by Joanna Wayne
She wondered if Dylan would ever find out the truth about what had really gone on at Willow Creek Ranch the day his mother had been murdered. Unless Troy Ledger was innocent, she hoped he never did.
Knowing that your father had destroyed your mother was a cross she’d never wish on anyone.
Exhausted, she leaned back and stared at the clock on the wall opposite her. It was half past nine in the evening, and she’d gotten very little sleep last night. No wonder she was fading. She closed her eyes, but now it was her own mother’s tragic death that weighed heavy on her mind.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you hired an attorney after I told you I didn’t want one.”
Dylan spoke through clenched teeth, determined to keep his voice low enough that Collette would not hear the argument from wherever she’d disappeared to in the house. She’d escaped the table and the tension right after Troy had announced that he’d hired an attorney to represent Dylan before the sheriff came up with an arrest warrant.
Troy held a bowl beneath the faucet and rinsed away remains of the beef stew he’d cooked for dinner. “You’d think differently if you knew the sheriff the way I do.”
“There is no evidence against me.”
“I told you this morning. The evidence is whatever Glenn McGuire says it is. Believe me. I know.”
“This isn’t about you. It’s not even about me. It’s about stopping a lunatic before he kills someone.”
“And if he does, you’ll find yourself behind bars so fast, you won’t even have time to think about what happened. And she’ll be dead. That’s all you’ll know.”
His father’s hands began to shake, and the glass he’d just picked up slipped from his soapy fingers and hit the floor, sending slivers of glass in every direction.
Seeing his father like this stole the thunder from Dylan’s anger and resentment. His release from prison would have been traumatic enough without being hurled back into his past by an assault that had nothing to do with him.
Drops of blood dripped from Troy’s thumb as he cleaned up the broken glass with his bare hands. Dylan handed him a paper towel and tried to think of something to say to a man who had become a virtual stranger to him. Too many years had passed. Too much had gone unsaid.
“I wish we’d have connected sooner,” Dylan said.
“Now’s a fine time to think about that.” Troy picked up the towel, brushed tiny shards of glass from his hand and walked away.
The last words had sounded like an accusation. The irony of that set Dylan on edge. Never had a kid needed a father more than he had. But he didn’t pursue it.
“I noticed first-aid supplies in the hall bathroom,” he said instead. “Take care of the cut. I’ll finish up here.”
“The cut’s nothing.”
Fine by him. Dylan walked away and went in search of Collette, though he hoped she’d gone to bed. She’d dozed in the chair back at her office, but she needed more than a catnap after what she’d been through.
Instead he found her on the front porch, sitting on the top step, her gorgeous hair tousled by the wind, her face tinged with moonlight.
His muscles grew relaxed. His need for her grew heady. Two days and he’d already fallen harder for her than he’d ever fallen for anyone. The situation probably had something to do with his letting himself get so close so quickly. But it was Collette who made it feel so right.
“Sorry to bring you into that father/son moment.”
“No need to apologize. I just thought you needed a little privacy.”
Dylan sat on the steps beside her. “I actually think he means well, but he can’t separate this from what happened to him.”
“Can you blame him? I mean if he’s innocent, then he was wrongly convicted. It’s only natural he’d worry that the same could happen to you. He lost eighteen years of his life.”
“Seventeen,” Dylan corrected, though it didn’t make much difference.
“Eighteen,” Collette repeated. “The year he spent waiting for the trial must have been the most horrific of all. He’d lost his wife to violence and his kids to a family that hated him.”
“You’re right. I came here to see if there was a way we could forge a bond, but on some level, I think I’m trying to start a fight.”
“Forging bonds takes time.” She leaned back against the porch railing and faced him. “My being here doesn’t help.”
“It helps me,” he said. “At least when you’re here I know you’re safe.” He reached for her hand. He liked how it felt in his and knew it wouldn’t take much for him to lose control with her. A few kisses like they’d shared this afternoon, and his hunger for her would explode like a grenade.
They sat without talking for five minutes or more while the night wrapped around them. The hum of crickets and the high-pitched chirping of tree frogs created a soothing backdrop for the fireflies that darted among a patch of povertyweed.
Dylan stretched and leaned against the post at the top of the steps. “I don’t remember it ever being this quiet. Mom used to say we kids made enough racket to raise the dead. Dad always countered that it’s when we were quiet that he worried.”
Odd how that came back to him now when he hadn’t thought of it in years. Back then he hadn’t had a care in the world. If his parents had, they’d hidden it well. He’d heard them argue, but not that often. Instead, they’d laughed a lot. On nights like this, they’d held hands in the porch swing while he and his brothers had played chase or wrestled in the grass.
Collette scooted closer. “I always envied my friends who had large, boisterous families.”
“How many siblings do you have?”
“Just my brother, Bill, and we were never that close. He’s too much like my father for us to get along.”
“Is he in law enforcement, too?”
“No. He has an insurance agency, but he’s adopted my father’s opinionated and domineering ways.”
“You must have taken after your mother. I know you look a lot like she did.”
“Unfortunately, that’s the only way we’re alike. Mom was patient and far too submissive for her own good. I may have inherited just a streak of my father’s stubbornness.”
“You?” he teased.
“A tiny streak.”
“What happened to your mother?” he asked. “And feel free to tell me it’s none of my business if you don’t want to talk about it.”
“She had an accident. After that she had several strokes before her body just shut down.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
Collette seemed to pull inside herself, and Dylan slipped an arm around her shoulder. “How long has it been?”
“She died the week I graduated from UT. I gave up the position I had waiting for me in D.C. I needed time to get over the grief. By the time I did, I realized I liked the flexibility of owning and operating my photography business and living here in Mustang Run.”
“You must miss her a lot.”
“I do.” She stretched and massaged the back of her neck. “I’m really tired. I think I’ll call it a night.”
“Good idea. It’s almost midnight.”
He stood and tugged her to her feet as headlights from an approaching vehicle bounced off the trees and shot rays of illumination across the terrain. Dylan jumped up and raced to his truck for his rifle. Before he reached it, a sleek sports car sped into view.
“My brother,” Collette announced, “no doubt here to deliver a new set of orders from on high.”
Dylan left the gun in the truck. He offered a hand when Bill started up the walk. Bill ignored it and walked right past him. Dylan resisted the temptation to teach him a few manners in a way that would have Bill McGuire rolling on the ground in pain. It wouldn’t be a fair fight. Bill’s muscles looked as if the heaviest thing he’d lifted in years was his briefcase.
Collette stood her ground at the top of the steps, her shoulders back and her hands propped on her slender hips. “I suppose D
ad sent you.”
“It doesn’t matter who sent me. Coming out here is totally irresponsible. Get your things and get in the car.”
“I’m not going with you, and you owe Dylan Ledger an apology for barging in here like a mad bull.”
“Dylan had no business bringing you to his ranch. Surely you didn’t expect us to sit by while you shack up with the son of a murderer.”
Dylan’s blood began to boil. “If you have concerns about Collette being out here, that’s fine. But don’t act like she’s doing anything inappropriate. Got it?”
That’s when the twerp made a big mistake. He shoved Dylan.
Dylan grabbed Bill’s arm and felt his fingers dig into the man’s flabby bicep.
Collette stamped her foot and inserted herself between them. “Would you both please just stop this? I don’t need rescuing or defending. I’m capable of deciding where I want to be and, yes, Bill, even whom I want to shack up with if I so choose.”
Dylan exhaled sharply and let go of Bill’s arm. Pulverizing Collette’s brother wouldn’t help the situation. Even letting the guy know that he could would serve little purpose except to vent his own anger.
“Go home, Bill,” Collette ordered. “If Dad has anything to say to me, he knows where I am.”
“This isn’t like your usual fights with Dad, Collette. This time your obstinacy could get you killed.”
“It’s my life. I’ll take that chance.”
“Fine. I’m washing my hands of the situation.” Bill glared at Dylan, then turned and stormed to his car without looking back.
Dylan reached over and pushed a wild lock of red curls from Collette’s face, tucking it behind her ear. “Are you sure? I’d worry about you but I’d understand if you wanted to go with him.”
“I’m sure, Dylan. I’m not going anywhere without you.”
Her eyes locked with his, and the desire to keep her safe melded with a need so earthy and primal that he felt it inside every cell of his body.
He’d never wanted a woman more.
Which meant he’d best not stand here staring into her bewitching eyes another second.
He fit a hand to the small of her back. “Let’s go inside. It’s been a long day and we both could use some rest.”
But it wasn’t rest he was craving when he followed her inside and down the hallway to her room.
DEEP PURPLE SHADOWS merged into bizarre shapes that danced eerily across the ceiling. Collette stared at them, enthralled by the shifting patterns. She’d fallen asleep immediately only to wake again before dawn. Her eyes were heavy, her mind captured in that state of drowsy confusion, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness.
Slivers of moonlight filtered through the curtains at the window painting shimmering strings of light across the blue coverlet. Collette closed her eyes only to open them again when a frigid chill infiltrated the room. She shivered and pulled the quilt to her neck, but the frost was bone deep.
A figure coalesced, dressed in a white gown with tattered remnants that swirled about the room as if they had wings of their own. Collette watched, mesmerized, rapt by the essence of the ghostly image.
Fear suffused her senses, but she couldn’t bring herself to try to escape or even to look away.
“Are you Helene Ledger?” she asked, unsure if she was whispering the words or if they were being pulled from her mind by the ghostly vision.
“Get out of my house,” the apparition ordered.
Frosty swirls drifted from the figure and from Collette’s breath. The chill was real. So was the ghost.
“Why should I leave?”
“You bring danger to yourself and to my boy.”
The figure grew translucent, and the swirls of white disconnected for a few seconds, then reunited again on the other side of the room.
“I would never hurt Dylan. But he’s not a little boy, Helene. He’s a man, a very brave man, and he’s trying to help me.”
“Leave my house. Go to your father. He’s the one who brought the trouble on you. He will destroy my family.”
The words echoed in Collette’s mind, but if the spirit haunting her was Helene, why would she appear to Collette instead of to Troy or Dylan?
“You must leave this house, but be very, very careful. Death is bearing down on you.”
But death wasn’t talking. The ghost was. “Did your husband kill you, Helene? Is that why you’re trapped in this house?”
“Go, before you bring danger to the ones I love.”
The tiers of white snapped as if they’d been cracked like a whip. A second later the spirit vanished, and the room grew so hot, Collette was afraid it might burst into flame.
She jumped out of bed and tore off her pajamas. But the temperature changed again, leaving the room chilly but not frigid. She grabbed the emerald-colored cashmere robe she’d brought with her and pulled it tight around her naked body.
A nightmare, though she hadn’t realized she’d drifted off to sleep.
That’s all it could have been. A frightening reaction to all that had happened over the past two days.
Just a vivid dream. Yet even now it seemed infinitely more real than the present. Helene’s words obsessed her, playing over and over like a mantra.
He’s the one who brought the trouble on you. He will destroy my family.
Collette’s father couldn’t be responsible for her stalker, but he could have been behind Troy Ledger’s arrest and conviction.
Now he was nursing a grudge against Dylan that would grow stronger as long as she stayed at Willow Creek Ranch.
Perhaps she should call Bill to come back for her first thing in the morning, before she actually did bring danger into this house that had already seen too much bloodshed.
No. She was being foolish. The phantom had been a figment of her overwrought imagination. Helene Ledger was as dead as the flowers in her forsaken garden.
But if the ghost was real, then so were her warnings. Death was bearing down on Collette.
She forced herself to stay in bed until the sun peeked over the horizon and dropped golden rays of light into the garden outside her window.
Sliding her bare feet into her slippers, Collette opened the door and stepped into the hall. The house was silent except for the ticking of the large clock in the family room and a vibrating snore coming from one of the bedrooms.
She stopped in the kitchen for a glass of water and tried to shake the sense of imminent doom. When that didn’t help, she opted for the serenity she’d found on the front porch before her brother had shown up with all his bluster and threats.
She closed the door behind her and shivered at the howls of a pack of coyotes in the distance and a rustle in the grass just beyond the porch. She followed the sound with her gaze and spotted a family of skunks parading by, no doubt returning from a night of scavenging. She stayed perfectly still until they’d disappeared from view and the chance of inciting an odorous attack had passed.
A black spider crept by her foot. She stepped over it and walked to the edge of the porch. The wind had picked up, and the limbs in a nearby tree creaked like an old man’s bones.
All of a sudden, she had the crazy feeling that she was being watched. She’d best get a grip before she saw ghosts coming at her from all directions.
Shoving her hands in her pockets, she took one last look into the scrubby brush where the skunks had disappeared. Another rustle, much louder that the first, came from somewhere near the woodshed. She stared in that direction and spotted a glint of sunlight bouncing off metal.
Collette turned to go back inside just as the crack of gunfire shattered the early morning quiet.
Chapter Eleven
Dylan woke instantly at the sound of gunfire, jumping from the bed as adrenaline rushed through his veins and triggered his battle instincts. Only this time he wasn’t in a combat zone. His senses became razor sharp, his mind sizing up the situation as he grabbed the pistol he’d left on his bedside table and tore down the hal
l in his underwear. The scream had come from outside, though he had no idea why Collette would be outside this early in the morning.
By the time he reached the front door, Collette was inside and leaning against it. Her robe was open enough that he could tell she had nothing on beneath it. His senses reeled, but his gaze was drawn to the blood trickling down her cheek and the ghostly pallor of her face.
He stroked the injured cheek with his free hand. Her skin was icy cold, but the injury was no more than a scratch, likely made by one of the splintered wood fragments that clung to her robe. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, her voice quivering. “But someone just tried to kill me.”
“Did you see the shooter?”
“No, but a split second before the shot, I saw a glint of sun off metal out by the woodshed. I think what I saw was a gun.”
She yanked her robe tightly around her just as Troy joined them, still zipping his jeans.
“Was that gunfire?”
“Someone’s on the property,” Dylan said. “Take care of Collette. I’m going after him.”
“No, Dylan, please,” Collette pleaded. “Call 911. He has a gun.”
That made two of them. “Stay inside,” he ordered and rushed out the door. Fury drove him, but his brain and training kicked into autopilot. He jumped from the porch and raced to the tree line that stretched almost to the old woodshed.
There was more gunfire, and one of the bullets ricocheted off the trunk of a pine tree just in front of him. Dylan ran even faster, staying in the cover of trees, his bare feet almost silent in the thick grass.
His breathing came hard as he neared the woodshed. The last few yards he’d be in the open. He needed to draw the shooter out so he could get a clear shot to take him down, hopefully without killing him. Dead men didn’t talk and he wanted answers.
An engine sputtered, knocked and backfired. Damn. The shooter was back in his vehicle, giving up and making a run for it. Dylan dashed toward the shed, but before he reached it, he spotted a man on a motorbike heading for the east pasture. Unless Dylan came up with a better plan, the son of a bitch was going to get away.
