Too Hot To Trot (#3, Cowboy Way)

by Becky McGraw

  “Handcuffs,” he mumbled, as he jerked her arm behind her back, then grabbed her other wrist and clamped the cold steel tightly.

  “They’re too tight,” she whined, wiggling her numb fingers.

  “They’re not a charm bracelet. They’re supposed to be tight,” he replied coldly, before shoving her in the center of her back sending her stumbling through the doorway. “Now move, or I’ll carry you there.”

  Like she was walking the last mile, Heather walked just far enough in front of the man to prevent him from pushing her again. If he did, the way her legs felt, like starchless noodles, she’d take a facer. With her hands behind her back she’d eat the slick, nasty concrete under her boots and probably break her nose and knock out all her teeth. She had to keep herself decent looking, so she could trade favors with other women in prison to get a decent hairbrush, she thought, as she stopped at a second door to wait for him to open it.

  When she walked through the door, a jolt of electricity went through her body as a squeal split the air that could come from none other than Twyla Taylor. Her eyes darted across the room and she saw that’s exactly who her visitor was. Heather turned around, her nose hit the solid chest of the guard and he pushed her away.

  “We’re going into the interview room,” he said, turning her that way. Heather’s chin dropped to her chest, and she watched her feet make the steps toward the room she was intimately familiar with. It was time for her second round of interrogation. One she dreaded more than the last. Opening herself up to Zack Taylor, telling him most of her situation had taken everything in her.

  How in the hell was she going to explain this to her former best friend?

  Heather wasn’t—she was going to tell Twyla to get the hell out of here and forget that she existed. Because she didn’t exist. Heather Morrison was a figment of imagination. A strong woman who bore no resemblance to the woman she was at the moment.

  Walking into the room, Heather went automatically to the chair on the far side of the table and sat down then fixed her eyes on the irregular black stain in the corner of the room, the same one she’d focused on when the detectives had questioned her. The door shut, the chair across from her scraped on the floor, but she didn’t look up.

  “How’d you know I was here?” Heather asked shortly.

  “I have been in town two days looking for you, and finally went to see Leon. He told me you were probably still here. My question is why are you here?”

  Heather laughed dryly, and dragged her eyes up to meet Twyla’s, before casting them back to the stain. “I’m a criminal, evidently, which is why you need to get the hell out of here. I don’t want you here.”

  “I want to help you get out. What do I need to do?” Twyla asked, her voice breaking.

  “There’s no help for me—just go back home, Twyla. I’ll be transferred to Tulsa in a day or two. Just forget about me. This isn’t your problem.” Heather finally dragged her eyes to Twyla’s, and her friend gasped. “There’s something you can do for me though. Go by the apartment and get the money out of the safe in the closet. The combination is my birthday.” Heather looked back at the stain. “Take that money back to you brother, because I won’t be needing it.”

  “You do need it—to get out of here!” Twyla shouted, as the chair scraped back. She slammed her hands down on the table and leaned toward Heather. “What happened to your eye? Why is it black? Did someone hurt you?” Twyla’s voice was that of a protective mother.

  The mother she was going to be—a damned good one. She didn’t need to be here, or worrying about her. “Relax, it’s from the airbag. Now get your ass out of here and go back to your husband. You don’t belong here.”

  “Neither do you, and I’m going to figure out how to get you out of here!” Twyla shouted, pacing toward the door, and then back toward her chair.

  Pressure built inside of Heather’s head as Twyla paced, and she fought it as long as she could, then scraped her own chair back to stand. Moving around the table slowly, she looked up into Twyla’s eyes and narrowed hers. “I fucking stabbed a man—tried to kill him!”

  Twyla’s eyes widened, she gasped again, and covered her mouth with her shaking hand.

  Heather took another step toward her, gathered up her inner inmate, and lowered her voice. “If you don’t get the fuck out of here, I’m going to do the same to you, Goldilocks. I’m not who you think I am, and I’m not your friend. Just leave me the fuck alone, and go back to your fairytale life. This is reality—I’m a criminal and you don’t need to be around me.”

  Heather brushed past her to kick the door several times, before it opened. “We’re done,” she growled, walking past the guard.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Zack dropped the razor in the sink for the fifteenth time, he finally admitted defeat. He also admitted that maybe he’d pushed himself too far trying to get the ranch ready so fast. His damn arm had zero strength right now, a result of his own stupidity. Yesterday, he’d pushed himself harder than ever, and he was paying for it. Cord called back yesterday to tell him the men would be there as soon as they finished a small project for Dean. But that might be too little, too late. He needed them here now, because his damned arm made him useless.

  Huffing a breath, he leaned over the sink and closed his eyes. Now all he needed to figure out was how he was going to pay for that help once it arrived. Maybe he could get a mortgage on his half of the ranch. Or maybe an investor in the herd, if he could find one.

  That was something he hadn’t wanted to do, but admitted now it would be totally necessary to have any hope of succeeding at this venture. He just had to decide between having two notes, one to his father and another to the bank, or only half of the profit from his stock contracts. Both were scary propositions, because it meant until he got things off the ground, he would be stretched paper thin financially.

  In hindsight, the main thing he shouldn’t have done was spend half of what he had in savings to buy out Ryan’s interest in the herd. He’d be fine now if he hadn’t done that. But at the time, his sister and her soon-to-be husband needed money to rebuild a house to live in, and Zack thought he’d have two years to recoup money through winnings and stock contracts before he had to assume responsibility for managing the herd.

  So much for thinking. Fate had other ideas on how things would work out, and all he could do was go along for the ride. He just hoped he’d be able to hang on for longer than eight seconds, long enough for his bulls to prove themselves. But hope wasn’t an option. He was going to do this, because his life depended on it now.

  Someone knocked on the bathroom door, and frustration shot through him. That was his next goal. Installing an extra bathroom in this damned house. “Hold your horses, I’m trying to shave! I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Twyla’s on the phone, Zack. She wants to talk to you,” Ryan said through the door, his voice sounding very concerned. Damn, he’d had two days of peace while his sister was gone to visit Heather. He didn’t want to talk to her now, because he knew what she probably wanted to talk about. What happened between him and Heather. By now, Twyla had probably dug the whole story out of Heather and wanted to ream him out.

  Zack was not in the mood to be reamed right now. And he didn’t have time for it. He had to figure out how he was going to get that fencing done.

  “Tell her I’ll call her back!” he yelled. Sometime in the next year or so.

  “No, I think you need to talk to her,” Ryan said, and Zack heard a heavy sigh. “C’mon, man. If you don’t talk to her she isn’t coming home. I really, really need you to talk to her. I’m worried about her being there without me. I should’ve gone with her.”

  Instead of staying here to help you. Zack heard his friend’s unspoken words, and guilt churned in his gut. His sister was pregnant with twins, and she was at Heather’s alone, because her husband chose to stay there and help him put up fence. Pushing up from the sink, he walked to the bathroom door and opened it to stick his
hand out for the phone.

  Ryan slapped it into his palm, then walked away. Zack shut the door, then put the phone to his ear. He braced for the blasting he knew was coming. “Yeah?” he said, his voice echoing off the tile walls to bounce around in his skull. He heard a few sniffles, and his gut clenched. “Twyla, what’s wrong?” he demanded, his eyebrows slamming down over his eyes.

  No wonder Ryan had been worried. He knew his friend didn’t handle female hysterics any better than he did. With the female hormones floating around in his sister’s system since she was pregnant, that seemed to be a daily occurrence for her.

  A deep inhale, and exhale preceded her words. “I finally caught up with Heather last night and talked to her…”

  Zack’s stomach rolled, probably from the shot of whiskey he’d had that morning. More likely from the sense of dread that settled on top of it. “Look, Twy—I tried to talk to her before I left—” A long wail pierced his ears, and Zack stopped.

  “She’s in jail, Zack,” she said, with a sob. “I’m trying to use the money she told me to give to you to get her an attorney, but they haven’t called back yet.”

  His heart plunged to his toes, a shot of adrenaline surged through Zack, so much he became dizzy and had to stumble to the toilet to sit down. “What is she in jail for?” he asked, having to force the words past his frozen vocal chords.

  “It’s a mess, and I don’t know the whole story. Heather wouldn’t talk to me when I went to see her at the jail yesterday. She looks bad, really bad, Zack. I’ve got to do s-s-ome-thing,” she said hiccupping, before she sobbed again.

  “Tell me what you know,” he said, getting up to grab a towel to wipe the cream off of his face.

  “She said she stabbed a man, and they were taking her to Tulsa in a few days. I didn’t even know she’d been in Tulsa!” Twyla whined, her voice rising an octave on the last.

  Zack knew she’d been in Tulsa. When she was fifteen, and her stepfather had tried to rape her. That had to be what this was about, because to his knowledge unless she’d taken to carving men up regularly, he was the only man she’d ever stabbed.

  But what the hell did he know? Heather Morrison could be a serial killer for all he knew. Considering what she’d been through in her life, what he did know about her, that wouldn’t be all that hard to believe. She had every reason to be that angry.

  But a serial killer did not put as much effort and care into taking care of a man as she had him while he stayed with her. I did some reading online at the library and iron will help your bones heal faster. Steaks are full of iron. I bought liver too. I also bought an extra gallon of milk for the calcium and some vitamins you need to start taking. So she’d spent thirty dollars of her own money on ribeyes to make sure he got that iron. No, that was not the actions of a serial killer.

  Heather Morrison was a scared, abused little girl who’d somehow grown into a strong, loving woman. A little unbalanced and unreasonable at times, but still a good, caring woman. A woman who did not deserve to be prosecuted for stabbing her abuser. And that’s what he thought was going on here. The only way he was going to find that out for sure though was to go there and talk to her, make her talk to him.

  So much for his vow to stay out of things that didn’t concern him. So much for minding his own business. That lasted all of two days, but Zack didn’t care. He could not just sit on the sidelines and let her be prosecuted for something that wasn’t her fault.

  “Where are you?” Zack asked gruffly, throwing the towel into the sink.

  “At the apartment. I finally got the safe open, and there’s six thousand dollars and some change in there. She told me to give it to you, that she wouldn’t be needing it now.”

  That had to be the money he’d paid her to take care of him during his therapy. That was her money, not his—she more than earned it. That meant Heather was giving up, just accepting her fate. Being a pussy quitter. Zack was not going to let her do that.

  “I’ll be there in a few hours,” he replied. “Just sit tight there, and I’m coming.”

  “Thank you,” Twyla said, her voice shaky. “Um, Zack…there’s something else weird.”

  “What?” he asked, almost not wanting to hear. He had heard enough to make him damned scared for her already, more than scared enough to head down there.

  “When I tried to find her at the jail, they didn’t know who she was. They didn’t have Heather Morrison there, and I insisted she was there because Leon said she was. It took a while to find her, because they had her booked into jail as Haley Morgan.”

  “Haley Morgan?” Zack repeated, the name bouncing around in his head, before settling. Had Heather been living under an assumed identity all these years? As scared as she seemed about her stepfather finding her, it made sense.

  But the name didn’t fit the woman he knew. It was a soft, feminine name, not a scarf-dancer’s name. Heather hadn’t always been the way she was though, he reminded himself. The life she’d had to lead had made her the tough, hard-shelled, smart-mouthed sexpot version of Haley Morgan. Her assumed name fit that woman.

  Damn, he missed her.

  “Talk to the attorney if he calls, get him to meet us at the jail later this afternoon. I’m going to call the Tulsa Prosecutor’s Office on my way down there. Hang tight, sis, the cavalry is on the way.”

  Twyla laughed, then sighed. “Leave your white hat at home,” she said, with a watery chuckle. “That damned jail—Heather—looked pretty dirty. You know how she is, and that must be driving her crazy.”

  “Crazier,” Zack corrected, with a dry laugh. Heather Morrison was a little crazy, a lot unpredictable, but so damned sweet the thought of her scared in that filthy cell about ripped his heart out. If he had anything to do with it, she would be out of that cell tonight. “Did you find out what the bail is?” he asked, mentally calculating what he had left in his savings.

  She forced out a breath. “Fifty-thousand dollars, one tenth of five-hundred thousand.”

  “Good, God!” Zack shouted, his heart shooting up to his throat where it beat like a tom-tom. There was no way in hell he could come up with that kind of money.

  “Just get down here, Zack,” Twyla said, her voice flat. “I need your help to figure this out. Heather needs your help.”

  Zack had a bad feeling Heather was going to need a lot more than he had to give her. But he was going down there anyway to at least try. “Have that attorney call me after you talk to him. I’m on my way.” He hung up the phone, and it took long minutes for his heart to slow down, dislodge from his throat, as he dressed, grabbed his hat and phone then left his room to go find Ryan. Things had to keep going while he was gone. Ryan was going to have to stay there and keep working, or he’d never get that fence done in time. Hopefully, the men he’d hired showed up to help him.

  He found Ryan in the kitchen finishing breakfast. “I’m sure Twyla told you what’s going on with Heather,” Zack said, grabbing a biscuit from the tin in the center of the table. He put it between his teeth to buckle his belt, which was an ordeal, because his fingers on his right hand were numb.

  “Yeah, she told me. Send her home, man, I don’t need her that upset. It’s not good for the babies, and the doctor said—”

  “I know, she needs to take it easy…” Frustrated, Zack finally just letting the buckle hang. “I’ll send her home, but I need you to do something for me too.”

  “What?” Ryan asked, looking up at him with a laugh. His eyes dropped to Zack’s belt buckle, and he shook his head. “Don’t ask me to buckle your belt, buddy—not doing it.”

  Zack ignored him. “Call Cord and tell him to send those two hands I hired over here now. You can put them to work helping you. And talk to Lem down at the feed store. He can probably recommend someone to do the top wire and electrical. I need that fence done.”

  “Well, it’s about damned time,” Ryan growled, shoveling a bite of runny eggs mixed with grits into his mouth. He swallowed, then pinned Zack with his angry
eyes. “The fact you can’t buckle your own damned belt is your own fault. If you’d have called them a week ago, you wouldn’t be struggling to dress yourself.”

  “I know that, and I don’t need you on my ass too. Just buckle my damned belt,” he growled, moving his hands. Ryan lifted a brow, and Zack added, “Please…”

  After a second, Ryan set his fork on the table to grab Zack’s belt and slide it through the three remaining loops and hook it. “Send Twyla home.”

  “I will…promise. Where’s Mama and Daddy?” Zack asked.

  “They went for a walk, and I think he’s hitting golf balls out in the field. They’re talking about going back to Arizona since your daddy isn’t much help. He’s a little insulted you won’t let him help you. The barn roofs are done now, and he thinks he’s useless here. He’s got the itch to get back to golfing.”

  His daddy needed to be golfing. He’d earned it, put in his hours here at this ranch. “Tell them I hired some men, so they can go back. Please tell them I said thank you for coming to help.”

  “Tell him yourself,” Ryan replied gruffly, as he grabbed the last biscuit from the tin. “You owe him an apology for being an ass anyway. He came all this way to help us, and you put him in the recliner in the living room. I’d be pissed too. You basically called him old and washed up. Your daddy has lots left in him.”

  Fuck. Could he do anything, say anything right to anyone he cared about these days?

  If he hadn’t pissed Heather off, he’d probably either still be there with her, or she’d be here with him. Away from the trouble she was presently in. He’d hurt his daddy’s feelings too, as unintentionally as he’d hurt Heather’s. Well, what he’d said to Heather hadn’t really been unintentional, but still. Stupid things on both counts.

  “I didn’t want him to hurt himself again, but I’ll call him on his phone to apologize,” Zack replied, with a huffed breath. “I’ve got to go.” Zack got the hell out of the kitchen, before he got into an accidental argument with his best friend too. He walked outside, and hurried to his truck which was still parked in front of his travel trailer near the barn.