Night Thunder

by Jill Gregory

  “Whatever it is, I’ll help you,” he said in a taut tone. “If I can. I can’t do anything, though, if you don’t level with me.”

  “You can’t help me, Ty. I mean it. This is something I have to do myself.” She shook her head. “Trust me, you don’t want to be involved in this.”

  “I am involved.” He grabbed her arm as she started to back away from him.

  He saw her wince, and glanced down, seeing the bruise already forming on her pale skin. Not from his touch— from that animal who’d been trying to drag her into the brush.

  He dropped his hand, controlling the rage that leapt through him. “I want to get this guy, Josy. I want to help you. I’m asking you to trust me.”

  She wanted to. She did trust him—with her own life.

  But not with Ricky’s. Ricky would go to jail. She couldn’t tell Ty about what he’d done, or about the diamond.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you.” She swallowed. “But there’s someone else involved. I made a promise—”

  “Damn it, Josy!” He seized her hand this time and pulled her toward his cruiser. She didn’t have the strength or the will to resist. She felt safe just being with him, and she needed to feel safe for a little longer. She wouldn’t tell him about Ricky, but she’d let him take her home. Then she could clean up, get to her car—and dig up the diamond before first light.

  “Are you taking me home?” she asked wearily as he helped her into the passenger seat.

  “No.” Ty slammed the door and came around as she stared at him in surprise.

  “That’s the first place he’ll come looking for you again. I’m operating on the assumption that you and that thug had unfinished business. Am I right?”

  She nodded wordlessly.

  “I’m taking you somewhere you can get some sleep. Somewhere he won’t find you.”

  “Where?” she whispered as he started the engine. She’d never seen his face quite this set, his jaw thrust out so aggressively.

  “Blue Moon Mesa—my family’s place. The Barclay cabin.”

  Chapter 21

  THE ENTICING AROMA OF FRESH COFFEE GREETED her as she stepped out of Ty’s bedroom wrapped in his thick black terry-cloth robe. It was three sizes too big for her and reached nearly to her ankles, but it was cozy and warm and clean, and smelled like Ty—that sage and Dial-soap smell that she associated with him, a scent that pleased her somehow more than Doug’s designer cologne ever had.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” she said quietly, when she padded barefoot into the kitchen. “It was hanging on a hook in the bathroom, and I didn’t want to climb right back into my dirty clothes.”

  “Mind?” Ty, who was pouring beaten eggs into a sizzling fry pan on the stove, shook his head. His gaze skimmed over her appreciatively. “It looks a helluva lot better on you than it ever looked on me,” he grinned.

  Josy shook her head in rebuttal. She felt like a mess, inside and out, but at least she was a clean mess. It had felt heavenly to take a shower, to rinse away the dirt and blood of this night, to soap her hair and scrub the soil from beneath her fingernails. She’d found her comb at the bottom of her purse and pulled it through her towel-dried hair. It was still damp, but would have to dry naturally since she hadn’t seen a hair dryer.

  She didn’t care, though—all she cared about now was the fragrant, steaming coffee Ty had poured into two blue mugs set on the kitchen table, and the scrambled eggs he was scooping in equal measure onto two matching plates.

  “Headache better?” he asked as she slipped into a chair and picked up a fork.

  “Much. Thank God for Advil. There’s only a slight throb now. I can’t believe I’m hungry, but this looks delicious.”

  “I’m always famished after the adrenaline stops.” Ty took a seat across from her at the table, and took a gulp of coffee.

  “Is that what it is? I feel like I’m running on empty— totally drained—so it must be. I suppose the coffee will take care of that.”

  “No—it’s decaf. We’re better off without the caffeine at this point—both of us ought to try to get a few hours’ sleep before the sun comes up. Something tells me it’s going to be a long day.”

  Josy didn’t say anything. But she knew he was right. It would be a long day. A god-awful day. A day she might not live through—and that Ricky might not live through either.

  A spurt of fear closed her throat and she nearly choked on a forkful of eggs.

  Ty regarded her with concern while she gulped some coffee and managed to swallow.

  “I’m fine,” she gasped. “Don’t . . . worry.”

  He set his fork down, frowning.

  Don’t worry, huh? Just because I found you out in the foothills in the middle of the night, being dragged into the underbrush by some shaven-headed thug? Just because you’re nobody to me, some woman who could disappear tomorrow, as if you’d never popped into my life, and I’d never think twice about you again?

  Yeah, right. Sorry, babe, it’s not like that between you and me.

  That fact shocked him, but it was true. When had things changed, when had this curvy delicate blonde with her green cat eyes and careful smile become someone he cared about, thought about all the time? When had she become a woman he was desperate to keep safe?

  “I made some calls.” He poured her more coffee. “Chance is in surgery—the bullet lodged in his rib cage and he has a collapsed lung, but they think he’ll make it just fine.”

  “Thank God. When I saw him lying there, I thought he was dead. Or on his way.” She bit her lip and looked Ty in the eyes. “You said that Chance is a cop? You’ve known that all along?”

  “We’ve been working together on the rustling investigation. He’s actually a sheriff’s deputy in Oregon who had only recently transferred there from Denver. We started out comparing notes on the rustling situation in Oregon and here in Wyoming, via e-mail and phone. Then I started putting two and two together. I ran some stuff on the computer and found there was a distinctive pattern to the thefts that have occurred over the past year and a half. Enough of a pattern to make me think this could be the same outfit operating in multiple states. Not a small-scale operation like most spates of rustling, but a big one, well organized, well planned—and well coordinated.”

  Ty took a sip of coffee. “Wyoming, Oregon, and Montana have all been hard hit over this eighteen-month period of time—and it could be the rustlers are rotating from one area to the next. When things get too hot, they move out for a while and hit another section or another state—confounding and harassing overworked brand inspectors as they go.”

  “Do you have any idea who’s behind it?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question. And that’s why Deputy Roper volunteered to go undercover. He managed to get himself hooked up with two of the rustlers, but so far he hadn’t gotten them to give much away about the big boss. All we know are his initials—BJ—if those are even the initials of his real name.”

  “But now at least you know who some of the rustlers are,” she pointed out.

  “We’d suspected for a while that Denny Owens and Fred Barnes were involved, but it wasn’t until Chance got them to trust him that we had proof. We also have reason to believe that Owens and Barnes are aliases—their identification checks out on the surface, but not everything adds up. Now that they’re in custody we can check their prints and fill in some of the blanks.”

  Josy nodded. “So that’s why you were watching them from your car that night—the night we met—because you suspected them.”

  “It wasn’t the night we met.” Ty set down his mug, and looked straight at her, his gaze holding hers. “It was the night we danced. We met the night before that, on the stairway at the Pine Hills.”

  Josy was caught off guard by the intensity of his gaze. She couldn’t look away . . . not that she wanted to.

  “Yes. You’re right. I . . . didn’t think you remembered.”

  “I remember all right. You looked like an exha
usted fawn who’d been swimming upstream and was finally nearing the bank . . . ready to climb out. You could barely get your suitcase up the stairs. So I gave you a hand.” He drew a breath. “I had a feeling right then that you were running away from something. Hiding from something. But I didn’t know it was something dangerous.”

  Josy fell silent. She simply stared at him, thinking how wonderfully handsome he was and how warmly he was looking at her—and wondering how he would look at her when he found out, very soon, no doubt, about the full extent of her lies.

  What would Ty Barclay, hero lawman, sheriff of Thunder Creek, think of her when he heard that she was involved in a diamond theft and protecting the thief?

  If indeed Ricky was a thief, she told herself. She only had Dolph’s word on that. He could have been lying.

  But his story made sense, and she had an awful suspicion it was the truth.

  Ty would probably have to arrest her if he knew the facts. He’d force her to turn the diamond over to him. And that would get Ricky in even deeper trouble.

  Her fingers clenched around her fork. She’d been hoping to keep Ty on the subject of the rustlers for as long as possible, but he’d already shifted it to her. She searched her mind for some way to deflect his focus.

  “Tell me something—why did those men shoot Chance?” she asked, biting her lip.

  His brows lifted. He knew what she was doing. But for the moment at least, he seemed to be humoring her. “He was pressing them too hard, trying to find out who their boss was,” Ty explained in an even tone. “I guess they caught on—or didn’t like how he talked about their boss. They’re apparently loyal and interested in protecting him for some reason. That’s significant in itself.”

  Ty pushed back his chair, stood up, and carried his plate to the sink. “And now,” he said matter-of-factly, “don’t you think it’s time you told me what you’re mixed up in?”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Trust me. It’s better if you don’t know.”

  “I disagree.”

  He strode back to the table but didn’t sit down. He regarded her unwaveringly and she could feel the heightened tension radiating through the cabin.

  “Let’s have it, Josy.” Though his tone was quiet, it held an edge of unmistakable determination. “What are you hiding from?”

  Slowly, she lifted her gaze to his. It was obvious that she couldn’t put him off any longer. And suddenly, for some reason, she didn’t really want to.

  “It’s not what I’m hiding from,” she murmured. Her heart turned over at the way he was studying her. Not like a cop, a policeman, but like a man trying to read into the heart and mind of a woman.

  “It’s who,” she said softly. “And I don’t even know who he is.”

  “Even now? When he’s shown up—tracked you down?”

  She nodded. “Even now. You see, he—that man back there, Dolph—works for someone. I don’t know who . . . or how many more might be out there—but they’re not going to stop until they get what they want. And I can’t give it to them, Ty. I won’t!”

  She pushed back her chair and paced away from the table, into the big open living room of the cabin. It was a soothing place, and in other circumstances it would have felt sublimely homey and comfortable with its tan and beige upholstered sofa and ottoman, the rust-colored curtains at the wide window, the assortment of authentic Western saddles hung upon the wall.

  Ty had a fire roaring in the stone fireplace and the blaze sent out reassuring ribbons of warmth, but she couldn’t get warm—suddenly she felt cold, cold and frightened. Even here, even with Ty. For all she knew, a gang of armed men who all worked for Dolph’s employer could have followed them to this cabin, they could storm in any moment now—

  “Ty, I shouldn’t be here. You’re in danger while you’re with me. I have to leave. Please, take me back to the Pine Hills so I can get my car and . . . and do what I have to do. You don’t need to be involved in this, and believe me, you don’t want to be.”

  “You’re wrong about that, Josy.”

  Ty closed the distance between them. His hands gently gripped her shoulders. “I am involved. And I want to be right where I am. With you.”

  She stared at him. “But . . . why?”

  His arms swept around her waist. He pulled her close to him, touching her damp hair with his fingertips, gazing down into those anxious green eyes.

  “Don’t you know why? Hell, Josy,” he smiled, “I’m starting to wonder if you’re really as smart as I think you are.”

  “I guess I’m not. You’re going to have to spell it out for me,” she managed to say despite the huge lump in her throat. He was looking at her with bemusement . . . and with tenderness. Such tenderness. It made her ache in a place deep inside.

  No one had ever looked at her that way. Not Doug, not Ricky, not her high school boyfriends. No one.

  Ty spoke softly. “Because I care about you.” A muscle clenched in his jaw. “And because I’m not about to let some goon—or a whole herd of goons—hurt you. And because I’m a cop—and cops are curious. We find something that doesn’t make sense, something we don’t understand, and we have to figure it out. I’ve been trying to figure you out since day one.”

  She froze. “So . . . it’s the mystery that intrigues you. Not me. Just the question marks—”

  “No. Hell, no.” Ty couldn’t believe that such a beautiful, smart woman could be so insecure. “It’s not just this, or just that. Life should only be so simple. It’s everything, Josy.” He hauled her up against him and his voice was rough with emotion.

  “Everything about you. Yeah, it might have started with the mystery, but pretty quickly it became a lot more.” He smoothed a tousled curl back from her brow. “Like the way your head tilts to the side when you smile, and the way your hair smells like wildflowers. Then there’s the way your jeans hug your body. When I saw you walking toward me that day we went riding—” His eyes glinted dark as cobalt, haunted by desire.

  “Even the way you spoke to the horses, the way you bite your lip when you’re concentrating hard. And then there’s this . . .”

  “This?” she asked, her heart beginning to thud as he traced the outline of her lips with his finger.

  “Yeah. This.” His head dipped lower and his mouth slanted against hers. It was a long kiss, and a searing one. After that first startling impact, it was tender. Bonemeltingly tender.

  The heat of it jolted through her. Josy lost herself in the texture of his mouth on hers, in the hardness of his chest as she pressed against him.

  She felt a wave of indefinable loss when he slowly pulled back. “I thought you’d have figured it out before now,” Ty said.

  He pressed another kiss against the fragile white skin of her throat and felt her shiver.

  “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. But I can’t protect you if you don’t tell me what this is all about. Trust me, Josy, just trust me.”

  “I do.” She reached up, touched his face, stroked a finger over the sexy dark stubble on his jaw. A tremble went through her. Being this close to him made it hard to think straight. It made her want to tell him everything, to lean on him, and to finally share this burden that she’d been carrying alone these past weeks.

  But that was impossible.

  “It’s not just about me, Ty. There’s someone else involved. Someone I owe big-time. And I can’t betray him . . . even to you.”

  Her words stirred something dark and fierce inside him. Jealousy. Who was this jerk she was so loyal to? A lover, a husband? A ball of barbed wire tightened in his chest. Somehow he managed to keep his expression neutral. It cost him, though.

  “I said I’d try to help. If he’s important to you, I’ll do my best to protect him too. But you have to look out for yourself.”

  “You don’t understand.” She pushed away from him and stalked to the window, her stomach churning. Then she spun around to face him.

  “This man has played a big part in my life. If not for h
im, I don’t even think I’d have much of a life. I’d have fallen apart a long time ago.”

  “Are you in love with him?” He forced the words out. They seemed to cut his tongue.

  She looked at him like he was crazy, then threw back her head and laughed. “No. Oh, no. Ricky is like . . . a brother to me, a best friend. A guardian angel,” she added with a strangled laugh.

  “He’s been there for me since my parents died, since I was placed in my third foster home. But I could never be in love with him.”

  The relief Ty felt was like a full-grown grizzly leaping off his chest. He walked over to Josy, took her hand in his, and led her to the sofa. Sitting down beside her, he began to very gently rub his thumb across her long, slender fingers.

  “Okay, then. Tell me about him.”

  She hesitated a moment, then nodded. Ty wasn’t going to let up until she told him. And part of her knew that with Dolph on her trail, she needed all the assistance she could get.

  But she had to make him see why Ricky deserved his help too. Why she couldn’t do anything that would hurt Ricky in any way.

  And as she talked, and told him about how Ricky had been the one person to help her overcome her muteness when no one else could, even the therapists hired by the state, how Ricky had made her laugh, and looked out for her, how he’d kept her company in the Hammonds’ basement the night Karl had banished her to the darkness, she saw the expression on his face tighten, and a flash of understanding in his eyes. He held her hand all through her story, and his fingers closed around hers as she told him about the Callahan brothers.

  “They were the neighborhood bullies. Dean was the oldest, he thought he was really hot stuff. James was a year younger and he was the meanest of the three. He . . .” She swallowed hard. “He killed a stray cat one day when he was bored. Set it on fire.”

  Ty said nothing, just held her hand more tightly, and she was very grateful he was there with her, not interrupting, but letting her explain about Ricky at her own pace.

  “The youngest brother was Frank. Little Frankie. He was the runt of the litter and laughed like a hyena at everything his brothers did and said. Frankie would have gone along with murder if Dean or James suggested it.”