by Stacy Finz
Raylene looked past her but didn’t see a horse. “Where?”
Harper hunched her shoulders. “Back there somewhere.” She waved at a copse of trees near the McCreedy property line. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”
“That you fell off your horse?” Raylene’s father, who’d been born in the saddle, had been a tyrant when it came to riding and having the perfect seat. But even he accepted that a person could get thrown from time to time.
Harper’s gaze fell to her pink cowboy boots, and Raylene instantly knew she was hiding something.
“You’re not supposed to be riding alone, are you?”
“My mother doesn’t let me do anything, not even walk to the mailbox by myself.”
Raylene could understand why.
“I just want to get better at it, and no one has time to help me. Justin’s always with Cynthia and Cody would rather play a video game. Clay’s got the ranch to run and my mother is afraid of horses.”
Raylene laughed. Last time she’d seen the boys was a few years ago. By now, they were young men. “How are your brothers?”
“They’re not my real brothers.”
“Are they nice?” Raylene asked.
“Very.”
“Then claim them, they come in handy.” Logan had been her savior.
“I have a half sister, too. Paige. She’s a baby.”
Raylene nodded. “Should we try to find your horse?” More than likely it had headed home.
“Yes, or I’m gonna be in big trouble.”
“How long have you been gone?” Raylene needed to call Clay, but she felt for the kid.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t keeping track of the time.”
“Five minutes and then we call home, okay?” Harper didn’t look too happy about that, but she tacitly agreed. “What’s your horse’s name?”
“Ginger.”
Raylene put two fingers in her mouth and let out a loud whistle.
“How’d you learn how to do that?”
“Practice.” She called “Ginger” and clicked her tongue. It was a long shot, but worth trying.
Nothing.
“Were you riding bareback?”
“With a saddle. But I didn’t do the thing right and it slid off.”
“The cinch?” The girl was lucky she didn’t get hurt.
Harper nodded.
“You have to learn how to do that properly before you can ride. We should look for your saddle.” The McCreedys had always had nice tack. “It’ll be faster in the truck.” Raylene helped Harper in, and it struck her that the girl hadn’t thought twice about talking to or taking a ride with a stranger.
She started the engine, cranked up the heat, and drove in the direction of the trees. “Keep your eyes peeled.”
When they got to the grove Raylene stopped, got out of the truck, and looked around. She could see her own breath and rubbed her gloved hands together to keep warm. “Which way from here?”
Harper pointed south, where the land turned to McCreedy property. There was a split-rail fence separating the two parcels. “You sure?”
“No.”
Raylene didn’t think so. She stared out over the pasture, trying to think how she would’ve gone. There was a time when she knew every square inch of these fields and had ridden the backcountry for hours at a time.
“Let’s get back in the truck before we freeze.”
Harper scrambled in and Raylene turned around. On a hunch, she followed the fence line.
“How come you were beating that tree with your purse? Did something bad happen?”
Raylene slid Harper a sideways glance, not wanting to get into the details of her messy divorce with a thirteen-year-old. “My dad died. But it was months ago.”
Harper nodded, her lips pursed like a sage old woman, which made Raylene smile. “It’s okay to still be sad,” she said, acting all grown-up. “My…the woman who stole me…died before Christmas. It’s been really hard.”
Raylene didn’t want to pry or ask anything that was inappropriate, but she was beyond curious. “Did you care for her?”
“Yeah,” Harper said. “Her and my dad. But he wasn’t really my dad. He died in a car crash a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry. You didn’t know that they had kid—taken you?”
“They said my parents had died. I guess I was stupid to believe them.”
“Nah, you were just a little kid. No way you could’ve known. Do you see what I see?”
Harper gasped. “Ginger!”
Raylene applied the brakes and slowly got out of the cab. “Come here, girl.” She clicked her tongue and held out her hand, and the mare stretched her neck to see what Raylene had. That’s when she reached for the reins and tugged her in. “Good girl. You’re such a good girl.” Raylene pointed a few feet behind Ginger. “There’s your saddle. Go get it and throw it in the back.”
Harper hefted it off the ground with both hands and Raylene helped her toss it in the bed of her truck.
“You ready to face the music?”
“What does that mean?”
In Raylene’s case, it usually meant a beating for hanging around with Lucky, but she didn’t think Clay was like that. His father, Tip, had been one of the nicest men she’d known. She’d openly wept at his funeral. “Probably a time-out.” Or maybe Harper was too old for that. Raylene didn’t interact with too many tweens.
She tied Ginger to her back bumper and drove at a snail’s pace to the McCreedy house. Harper kept up a steady chatter, which indicated to Raylene that she wasn’t too afraid of the consequences for sneaking out to go riding. The girl seemed healthy—and fearless, not something you displayed if you’d been abused. Then again, victims of abuse had all kinds of ways of manifesting their pain.
Raylene knew that all too well.
“Do you know a lot about horses?” Harper asked.
“Yep.” That was pretty much all Raylene knew about. She’d failed at everything else. Friendship, marriage, managing her money. “When I was a little bit older than you, I was a champion barrel racer.” Later, she’d married Butch and left the rodeo circuit. And now, living in Santa Monica, there was no place convenient to stable her gelding. She’d had to leave Gunner in Colorado.
“Really?” Harper’s face lit up, and it did something gooey to Raylene’s insides. It was nice to impress someone again, even if she was only thirteen years old. “Maybe you can show me some things.”
“It’s up to Clay and your mom.” And dad, Raylene supposed. She didn’t know anything about him, or even if he was still in the picture.
“They’ll say yes.” Harper clapped her hands and Raylene felt guilty for getting her hopes up. Clay wouldn’t let her anywhere near his stepdaughter, and she didn’t have time anyway. She had a fortune to find.
Raylene kept her eyes on the rearview mirror to make sure Ginger was okay, then took the fire trail back to the main road and headed to McCreedy Ranch. Three big dogs came nipping at her tires, barking as she crawled up the driveway. At least the mare wasn’t fazed. Clay, Emily, and a man Raylene had never seen before were standing on the front porch, watching her drive up.
She parked in front of the house and hopped out of the cab to untie Ginger. The stranger and Emily trotted up to the passenger side as Harper started to get out.
“We’ve been worried sick,” Emily said. “You can’t just go off like that.”
Clay came around to Raylene’s side and took Ginger’s reins. “Where’d you find her?”
“She found me, actually. I was up the road…on my property.” Raylene waited for Clay to ask about the land and wondered if he knew about her buyer yet. She was a little surprised that he hadn’t tried to buy the parcel himself. It bordered his ranch, and cattlemen were always looking for new grazing land.
He just grabbed the saddle from the bed of her truck. “Thanks for bringing her home.”
“No problem. She had trouble with the saddle and fell off.”
He gazed over at Harper, who was getting a good talking to, with what looked to Raylene like a great deal of relief. He appeared to have a deep affection for the girl. “I need to spend more time teaching her.” He sighed.
“Is that her father?”
“Yeah, Drew Matthews. He has a place in Sierra Heights and splits his time between here and the Bay Area.”
“She’s a good girl,” Raylene said, not that anyone would take her word for it. “I think she was trying to spread her wings, and she desperately wants to learn to ride.”
He glowered, clearly not interested in her opinion. “After what happened…we’re protective,” he said tersely.
Raylene nodded, not knowing how to respond. She could only imagine how difficult it would be to recover a daughter who’d been ripped from you, only to fear losing her again.
Harper ran over to them, and Emily and her ex followed.
“Raylene said she’ll teach me to be better on Ginger. Can she?”
Emily looked at Clay and there was a long silence. Raylene wanted desperately to extricate herself from the conversation, but Drew stuck out his hand and introduced himself. Clearly, he hadn’t gotten the memo about her.
“Thanks for helping my daughter and bringing her horse home. She’s still learning the ropes.”
“Not a problem. My brother’s rehearsal dinner is in a few hours, and I need to get home to help with the preparations.” She ruffled Harper’s blond hair. “You take care, now.”
“You’re still gonna help me ride, right?”
Clay stepped between them and squeezed Harper’s shoulder. “I’ll work with you some more, kiddo.”
“But Raylene said she would, and you don’t have time.”
“She’s busy with her brother’s wedding and then she’s going back to LA, sweetheart.” Clay shot Raylene a warning look.
Message received.
“Clay’s right, I’m leaving soon.”
“But you said you can teach me.”
“Stop.” Emily draped her arm around her daughter’s back and drew her in. “It was lovely of Raylene to offer, honey. But we don’t want to take advantage. She’s here for a short amount time, and probably wants to spend it with her family.”
Raylene pretended to check her watch. “I’ve really got to go. It was nice meeting you, Harper.”
She swung into the driver’s seat and drove down the hill without looking back, a lump in her throat. The sooner she got out of Nugget the better.
Halfway to Logan’s, her cell rang. She took one look at the caller ID and let it go to voicemail.
Chapter 5
Gabe kept his eyes peeled. He and Rhys had been riding around the backcountry for more than an hour.
“This is where you saw them?”
“Yep.” Rhys parked his SUV next to a tree and pulled a pair of binoculars from the back seat. “It looked as if they’d made camp over there.” He pointed at a thicket of pine trees.
“You think they’re growing pot out here?”
“I didn’t find any evidence of it, but they didn’t look like your garden variety campers, either. But, to be fair, they were too far away for me to get a good enough look. Just a gut feeling.”
Gabe wagged his hand for Rhys to give him the binocs. “You said there were three of them.”
“One was small. Could’ve been a child; another red flag, if you ask me.”
“I can see that. Maybe they’re a homeless family.” Gabe scanned the area but didn’t see anything but trees, leaves, and a few patches of old snow.
“Maybe, but it would be pretty unusual in Nugget. Too cold. If it was one of our own, we would’ve heard about it.”
Rhys was right. If someone had fallen on hard times, the whole town would’ve banded together to help. That’s one of the things Gabe loved about Nugget.
“Looks like they might’ve just been passing through.” Gabe handed him back the binoculars.
“Yup, could be. I’d appreciate you keeping your eyes open, though. Like I said, something about it didn’t feel right. Over the years, I’ve learned to listen to my spidey sense.”
Absolutely. It had saved Gabe’s life more times than he wanted to think about. That eerie chill running up his back or that gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach. In the spec ops world, he’d learned very quickly to pay close attention to that sixth sense. “Roger that.”
Rhys restarted the engine and took the rutted dirt road back in the direction of the highway. “Thanks for coming along. Usually, I’d take Jake, but he and Cecilia took a few days to visit one of his daughters.”
The detective had five of them. All grown, all hot. All wrapped in caution tape as far as Gabe was concerned. Jake was protective, and Gabe wasn’t ready to put a ring on it.
“Cecilia upset about Raylene being here?” he asked Rhys.
“She’s Lucky’s mother, what do you think?”
The way Gabe had heard it was that Cecilia Stryker had practically raised Raylene when she kept house on Rosser Ranch. “She doesn’t seem all that bad to me. Spoiled, maybe, but not as terrible as everyone makes her out to be. And she cares about Logan. I know it wasn’t that way in the beginning, but she’s come around, and I think it’s legit.”
Rhys drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I always suspected that Ray had her wrapped around his little finger. It was a power thing with him, and she was daddy’s little girl.”
“Logan says he abused her.” Gabe was probably talking out of turn, but there were two sides to every story. He’d seen it firsthand, traveling around the world, fighting wars. “I’m not saying that’s an excuse for what she did, but I think she was under his thumb. And later, under Butch’s. Truthfully, I think she was scared to death of her ex-husband, and I don’t think Raylene scares that easy.”
Gabe remembered Denver, when she went nose to nose with Butch as she was leaving him. He suspected she wouldn’t have been so tough if she hadn’t had two former Navy SEALs backing her up. There was a reason she’d called Logan in the first place. At the time, they weren’t on the best of terms.
“I definitely think Butch was calling the shots as far as cutting Logan out of his inheritance. But helping her old man set up Lucky on murder charges…that was cold. Lucky loved her.”
That was the thing. Nothing about Raylene struck him as cold. Self-centered? Yes. Destructive? Maybe. Mean? Gabe didn’t see it. And he’d been up close and personal with some of the meanest hombres on the face of the earth.
“It didn’t work,” Gabe said. In the end, Ray Rosser went to prison for killing that cattle thief and died in his cell.
“Because Jake and I are damn good cops,” Rhys said.
“And modest.” Gabe laughed, because listening to Rhys’ bravado while riding shotgun, armed to the hilt, reminded him of being back in the teams with his brothers.
“For Cecilia, Tawny, and Lucky’s sake, I want her out of here,” Rhys said. “And I’m not the only one. But folks care too much about Annie and Logan to make a scene. So, until they leave on their honeymoon, everyone’ll be on their best behavior. After that, all gloves come off. I wouldn’t put it past Cecilia to run Raylene out of town.”
Gabe sighed. “I hear ya, and I don’t think you’ll have to wait long. As soon as the wedding’s over, I suspect she’ll hit the road. My sense is she’s not feeling the love.”
Rhys chuckled. “She’d have to be pretty warped, otherwise. I hear she talked to Dana today about a buyer for her property.”
“I hadn’t heard, but I’ll take your word for it.” Gabe knew she wanted to unload the property and use the money toward her horse ranch or whatever scheme she was cooking up. It
was a valuable piece of land, and with the market the way it was, he wasn’t surprised she had an offer.
“Hopefully it won’t hold her up.” Rhys pulled into the square and parked his SUV in front of the police station. “See you around, Moretti.”
“Later,” Gabe said, and ducked inside the barbershop.
Owen, who’d been threatening to retire ever since Gabe rolled into town last summer, was giving some poor kid a jarhead buzzcut and talking the kid’s father’s ear off about politics. Gabe tuned him out, learning long ago to avoid that subject. Especially with Owen, who got most of what he talked about wrong.
“You got an appointment?”
Gabe scanned the empty waiting room. “No. Since when do I need an appointment?”
“Since I got a date with a new fishing pole.”
“You’re seriously wanting to fish in this?” Gabe stared out the window where the condensation on the rooftops had turned to icicles.
“Toughen up, boy. You’re not in New Jersey anymore.”
Gabe had more than a dozen ways he could respond to that but decided to leave it alone. “You gonna give me a trim or not?” And don’t butcher my hair like you did the kid’s, he wanted to say. But again he left it alone. Diplomacy. He was practicing diplomacy.
“You’re next, then I’m closing the shop for the day.”
“Where’s Darla?” Gabe got a kick out of the hairdresser’s colorful clothes, and she was a lot less surly than her old man, though he got a kick out of him too. Everyone in town had their own unique thing going. It was part of the reason Gabe fell in love with the place.
“It’s her day off. She and Wyatt went to Sacramento to visit her mom.” Owen finished up with the boy and motioned for Gabe to hop in the chair.
He squared up with the kid’s father at the cash register and returned with a clean cape, which he snapped around Gabe’s neck. “You want a shave, too?”
Gabe eyed his chin in the mirror, turning his head from side to side. “What the hell? Go for it.”
“That way you won’t look like a derelict for Annie’s wedding.”
A derelict? Gabe had to suppress an eye roll. “What’s new around here?” The barbershop was gossip central, and Owen was usually king rumor monger. Sometimes he got it right. More often than not, though, he embellished, putting his own bizarre spin on things. Gabe had learned how to muck through the bullshit in order to glean some semblance of the truth.
