She paused from pulling on latex gloves from her bag. “Must you call me princess?”
“It fits. You’ve done nothing but hand out orders since we met. I’m not your butler.”
Amanda raised her chin as she snapped her gloves in place. “Have I? I’m sorry. When I work, I get in a zone. I’m focused on my task, on my patient. Not on manners.” She twisted her mouth as she thought. “Although my sisters say I’m bossy, too. Hazard of being the firstborn?” She sent him an apologetic look. “I don’t mean to be demanding.” She squared her shoulders. “If I make an effort to be less imperial, will you call me Amanda instead of princess?”
He jerked a nod and extended his hand. “Deal.”
She pulled her hands back. “Can’t. Sterile gloves.” She showed him the nearly empty bottle of Betadine. “Will you please find another bottle of this?”
“I will.” He pulled a clean rag from her vet supplies and wiped Cheyenne’s face. “And when you finish with the cow, will you please take that kid inside out of this cold air?”
She wavered between irritation that he would tell her how to care for her own daughter and being touched that he’d bothered to wipe Cheyenne’s nose without prompting. “Cold air doesn’t make you sick. Germs make you sick. And it isn’t that cold in the stable where I was working.” When he scowled, she added, “But I do plan to take her inside when I finish here—” she flashed a sassy grin “—Dr. Kent.”
He gave a low growl as he strode across the half-frozen dirt in the pen. Patches of ice lurked in spots where the sun hadn’t yet sent its melting rays, and by the fence Midnight stood impatiently waiting to either be unsaddled or ridden back out into the fields. The horse shook his head, rattling his reins.
“Easy does it, Midnight,” Amanda called to the horse before turning back to the ailing cow and refocusing her attention for the task at hand. “Okay, Cheyenne, let’s fix this girl’s booboo, huh?”
Amanda stroked the cow’s side and crooned calming words as she set to work opening the wound and draining the infection. She started irrigating the gash, but quickly ran out of the sterile wash. While she waited for Slade to return, she gently probed the wound, making sure it was free of debris and estimating the extent of tissue damage. Later, much longer than she’d have thought it would take him to do his errand, she heard footsteps. She decided not to say anything about the delay, cutting him slack for being new to the ranch and unfamiliar with where things were stored.
Using the bars of the chute to help pull herself up, Amanda climbed to her feet and turned toward...
Not Slade. The person who crossed the holding pen toward her was dressed from head to toe in winter garb—bulky coveralls and a heavy coat, gloves and ski mask. Overkill in Amanda’s view.
“Can I help—?” Amanda swallowed the rest of her question as the heavily dressed figure withdrew a handgun from his coat pocket and aimed it at her.
Chapter 5
Amanda gasped and stumbled back a step, an icy fear for Cheyenne sinking to her bones.
In the next second, a loud blast rent the air, ringing in her ears and reverberating in her chest. Her daughter loosed a frightened wail.
Cheyenne! The instinct to protect her daughter overrode the numbing disbelief that threatened to paralyze her.
Rallying, Amanda scrambled for cover, first behind the cow in the squeeze chute, then toward the stable. She jogged backward keeping her body between the attacker and Cheyenne, shielding her daughter from the gunfire. But her foot hit a patch of ice as she scurried backward and Amanda fell, landing butt first with a jarring impact.
As Amanda clambered stiffly to her knees, her attacker descended on her like a black wraith and grabbed Cheyenne by the arms.
“No!” Amanda screamed, her tone so full of panic and anguish she didn’t recognize her own voice. Cheyenne cried, her sobs full of terror. The assailant grunted as he tried to free the baby from her carrier.
Amanda gritted her teeth, resolved to give her life if needed to protect her child. She grabbed desperately for her daughter’s foot, battling her attacker for possession of her child. “Slade! Help me!”
When the assailant raised the gun again, Amanda swung her arm in a powerful upward arc. She knocked the heavily garbed man’s arm away. The gun flew from his grip. Her counterattack startled the attacker, giving her precious seconds to shove to her feet. But the assailant came at her again, fighting hand-to-hand and still reaching for Cheyenne.
“Get away from her!” Amanda raised her arms defensively. She met each swing with a defensive block. With Cheyenne still in the pack on her back, Amanda struggled for balance as she battled, but she quickly realized she would lose the fight if she stayed on defense.
Amanda had never been a fighter, had never so much as attended a kickboxing class. But working the ranch had given her strength, and for her daughter’s life, she would batter and claw her opponent to her last breath. She swiped at her attacker’s head and landed a weak glancing blow. Her attacker grabbed Amanda’s hair and yanked hard, dragging her forward. Pinpricks of fire blazed through her scalp, and Amanda yelped in pain.
Cheyenne’s heart-wrenching cries soared through the frozen air.
Enough!
Rage fueled her fight. This person, or his puppet master, had terrorized her and the rest of the ranch for months. The mastermind behind all of the tragedy had remained safely anonymous by delegating his dirty work. But no more! Amanda was determined to stop the reign of terror, to unmask the person behind the horrors.
Unmask... The word replayed in her head. Shouted.
Lunging, Amanda reached for the person’s ski mask. The assailant ducked, grabbed for Amanda’s hand, ripping off her latex glove.
Another swing. Another blocked punch. Another attempt to snatch Cheyenne.
Amanda kept moving, sidling left, backing up, turning. Keeping the backpack carrier and her daughter as far from the attacker’s reach as possible.
“Slade!” she shouted again. Where was he?
Finally backed to the fence, cornered at the far end of the holding pen, Amanda made a final effort to either incapacitate her attacker or snatch off the ski mask. She braced on one leg and kicked, aiming for the assailant’s kidney. More mobile than Amanda, the attacker shifted out of range, avoiding the strike...then landed a stunning punch to Amanda’s jaw.
She saw spots and felt her knees tremble. Cheyenne!
When the attacker reached for Cheyenne, Amanda growled her fury and frustration, her fear and determination. She swung for the ski mask, her fingers curled like claws, and she raked her bared hand down the side of her attacker’s neck. The ski mask shifted. Amanda met flesh.
And a male voice shouted, “Amanda!”
Her assailant’s head jerked up. He backpedaled, swinging his gaze toward the source of the shout. And he ran.
Shaking to her core, Amanda slumped to the dirt.
“Stop him!” she yelled to Slade as he charged out of the stable. “Don’t let him get away!”
Scooping up the gun as he fled, the attacker took advantage of his head start. Took advantage of Midnight, standing there saddled and ready. Took advantage of Slade’s detour by Amanda. And got away.
“Are you hurt?” Slade asked, skidding to a stop beside her, his eyes wide and worried.
“I’m fine! Get him!” she shouted again, pointing at the escaping assailant. Not again!
Slade hesitated only a moment, clearly torn, before racing after the attacker. He cranked one of the ATVs and roared into the surrounding woods where the man had disappeared on Midnight.
Fumbling weakly to her feet, Amanda reached for the straps of the backpack, eager to pull Cheyenne into her arms and soothe her sobbing daughter. But she stopped.
She glanced at her hands—one still wearing a latex glove, the oth
er covered in mud from her fall, both likely contaminated by the cow’s infected wound.
Cold doesn’t make you sick. Germs make you sick.
“It’s okay, sweetie. We’re safe now,” she cooed to Cheyenne breathlessly as she rushed into the stable. “The bad man is gone. You’re okay, sweetheart.” She raced to the sink in the back of the stable, tossed out the glove and scrubbed her hands with hot water and antibacterial soap. She washed away the holding pen mud and the lingering germs from the cow’s wound and dried them on fresh paper towels.
Hands now clean, she pulled her daughter from the carrier and held Cheyenne against her chest. She swayed and crooned and fought to gather her own composure.
The rumble of an ATV engine filtered in from outside, and she moved to a window to look out. Slade was alone on the ATV and held a riderless Midnight’s reins, leading the stallion back to the holding pen. Frustration punched Amanda in the gut.
“He got away?” she groaned when Slade entered the stable. “Again?”
“We can set up a search of the property, starting from where I found Midnight, but chances are he’s long gone.” His gaze narrowed on Cheyenne, his brow puckering. He raised a hand toward Cheyenne’s head before balking and shoving it back in his pocket. “Is she all right?”
“I think so. Just scared mostly.” She released a pent-up breath. “Oh, God. He had his hands on her, pulling her out of the carrier....” A shiver rippled through her, and her stomach soured. “If he’d managed to get her out, if he’d—”
“Don’t play the ‘what-if’ game.” Slade slid a hand along her cheek, cupping her face.
Pain skittered along her jaw, and she hissed, winced.
His worried expression darkened further. “You are hurt.” He angled her head toward the light and brushed her messy hair behind her ear. His warm fingers skimmed her cheek and sent an unnerving rush of sensual tingles to her core. “Your jaw’s already bruising.”
“I’ll be fine.” Pulse scampering, she pulled away from his touch and tested her mouth by opening, closing and wiggling it sideways slowly. Cheyenne’s crying had made her nose run again, and Slade pulled the rag he’d used before on her from his back pocket and offered it to Amanda. “Why don’t you walk me through what happened?”
“Okay.” Amanda accepted the rag and moved to a bale of hay to sit down. She wiped Cheyenne’s face as she gathered her composure and recalled the frightening events. “I heard someone walking up behind me and assumed it was you. But it wasn’t, and then the guy pulled out a gun and fired at me—”
“I heard the gunshot. That’s why I headed back this way.” He hitched his head toward the holding pen. “Show me where you were, where the shooter was. If I can estimate the trajectory, we might be able to find the bullet so the police can run ballistics on it.”
In the aftermath of her fight with the assailant and with her adrenaline receding, Amanda had little energy for reenacting the attack. But she struggled to her feet, cradling a much calmer Cheyenne to her chest, and headed outside.
Slade stood where she told him the shooter had been, squinting in the direction the gun had been aimed, then crossed the pen to begin his search. While he scoured the area, looking for the bullet, she described the brawl, knocking the gun from the attacker’s hand, her attempts to unmask the man, the way she’d scratched him...
Slade straightened suddenly and spun to face her. “You scratched him? His skin, not his clothes?”
Amanda blinked, working to remember exactly what happened. “I think so. On the cheek or neck, maybe. It all happened so fast and—”
He marched over to her and grabbed her wrist, lifting her hand near his face, his expression energized. “You could have the assailant’s DNA under your nails. They can do a scraping and compared it to other evidence....” He stopped when he saw her frown. “What?”
“I washed my hands.”
Chapter 6
Slade’s eyebrows rose, and his mouth tightened. “You what?”
She jerked her hand free of his grip. “Cheyenne was crying. I was only thinking about her and needing to comfort her—”
“So you washed critical physical evidence down the drain!”
“I had mud and God-knows-what bacteria on my hands from working on that cow’s infected wound!” She stabbed a finger toward the cow, still trapped in the squeeze chute. “I was not going to touch my child with contaminated hands!”
Grumbling a curse, he huffed angrily and turned to glare at the ground, clearly battling his temper. His expression shifted abruptly, and he took a few steps and squatted to stare at something in the dirt.
“What is it?” She moved closer to see what he’d found.
He pointed to a shiny cylinder glinting in the sun. “Bullet casing.” He pulled out his cell phone and called someone on his speed dial. “We need to preserve the scene until it can be photographed and all the forensic evidence collected by the crime scene unit.”
Amanda frowned and tipped her head skeptically. “Forensic evidence? Ballistics? Fingernail scrapings and bullet trajectories? Someone fancies himself an amateur detective.”
He opened his mouth as if to counter her assertion but turned his attention instead to the person who answered his call. “Chief? Slade Kent. There’s been another attack at Dead River Ranch. An attempted kidnapping. Shots fired. Can you send a crime scene team out here?”
Slade had the chief of police on speed dial?
Amanda studied Slade curiously as he made arrangements to meet the chief and go over the crime scene with him. She shifted her daughter to her hip as Cheyenne started wiggling to get down. What’s wrong with this picture?
Slade disconnected his call and waved her back. “Let’s go inside to wait. The more we tromp around here, the more we contaminate the scene.”
Amanda squared her shoulders. “Who are you?”
He snapped her a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a simple question. Who are you? Why do you have Chief Peters on speed dial, and why do you sound like a cop when you talk about the attack instead of a ranch foreman?”
He braced his hands on his hips and inhaled slowly. “And what is a ranch foreman supposed to sound like?”
She waved a hand. “Well, a little less like an episode of CSI and a little more like Bonanza.”
A muscle jumped in his cheek as he clenched his teeth. Turning, he started back into the stable.
Amanda followed him. “Well?”
He stalked over to Midnight and started unsaddling him. “I’m who I said I am. If you have complaints about my job performance, fire me.”
“Your job performance is not in question. Your honesty is. And frankly, Slade, I’ve had about all I can take of lies and secrets and double identities.” Amanda seized his arm, and dug her fingers into his arm. “I want the truth, Slade. I deserve the truth.”
He stopped working on the saddle and met her gaze. His eyes were a deeper shade of blue in the shadows of the stable, but no less intense as he drilled her with a hard stare. “Right now, and for the foreseeable future, I am your foreman. That is the truth.”
But she could see more lurking in his gaze, an uneasiness that belied his claim. She shook her head slowly. “But that’s not the whole truth. Lies of omission are still lies in my book.” She snatched her hand away from his arm and fisted her fingers. “Omissions like not telling me you’re married.”
He quirked an eyebrow, clearly confused. “When did I—”
“Not you. Cheyenne’s father.” She huffed her frustration with herself. Why had she brought him up? “The point is lies hurt. And I know my family has been guilty of its share of deception, but I, for one, am sick of it.” She jabbed him in the chest with her finger. “So if you are hiding something from me, something about who you are or what’s happe
ning on this ranch or my daughter’s safety or—”
Slade wrapped his hand around the finger poking his chest and hauled her closer. “I would never do anything to put your daughter at risk.” His eyes blazed with conviction. “Let’s get that straight from the start.”
Standing this close to him, she could feel his body heat, smell his peppermint gum and the remnant soap from his morning shower, count the eyelashes that framed his sapphire blues. Her mouth dried, and she lost her train of thought until he said, “I’m an agent with the Wyoming Bureau of Investigation. Chief Peters is the only person who knows. I came here to work undercover, to find answers to a lot of troubling questions.”
Clutching Cheyenne close, she staggered back a step, glaring at him in shock. “You’re a cop?”
His deception caused an unexplained ache in her chest.
He pressed his mouth in a taut line and nodded once tightly. “A WBI agent, yes.”
While she had reason to be angry with him for his deceit, she couldn’t explain the stab of pain, the slice of betrayal she felt. For his dishonesty to hurt her this way, she’d have to...care about him. Care for him. She shoved that thought aside to examine later, focusing now on his revelation.
“What questions? And how does being a WBI agent qualify you for being our foreman?”
He drew a slow breath and bumped his Stetson back to scratch his forehead. “Amanda, I know you have a lot you want to ask me, and I will explain everything for you. I promise. But I think our priority now needs to be helping Chief Peters and his officers process the scene and find your assailant.”
Cheyenne squirmed harder and whined, now thoroughly tired of being held. Amanda patted her back and bounced her daughter on her hip as she regarded Slade levelly. “Cheyenne’s restless. I need to take her inside. Feed her lunch.”
He glanced to Cheyenne then back to Amanda. “Yeah, just...don’t talk to anyone about what happened. We may need to interview other people about what they may have heard or seen this morning, and we don’t want your account to influence others’ statements.”
Colton Christmas Rescue Page 6
