her is killing me. I need to tell her everything.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “I’d tell her right now if I didn’t think she’d kick me off the ranch and leave herself vulnerable to whoever’s been trying to kill her.”

  Clay shook his head and frowned. “No, it’s best to stay quiet for now. If she knows I’m the one who asked you to do this, we’ll both be in the doghouse. And she’ll be a sitting duck.”

  “So we keep our mouths shut for now. But I don’t feel it’s right to pursue anything with her until there’s no secrets between us, you know?”

  Clay nodded. “Well, if she gives you a hard time about it, you can just blame me.”

  “I was planning to do that anyway.”

  Clay snorted then shook his head. “I should have known.”

  “How are Sabrina and the kids?”

  The besotted expression on Clay’s face spoke volumes. “They’re great. Sabrina is amazing and the kids are growing like crazy.” Then he sighed. “I just wish I got to spend more time with them.”

  “I see Seth is up for the National Finals Rodeo again this year.” Seth was one of Clay’s younger brothers who, very successfully, traveled the rodeo circuit.

  “Yep. And his wife, Tonya, is pregnant again.”

  “That makes their second one, doesn’t it?”

  “And third.”

  He laughed. “Twins? Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  “Seth’s going to have to retire and stay home to help her out.”

  “I know. Mom’s over the moon with all the grandkids. She’s instructing us to keep ’em coming.” Clay sighed and glanced out the window. “The sun’s coming up. I guess we can call it a night. I don’t know whether to be glad at the lack of excitement or frustrated.”

  Nathan shook his head. “I sure did think we’d have this guy by now.”

  “You and me both. Trent’s on his way. I’m going to head home to grab some sleep. I’ll be back to swap out with Trent in a few hours.”

  Nathan had slept until five when he’d awakened with a full adrenaline rush thinking someone had gotten to Becca. He’d known it was a dream but had raced out of the bunkhouse to find Clay sitting in the dark kitchen, sipping coffee by a night-light. Clay had lowered his weapon to the table with a scowl. “You’re fortunate I didn’t shoot you.”

  “Same here.”

  The two men had put their weapons away and continued their discussion in the dark. Nathan headed back to the bunkhouse to grab his shower and start his day, once again working side by side with Becca.

  He couldn’t say the prospect was distasteful, he just prayed it would be another uneventful day and no one shot at anyone else.

  * * *

  Becca had awakened about thirty minutes before the sun was supposed to rise. She’d lain in bed for ten of those thirty minutes, then rolled out from under the covers, dressed, and made a mental outline of the chores she needed to get done today.

  They had a heifer that had managed to get entangled in a wad of barbed wire fence yesterday, and Zeb promised to ride out to take a look at her.

  Becca knew someone had cut that part of the fence and she’d told Clay so. After examining the wire, he’d agreed. “Too bad you don’t have security cams out here.”

  “Yeah. Too bad. I only wish I could afford that.”

  She yawned and walked to the window to peer out from the side through the small slit at the side. Normally she would simply open them and stare out over her land, but not
this morning. Because no one could know she was in the house today. Again. Truthfully, Becca was ready to climb the walls—or run screaming across the pasture.

  But she wouldn’t. She’d give Clay and Nathan today and tomorrow to see if the plan would work. If not, she was going to resume her life. Albeit, with continued caution.

  Tears pricked at her eyes. What if they never caught the person responsible? What would she do?

  She drew in a deep breath. She’d have to sell. Period. Swallowing hard at the depressing thought, she gave one last sweeping glance over the property and sighed. Then frowned.

  In the soft glow of the slow-rising sun, she spotted the barn door open. What was Nathan or Brody Mac doing up this early? Was something wrong? When Lady Lou nudged her way out of the door, Becca gasped.

  Grabbing her boots, she shoved her feet into them, snatched her rifle from its resting place against the wall, and raced down the hall. “Nathan? Clay?”

  No answer.

  Had one of them gone into the barn and confronted her would-be killer? Did they need help?

  Becca hurried out the door and saw Trent climbing out of his cruiser. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Something’s going on in the barn. Lady Lou just got out.”

  Becca watched the horse jog through the open gate and into the pasture. “Shut the gate, Trent, will you?”

  While he did as she requested, she turned her attention to the barn. “Nathan? Brody Mac?”

  “Wait for me before you go in that barn, Becca,” Trent called.

  She shifted from foot to foot while she waited. He finally joined her and stepped in front of her. “Why don’t you go back in the house?”

  “Because no one is answering me. Not Nathan or Brody Mac and with Lady Lou getting out, I’m scared one of them is hurt. I’m the one with the medical skills, so let’s get in there and make sure everything—and everyone—is all right.” She hesitated for a fraction of a second. “But I’ll let you go first and will listen if you give me an order. Is that sufficient?”

  “Fine. Stay behind me.” Trent took the lead, weapon drawn.