Cowboy to the Core

by Joanna Wayne

  He was not leaving her alone tonight.

  A NAGGING THROB SET IN just behind both of Dani’s eyes, the pain growing more severe by the second. She shifted in her seat and tried to concentrate on the last question.

  She, Marcus and the deputies were seated away from the partiers. Marcus had been great, staying with her the whole time. Bethany Sue had taken Celeste and Katie back to the festivities and promised that she and Arnie would watch over them.

  Dani had been answering questions for over a half hour, and the sheriff’s deputies showed no sign of letting up. It was as if they thought she knew more than she was telling or that she was too upset to remember important details.

  One of the deputies, Greg, was young, in his early twenties, she’d guessed. He was also the more annoying of the two, making a clicking noise with his mouth every time he didn’t like her answer to one of his questions.

  The tall, lanky one’s name was Ted. She’d guess him at near forty. He had sun-bleached blond hair and a scar running down the side of his face, from just below the hairline to above the eye. She stared at it and tried to imagine how he’d gotten it while he rearranged his wording for a repeat of a question.

  “I can’t identify the attacker,” she said, “except that I’m pretty sure it was a man. It was dark, and his face was covered with one of those armored masks like the jousters wear. I’ve already told you all of this.”

  “The attacker wore armor like a knight, and you’d followed her out to warn her about a dark knight. But you don’t even know this woman?”

  “I know this sounds bizarre to you,” she said. “It’s bizarre to me, but I gave you the note.”

  “The note you think was meant to go to her in the first place?”

  “That’s just my theory of what happened. You don’t seem to agree with it, but when you see the woman who was attacked, you’ll realize that she looks enough like me for someone to have made that mistake.”

  Marcus stretched and moved his arm to the back of her chair. “Ms. Baxter was only trying to do a good deed by warning the victim. She’s told you all she knows, so I can’t see what’s being gained by asking her the same thing over and over.”

  She had told them all the facts. She’d avoided any mention of nightmares and fainting spells. And she wasn’t about to fuel their disbelief with talk of her being a medium.

  Nonetheless, she was convinced now that the nightmare and the visions she’d witnessed this morning had to be psychic revelations. They were sent to her for a purpose. She was supposed to save Ella Somerville from the attack. She’d failed her.

  Ted glared at Marcus. “We’re dealing with attempted murder. That’s a serious offense, and we’re not going to rush any part of the investigation.”

  “Ms. Baxter is in town for a wedding,” Marcus said. “She didn’t know the victim. Other than giving you the note and telling you what she saw tonight, I don’t see how she can help you solve the case.”

  “I’m happy to assist in any way I can,” Dani offered, “but wouldn’t it be more useful for you to be searching for the attackers or the murder weapon?”

  “That’s being taken care of.” Ted rubbed his whiskered jaw. “How long do you plan to be in the area, Ms. Baxter?”

  “Just long enough to attend the wedding tomorrow morning.” If that long. “I plan to drive back to Austin in the afternoon.”

  “We’ll need the number to get in touch with you there in case we have more questions.”

  “Certainly. I’ll give you my cell phone number. You can always reach me that way.”

  “Then I guess that will be all for now.”

  She didn’t have a business card with her tonight, but she gave Greg the number, and he wrote it down in his black notebook. Ted handed her his card and stressed that she call him immediately if she remembered anything else.

  She sighed in relief when they finally sauntered away. “They think I’m keeping something from them.”

  “Are you?”

  “Et tu, Brute?”

  “I’m just asking.” Marcus tugged her to her feet. “They’ll check you out. If they don’t see any red flags in your background, they’ll move on.”

  “I gather parking tickets like some people do wildflowers. But I always pay them.”

  He smiled and snaked an arm around her shoulder. “Contributing to the department’s income. That’s a positive. Shall we rejoin the party?”

  “Only long enough to say good-night to Bethany and drag the girls away from the festivities. I’ve had all the fun I can stand for one night.”

  “We need to talk before we get the girls.”

  The throb behind her eyes kicked up a notch. “I’m talked out, Marcus.”

  “You can trust me with anything, Dani. I want you to know that.”

  Right, until she hit him with the truth. “Do you think I hold some deep, dark secret that will explain who attacked the victim and why?”

  “I think something’s troubling you that you haven’t mentioned, but that’s not what we need to talk about.” He took her hands in his and waited until she met his penetrating gaze. “I’m not okay with your being alone tonight.”

  “The note didn’t refer to me. The dark knight got the prey he was after.”

  “You can’t be sure that he has only one prey.”

  That she hadn’t considered. Still she didn’t have much of a choice. “The B and B where we’re staying is fully booked.”

  “Forget the B and B. I’m driving you there to collect your things, and then I’m taking you and the girls back to the ranch with me.”

  She looked up and saw the deep lines that were pulling at his mouth. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Serious as a kick by a mad bull. But don’t worry. This isn’t some Texas seduction scene. You’ll have to stay in my cabin, but you’ll have your own room. The girls can stay in the main house with Cutter Martin and his wife. They’re redoing the upstairs guest rooms, so they only have one extra room available at the moment.”

  Apparently he’d made this decision without her input. She wondered just when he’d decided that she wasn’t safe on her own. While he was standing over the woman’s bleeding body? While she’d described the knight plunging the dagger into the woman’s chest? Or perhaps earlier, when she’d told him of the nightmare.

  She hated someone else making decisions for her, but the undeniable truth was that she didn’t want to be alone tonight.

  “It’s strictly for your protection, Dani. That is what you hired me for.”

  It made sense, except that spending the night with Marcus could lead to even more complications.

  “Just for the night, Marcus. The girls and I will be driving back to Austin the first thing in the morning.”

  “What about the wedding?”

  “We’ll just have to miss it. Bethany Sue will surely understand.” And either come up with another singer or do without music. “She might be glad to see me go, considering that the wedding excitement has already been seriously dampened by my witnessing a stabbing in the middle of her festivities.”

  “Judging from the music and applause going on behind us, I’d say the excitement wasn’t dampened that much.”

  He was right. It was amazing how life went on, except for the stranger who was in a hospital now fighting for her life—if she was still alive.

  A frigid chill swept through her as Marcus took her arm and led her back toward the party. He promised protection, but who could protect her from herself?

  MARCUS STOOD WITH CUTTER on the front porch of the sprawling ranch house. Dani and the girls were inside. Linney was clearly delighted to have female houseguests, in spite of the fact that their reasons for being here were less than ideal.

  “I guess we could put pallets on the floor for the girls if Dani wants to stay in the house with them,” Cutter offered.

  “Thanks, but I’d rather have her at my place.”

  Cutter’s eyebrows arched.

&nb
sp; “Don’t give me that look, boss man. I’m not planning to jump the bones of a client.”

  “So what are you planning?”

  “I don’t know. I just figure that once she’s comfortable and out of the chaos, she might open up to me.”

  “Then you think there’s more to this than just that bizarre tale about a nightmare becoming reality?”

  “I think there could be.”

  “Good, because I’d as soon buy that the woman was attacked by time travelers from old England as that crock. I don’t know what Dani’s connection is to the woman who was attacked, but I’d bet my best mare that there is one.”

  “It could all be coincidence,” Marcus said.

  “What are the odds?” Cutter leaned against the wooden porch railing. “Did you get a good look at the victim?”

  “Not before she was attacked, but I was closer to her after the stabbing than I am to you right now.”

  “Would you have mistaken her for Dani?”

  “Probably not, but there was a definite resemblance between them. They could pass for sisters, maybe even twins if their hair was colored and styled the same.”

  “So you buy that Dani’s receiving the note might have been a case of mistaken identity?”

  Marcus thought about it hard. He was always a hundred percent honest with Cutter. “Yeah. I do, but I’m not sure that’s the whole story. She appeared to be in agony when she fainted this morning. It reminded me of the way Wayne Wakefield did that first time he saw a teammate blown apart by a bomb—like he’d gone somewhere else in his mind.”

  Cutter nodded. “Wayne’s was for real. Dani could have faked her reactions.”

  “For whose benefit?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just trying to keep an open mind to all the possibilities. We can’t get much information on Dani tonight, but I’ll have her checked out fully in the morning.”

  Marcus knew investigating Dani was standard procedure, not to mention that it made good sense. He just didn’t think Cutter would find anything criminal in her background. “She’s a buyer for Duran Muton in Austin. It’s not likely she’s involved with an attempted murder in Plantersville.”

  Cutter’s frown deepened. “She’s a damn good-looking woman, Marcus. I hope you’re not letting that cloud your judgment.”

  “I’ve got my libido under control.” Not exactly true, but he wasn’t planning to do anything stupid like climb into her bed tonight. Not that she’d made an offer.

  “I’m not knocking your judgment,” Cutter said. “I just find this whole happenstance scenario lacks credibility. All I’m saying is watch your step.”

  “Have you ever known me not to?”

  “Not in battle. The guys used to swear you had at least six sets of eyes. You could scope out an enemy when the visibility was minus zero. But women are different. They play by their own rules of engagement.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “And don’t worry about Lance Harper’s kids,” Cutter added. “I have a couple of excellent cops who work off-duty shifts for me in emergencies.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  The screen door screeched open and Dani stepped onto the porch. Exhaustion was sketched into the tiny lines around her eyes, and she held on to the door as if she needed it for support. Her hair was disheveled, her makeup was faded and her clothes were wrinkled. Still, she ignited some kind of crazy need inside Marcus.

  He wanted to believe Dani, but her story had more holes than his favorite jeans. A nightmare. A dress in a costume shop that created terror so real Dani had passed out. A note delivered to the wrong person. An attempted murder of a woman who could pass as her double.

  There was a missing link somewhere—maybe more than one. Until he knew more, he couldn’t fully trust her. And he definitely wasn’t convinced that she didn’t need his continued protection.

  Until he was, he’d just have to keep a lid on his sexual urges, because he was not about to let her walk out of his life.

  DANI STEPPED UNDER the shower spray and let the hot water cascade over her tired shoulders and run down her weary body. The muscle-binding tenseness eased, and her mind cleared to the point she could finally deal with the fact that she was spending the night in Marcus Abbot’s cabin.

  The place was less than a quarter the size of the sprawling main house where the girls were staying with Cutter and Linney. The furnishings were simple but functional, and they reeked of masculinity. Heavy wooden tables, big, comfortable chairs and a worn leather sofa. There were hooked cotton rugs on the floor, pastoral paintings on the walls and stacks of books, mostly mysteries, scattered everywhere.

  But she’d discovered on her brief tour of the place that there were also more than a few nods to the high-tech world. A big-screen TV—for watching football, Marcus had said. And his small office at the back held a computer, fax machine, printer and shelves full of night-vision goggles and numerous instruments whose purposes she wasn’t sure of. It was the only clue that Marcus was more than a cowboy.

  Her assigned bedroom was on the west side of the house, down a narrow hallway from the kitchen and just opposite Marcus’s sleeping quarters. The proximity would have been comforting in light of tonight’s experiences if she wasn’t so physically attracted to him.

  Hard bodied. Unruly brown hair that crawled into the collar of his shirt, a bit shaggier than she normally liked it, but on him it looked terrific. And then there was that rugged jawline and those whiskey-colored eyes that seemed to see right through her.

  To be blunt, he turned her on. And now he’d be sleeping a few steps away from her, maybe wearing nothing but that aggravatingly devastating smile.

  Okay, best to rein in those thoughts right now. But when she did, her mind switched back to the sight of Ella Somerville being stabbed while she watched. An exact recreation of the nightmare.

  Dani should have followed her first instincts and stayed in Austin this weekend. But was that ever an option? Had her witnessing the vicious attack been set in place by the same paranormal powers that delivered the disturbing visions?

  Perhaps she was the reason Ella was alive tonight. If Dani hadn’t chased after her into the darkness, if she hadn’t screamed when she did and jumped on the attacker’s back, he might have stayed around long enough to make certain his victim was dead.

  The concept boggled her mind.

  She turned off the faucet, pushed the plastic shower curtain aside and stepped from the claw-foot tub. Her feet sank into a thick mat as she grabbed a thirsty blue towel and gave her body a brisk rubdown.

  She was just slipping into her ivory-colored pajamas when she heard the soft rap at the door. Her pulse shot upward, and she checked quickly to make certain her nipples weren’t outlined too vividly beneath the silky fabric. Satisfied that she was decent, she shoved her damp feet into black furry flip-flops and went to the door, opening it only a few inches.

  “I found a bottle of wine. Want me to uncork it? It might help you relax.”

  “I’m not really dressed for a nightcap,” she said.

  “The clothes police are all gone for the night,” he teased. “And I made sandwiches. Just ham and cheese, but all we had to eat tonight were the appetizers.”

  They’d missed dinner. She’d forgotten that amidst all the chaos. She wasn’t hungry, but the wine sounded good. “Give me a couple of minutes, and I’ll join you,” she said.

  “Great, but make those short minutes. I’m famished.”

  She ran a comb through her damp hair, rubbed some lotion onto her hands and elbows and checked her appearance in the mirror one last time. She made it to the kitchen before Marcus finished pouring the wine.

  The room was warm and cozy, rife with the scents of fried ham, spicy mustard and Marcus’s masculine musk. Sensual awareness skittered along her nerves as she settled into a chair across the small table from him. It was unnerving that she could have these sexual vibes after all she’d been through in the past few hours.


  Marcus handed her a glass of sparkling cabernet. “To a quiet night on the Double M Ranch,” he said, clinking his glass with hers.

  She took a sip. The fruity liquid slid down her throat like satin. “Nice selection,” she said.

  “Glad you approve.”

  Marcus bit into his sandwich, practically inhaling it. Nothing seemed to dull his appetite. Or maybe violence and dealing with women in distress was all in a day’s work for him. Yet, tonight he seemed every ounce the cowboy.

  “They don’t go together,” she said, thinking aloud.

  “Ham and cheese?”

  “No, ranch life and a protection and investigative agency. One seems so settled, the other dangerous and edgy.”

  “I’m a complex man.”

  She didn’t doubt that. “Did you grow up in Dobbin?”

  “Nope. I’d never heard of the place until a few months ago when I went to work for Cutter Martin.”

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “In the piney woods of east Texas, up near Longview. Cutter and I met when we were on the same team of frogmen in Afghanistan.”

  “You were a Navy SEAL?”

  “Yep. For eight years. I was discharged last January.”

  “I realized you’d been in the service but not as a special ops guy. Do you miss it?”

  “It’s hard not to. The risks get into your blood, kind of like an addiction. But it’s tough work. It wears on you after a while, but the biggest upside is that what you do as a SEAL makes a difference. Do you realize that there are areas in this world where people have never known freedom?”

  Marcus shook his head, then forced a smile to his tight lips. “Now aren’t you sorry you asked?”

  “No.” But she could see that he was, almost as if he hated that he’d let her glimpse beneath the tough outer shell he wore so well.

  “Did you and Cutter plan to start this business while you were still in the service?”

  “Nope. All we planned back then was staying alive and giving the enemy hell.”

  “Then how did the two of you end up together?”

  “Cutter got hurt—nothing life threatening—but bad enough that he had to leave the SEALs before he was ready. He’s only been back on the Double M for about six months, but unlike me he was never cut out to be a rancher.”