Twice A Target (Task Force Eagle)

by Susan Vaughan

  “I’ll be fine. My denim jacket will keep me warm, and I have a sweater.” A cotton sweater, and not very warm. She didn’t want to tell the perceptive housekeeper she hadn’t brought anything heavier. Her other suitcase with her warm clothing had been stolen off the tarmac in Katmandu. For not the first time.

  Clucking her disapproval, Espie arranged bacon strips in a skillet. “Gets colder than you’d expect in those woods. You watch the bacon while I fetch some things from the attic.” Wiping her hands on her apron, she whisked from the room.

  Before Maddy could react, the older woman climbed the pull-down stairs. What could she be looking for?

  The bacon was browning nicely, its tempting aroma making Maddy’s mouth water. She turned over the strips and broke eggs into a bowl. A few more moments’ rustling and scraping upstairs before the bang of the attic door announced Espie’s return.

  “It took some rummaging, I don’t mind telling you.” The housekeeper, her crow-black hair flying about her lined face, entered the kitchen bearing a boot box and a sheepskin jacket. “These were Bonnie’s. She didn’t take to anything about the ranch, not horseback riding nor cattle nor nothin’ except the wildness of the mountains. So instead of western boots, Ford bought her these for her birthday.”

  “Holt’s mom?” Maddy eyed the boot box with trepidation. Apprehension crawled up the back of her neck. Just what she needed, something else to remind Holt that she’d bolted like his mother. “I don’t know...”

  Espie led her to a chair and proceeded to wait on her like a clerk in a shoe store. “You’re part of the family now, so don’t be foolish. Traipsing around the woods, those flimsy sneakers will be soaked in five minutes.”

  “I could wear my riding boots.”

  The Ute woman tsked. “You’d ruin them. And you get sick, what would little Bobby do?” She laced the cordovan-leather hiking boots. “Holt’s daddy thought Bonnie might like hiking the park trails.”

  Despite Maddy’s trepidation about Holt’s reaction, she yielded. When Espie slipped the boots on her feet, she had to admit they felt wonderful. “They fit. Well, almost, but with a second pair of socks, I’ll be fine. Imagine a woman with bigger feet than mine.” Her size tens always seemed like flippers to her. She laughed, then peered more closely at the boots. “She didn’t use them. They’ve never been worn.”

  “Not once,” Holt said from the kitchen doorway. “She left the day before Dad planned to give them to her. I didn’t know they were still around.” He sent a black look Espie’s way.

  “Your dad had me pack ‘em away in the attic. Boots’ll rot up there unused.” She closed the subject by snapping the lid on the boot box and crossing to the stove.

  At the sight of Holt, tall and strong and grim-faced, Maddy’s mouth went dry. Her cheeks warmed. Did they look as hot as they felt?

  The baby emitted a happy squeal at the sound of his uncle’s voice. “Aah-ga!”

  Holt hung up his barn coat on a hook by the door.

  Maddy stood, determined to smooth matters. “Will it bother you if I wear the boots?”

  Espie bustled to the table with two cups of coffee. “You start on this, and I’ll have the eggs ready in a flash.”

  His gaze was opaquely neutral, and determination firmed his jaw. “Somebody should get some use out of them.”

  Maddy couldn’t expect more yielding than that, but no telling whether it was directed at her or at his mother.

  He bent to the infant seat and lifted a cooing Bobby into his arms. “How’s my little buddy?”

  Seated opposite her with the baby snug in the crook of one arm, he sipped his coffee. His open and obvious affection for his nephew softened his expression and squeezed Maddy’s heart. “Wear that heavy coat too. You’ll need it. Wind has a chill to it.”

  He was wrestling with powerful emotions, and she had to ask. “Do you ever hear from her?”

  “My mother?”

  She nodded as she started on the scrambled eggs and toast Espie placed before her. “Does she ever write or telephone?”

  “You can’t eat proper with that bundle on your lap.” Espie scooped Bobby up in her arms. “Oops, someone needs changing.” As though escaping, she hustled out of the room with the infant complaining about being rousted from his cozy seat.

  Jaw working, Holt stared at congealed egg bits. “Mom wrote us regularly for a few years after she left for Las Vegas. Rob answered some of her letters, but I was too angry.”

  “Sounds like you have regrets.” She longed to reach out, to offer comfort. She gripped her fork, crumpled her napkin in her lap. “Maybe it’s not too late.”

  He shook his head. “It’s been too long. Finally after she remarried, she stopped writing.” He pushed away his plate. “She still lives in Vegas.”

  His bitterness and regrets radiated into her. Without further thought, she grasped his hand. Calluses from physical labor toughened his long, capable fingers and palm, but they couldn’t armor the vulnerable man inside. “She might want to see her grandson.”

  “Maybe. Leave it alone, Maddy.” He freed his hand, slid his plate closer and aimed his fork at her like a weapon. “Now eat up. We ought to get going.” He tucked into his eggs and bacon as though starved.

  An act of bravado. And if their cease-fire wasn’t shattered, it was at least shaken. She stirred the eggs around, but her appetite had disappeared. She needed sustenance and managed to swallow half her eggs before Holt declared it time to go.

  *****

  An hour later, Holt headed his Silverado southeast toward the site where Rob’s old truck had spun out of control over a steep embankment. Behind him, he caught a glimpse of what could be the same black truck as before. He slowed, looking to see if it was that Ford with the Circle-S brand, but he couldn’t get the right angle. The vehicle passed behind them as they turned onto the two-lane back road the locals called Wagon Spur. He shrugged off the prickles of suspicion. It was a small community. He was bound to see the same vehicles from time to time.

  Rangewood and the surrounding ranches spread across a series of high mountain valleys and rolling peaks on the edge of the national forest. The Wagon Spur wound along the sides of two mountains and through the forest. Today he couldn’t appreciate the greening beauty of the forest or the distant vistas from its hilltops. Awareness of the woman beside him and the grim task ahead kept him in a state of heightened alertness. It was too much to expect they’d find any evidence, but he nurtured a kernel of hope.

  “The crash site is just up ahead.”

  Maddy was loading a new memory card in her camera. “Something bothers me about this ambush. How did the killer know Rob and Sara were going out that evening? How could he know they’d take this road?”

  “Hell, the whole town knew. Sara went into Rangewood that day to have lunch with her mother at the Bull’s-Eye. I reckon she bragged to everyone she met that her husband was taking her down to Cripple Creek for a night. Those she missed her mother told.”

  “And Bobby. Where was Bobby that night?”

  “At Espie’s house.” He shuddered. “Thank God.”

  “Why not at the Pattersons’?”

  “You’re wondering if they feel resentment at the slight. Maybe, but they had some civic function that night. Chamber of Commerce or Elks.” If the grandparents had had possession of Bobby when Sara and Rob were killed, he might not have received even temporary custody. His chest tightened and he shook away the thought.

  “What about this route?” Maddy asked, fiddling with her camera.

  “A calculated risk the killer took. Unless it’s storming, most folks prefer it. He had a seventy-five percent chance anyone leaving Rock Valley would go this way.”

  “If the killer was actually after Rob and Sara and not someone else in a similar truck.”

  He’d put together some facts. He looked ahead, paid attention to the curves before he replied. “I haven’t come up with a motive, but it wasn’t mistaken identity.”

&nbs
p; “But how do you know?”

  “I had a look at the wreckage in back of the sheriff’s office. Since I was last home, Rob replaced the rusted-out front fenders with used ones from a junkyard, but he didn’t repaint the truck. It had one blue fender and one black one—on a green truck. No mistaking that heap.”

  They reached their destination, and Holt pulled over to the left verge. He hadn’t passed any other vehicles, but he ought to be well out of the roadway.

  Along this ridge, the pine-dotted hills rolled on toward the distant gray cone of Pikes Peak. The air, crisp and clean, was redolent with juniper and the sweetness of decayed grasses. At their intrusion, two gray jays exploded from the roadside with squawks. Holt had to stifle a reaction.

  “Just look at that sky. It’s so blue it hurts your eyes.” Maddy clambered out with her smaller camera case slung over her shoulder.

  He watched her scan the fir and juniper-lined roadsides, uphill and across to the steep downhill slope that was nearly a cliff. Maybe her photographer’s eye would find something everyone else had missed.

  Today he couldn’t win. Either he focused on the gut-wrenching task of examining this site or on the woman who had him teetering between horny and crazy.

  She tugged the fleece jacket closed against the chill and zipped it. Her mouth thinned to a taut line as she blinked back tears. She shook her head, flipping her short hair around her face. “Where did the shooter sit?”

  Grief rimmed her eyes, and horror dulled the violet irises. He saw her caring for Rob, though she hadn’t loved him. He saw her passion for people and her vulnerability. Something he wasn’t ready to name tugged at his chest muscles, and he turned aside.

  “Up in this grouping of rocks.” He led her up the short slope above where they’d parked.

  They poked around in the rocks and scrub brush, but found nothing unusual. The thawing ground held a litter of Ponderosa pine cones, sticks, and dried grasses, but no prints or human debris like cigarette butts. No sign a stalker had hunkered there waiting for a green truck with mismatched fenders.

  Propping one foot on a lichen-encrusted rock, she shot several frames of the spot, including close-ups. After changing lenses, she took more of the approaching road—the shooter’s view.

  Immersion in her professional task made him aware of her on a new plane.

  Apparently oblivious to his gaze, she bent and twisted around to frame her shots. He tried to think about how enlargements might reveal some telling evidence to them rather than how delectable her curvy backside looked, even partly covered by the borrowed jacket. Hell. He dragged his gaze back to the camera.

  “Should you have a tripod?” he asked. “Or another camera?”

  “This Nikon’s a versatile enough camera for this kind of work. Besides I stashed my other equipment in storage.” She cocked a hip. “You think I don’t know my business?”

  He threw up his hands. “Just anxious.”

  “Me too.”

  Her soft smile started an unwelcome tingling. He looked away—again—and paced a tight circle. “So, what now?”

  “How about where the truck landed? Do you think there’s anything to find down there?” She pointed toward the low side of the roadway.

  “Can’t hurt.” He adjusted the Broncos cap he’d worn instead of his Resistol. “When we’re done, I want to go on into Fort Adams. Got to lay in the vaccines I need for next weekend’s branding.”

  “I heard Espie’s boys are coming to help. Will that be enough hands?”

  “Bronc’ll rope the calves. The boys’ll wrestle them. That leaves me to do the rest.” He shook his head at the prospect. That wasn’t nearly enough wranglers. He should have at least two more, but he couldn’t afford wages.

  “Rob’s extravagance on the house hurt the ranch, didn’t it?”

  He sighed. “You’ve noticed.”

  “Hard not to. You’ve done lots of recent repairs. I’ve seen you babying that old field truck to get it running. And the barn roof.” A sad tilt to her mouth, she gave a quick apologetic smile before she zipped the camera in her case.

  “Yeah, he let upkeep go. Rob was never very practical. The ranch’ll be all right, but I have to watch every penny. There’s enough to pay those two teenagers.”

  “But no more hands. Espie said she’ll be there. She’ll be happy to see to Bobby. I’d like to help.” She beamed him a smile, like she was remembering other brandings when they were kids.

  Maddy had already woven her way into their lives, his and Bobby’s, with her gentle care and energy. Depending on her for any more was a bad idea. He couldn’t let himself want to. He shook his head. “No.”

  She gripped his arm. “I know how to do the vaccinating and ear notching. Come on, you know you can use the extra hands.”

  The same restlessness that had her volunteering for ranch chores would take her away sooner than Holt wanted to think about. He worked his jaw. “Your responsibility is Bobby, not the ranch. I’ll have to make do. It’ll just be slow going.”

  Her cheeks pinked in the freshening breeze. Even without makeup, her creamy skin glowed as if lit from within. “And you don’t have to pay me any money.”

  No, but he’d pay, one way or another, and it would come out of his hide. Or another vulnerable organ. He couldn’t contain a wry grin as he replied. “Denying you’s as hard as saying no when Bobby reaches out his little hand toward the hot stove.”

  “Except I won’t get burned.”

  But he might.

  Chapter 11

  Maddy watched as Holt started down the steep slope, edging sideways in the loose scree and pine cones that crunched and clattered as he went. Rough going for anyone.

  “You need any help? I can carry your camera case,” he called back.

  At his protectiveness, she concealed a grin. Didn’t he remember the tomboy who used to race her pony alongside him and Rob? It ought to irritate her how he kept underestimating her, but instead it amused her.

  She strapped on her case like a backpack. Using his same crabwise maneuver, she scooted along behind him. “No, I’m used to this. My camera stays with me.”

  Rocks and pebbles skittered downhill, kicked free by their progress.

  Halfway down, she stopped and extracted her camera. She pointed at scarred and splintered tree trunks. “Were these broken trees damaged by the crash?”

  The inner pith stood out as white as bones against the peat-brown boles. Jagged points speared skyward. On one, a lone cedar waxwing kept sentinel.

  He hunched his shoulders. “The truck rolled and bounced over and over. It slammed into the pines and Douglas firs. Snapped them like twigs. It landed on its roof at the foot of the incline. You can see the digs in the soil down there.”

  In the long, muddy scrapes at the foot of the incline, tiny green shoots poked through the soil where determined roots had taken hold. New life where life had ended.

  The futility of it stabbed Maddy like one of the splintered branches. Seeing the fury and misery pleating Holt’s brow twisted the point. Tears blurring her focus, she snapped pictures of the hillside and trees before stowing the Nikon.

  A few minutes later they reached the bottom.

  Stones and pebbles skittered down from their recent path of descent. The clatter built to a tumble of stones.

  Before she could move, he tackled her from the side. “Get down!” With her wrapped in his arms, he dove for cover behind a jumble of boulders.

  Like a growing snowball, each skidding nugget and pebble attracted brothers. Stones the size of bricks caromed downward. Finally a mass of rock and stick-littered earth crashed down the steep slope.

  Maddy’s heart raced and rattled like one of the stones that banged off their protecting boulder. Whether her reaction stemmed from fear or from lying beneath Holt’s big body she couldn’t say. “Did we do that?”

  “Looks like we started something, for sure.”

  Started something? A landslide and something as overwhelming. />
  Long legs on either side of hers and arms caging her, he pressed her to the ground. His sheepskin jacket was pulled up to protect their heads. Scented with rich, dark coffee, his hot breath warmed her cheek. As long as the landslide didn’t smash into them, she could lie like this indefinitely. Never mind the rocks digging into her spine.

  Only when Holt slid down his jacket collar and cool air brushed Maddy’s face did she realize that quiet had returned. An occasional ricocheting ping announced further settling of the altered mountainside.

  “Landslide’s over,” he murmured, his mouth a millimeter from hers. His puff of breath brushed her lips, set them tingling.

  “We’re okay,” she whispered. Complication or not, she willed him to kiss her again. If he didn’t, she would grab him. Except her arms were trapped beneath his.

  He hovered above her, his eyes depthless lapis, molten with desire, his parted lips brushing hers. “It’s safe now. We can get up.”

  Deep and thick and roughened, his voice enveloped her like a steam bath. Honeyed excitement sluiced into her. Even through their thick clothing, each place on her body he touched became a pulse point, trembling with want.

  Arms. Breasts. Belly. Thighs.

  “I know.”

  On a deep breath, he lunged upward and away from her. Standing, he held out his hand. “You all right?”

  All right? More than a little loony to think she could avoid the complication of involvement with Holt. Other than that, all right. He had more will power than she. And yet she trembled in the aftermath. Only adrenaline fleeing her system. Sure.

  She hoisted her scuffed case. “Fine. Just fine. I want a few more shots before we leave.”

  Grasping her shoulders, he turned her toward the hillside. Clouds of dust wafted from the stretch of rubble. More trees lay bent and broken in its wake. No sign of the gouged earth or the hopeful sprouts that had sprung up in the wounded soil.

  He released her and lifted his arms, then swung them down, his hands in tight fists. “Underneath that little mountain was where Rob’s truck landed. Might as well forget it. If there was any evidence down here at the foot of that slope, that damned slider has wiped it off the map.”