Lone Star Survivor

by Colleen Thompson

  Julian did a double take. “You’re upset. Not on your own account, but his.”

  “Of course, I’m upset. I care about—about my patients.” She swallowed hard, a painful lump threatening to choke her. “And I can’t help caring especially about Ian.”

  Julian stopped walking and studied her before nodding. “It’s only natural, since the two of you were close once. A past personal relationship will always color—”

  “The trouble is,” she said, the thrumming of the blood in her veins a rushing noise in her ears, “Ian doesn’t—he can’t or he won’t—remember that we ever broke up. It’s been hard for me, too, Julian. Difficult to keep from...from being swept up in the past as I try to draw him to the present.”

  “What are—what are you trying to say, Andrea?” he asked, looking more concerned than ever. Or was it fear that she was seeing, a panicked pulse of déjà vu? As much as she wanted to spare him doubt or pain, she forced herself to remember how her father had once given that excuse when his acts had finally, horrifyingly come to light—and how that decision had left her mother shattered.

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go back there. Not without risking—this morning, after we were shot at, emotions were running high. I was bleeding. He was helping me. And then—there was a kiss.”

  “He kissed you.” Julian’s voice went cool and smooth as plate glass. But there was a spark of heat in his eyes, the telltale twitch of a muscle in his clenched jaw.

  She nodded, her face blazing. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to... I thought I’d made it clear to him that I was... But clearly, it didn’t sink in, and in the heat of the moment, I’m afraid—afraid I forgot myself, forgot what I was there for. And I kissed him back.”

  “Andrea...” Julian groaned, his eyes closing as he raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.

  “It’s not— I love you, Julian. I want to be with you, not him or anyone else.”

  He blew a breath through his nose before looking at her as if she were a stranger.

  Shame took root in the pit of her stomach, spreading icy tendrils. “Can you— Do you think you can forgive me?”

  His lips thinned and paled as he pressed them together. But he soon regained control of himself, looking far more like the man she’d come to know, the man whose squared shoulders and quiet dignity were so much like her father’s. “As you said, emotions must have been—”

  “That’s true, but I have to tell you, it wasn’t just the moment,” she said. “It was... I’d grieved this man, thought he was dead. So to expect me to be able to wall myself off from all those feelings, to forget we’d ever been a couple... It’s too much, Julian. Too much to expect from me and especially from him.”

  “I see,” he managed, looking as if the two words left a bitter taste in his mouth. “Well, I suppose I should credit you for being honest. You tried to warn me from the start, I know. But this—”

  “Please don’t ask me to go back. I don’t want to— I can’t. Send Connor, please. I’ll consult with him on the case from here.”

  Julian remained silent long enough for her to wonder whether he was considering or brooding. “As much as I’d prefer that solution,” he finally said, “I’m afraid there are...there are other factors in play.”

  She stared at him, hot moisture welling in her eyes. “What other factors? You can’t possibly be thinking about the money. This is—this is our future I’m talking about, Julian. And my mental health because I can’t be the kind of woman who would—”

  “I understand you’re upset. You’ve been through a terrible ordeal and aren’t ready to rationally talk this through, not yet.”

  “Talk what through? If you’d only tell me the real reason...”

  “Come inside, Andrea. It’s clear you need to rest now. Sleep, and then we’ll talk again.”

  A spike of heat was her temper’s only warning. “So you’re putting me to bed now, like a misbehaving child?”

  “I’m sending you to rest now,” he said, a warning in his gaze, “because I truly do care about you. And because I need you out of my sight right now, before I end up saying something we’ll both very much regret.”

  Chapter 6

  Ian decided his brother had been right. Sheriff George Canter remained nothing but big hat and attitude, especially when it came anything to do with his two least favorite reformed hell-raisers. Tall and rugged-looking, with dark eyes and a perpetual sneer, he seemed more interested in finishing their meeting in the barn office so he could run to the house to console Zach and Ian’s mother.

  With every passing reference to their mama, the pulse point at Zach’s temple beat a little harder until finally he erupted. “First of all, you’ve missed her. With my wife out for the afternoon, my mother was kind enough to volunteer to pick up Eden from school.”

  In their stalls, the nearest horses stamped and shuffled, as if they scented the tension in the air.

  Canter glanced at his watch. “So what time is it that kindergarten gets out? ’Cause if she’ll be back soon, it’s only right that I should wait and pay my respects.”

  “Never you mind about that,” Zach said. “You’ll be out investigating the scene of the shooting by the time they’re home. Before it gets dark.”

  Eyes narrowing, Canter pulled off his hat, revealing a full head of dark hair, highlighted by lighter patches at the temples. “Those cowhands of yours might jump to your orders, but last I checked, I work for the people of this county.”

  “Especially the people inclined to write checks for your next campaign.”

  Anger twisting in his rugged face, Canter opened his mouth to speak, but Ian broke in first.

  “Let’s head out now, together, and I’ll help you look for shell casings. I have a pretty good idea where you might find them, after all.”

  The sheriff looked at him as if he were still the same dumbass tenth-grader he’d caught cutting class and drinking behind the Wheeler barn, though now he had to look up to meet Ian’s eyes. Shaking his head, Canter said, “Can’t have the victim along collecting evidence. Wouldn’t some damned lawyer have a field day with that? No, sirree, soldier boy.”

  Ian’s entire body clenched. “I’m not your soldier boy.”

  Canter looked him up and down. “You better damn well uncurl those fists, or maybe you’ll get to be my prisoner. Again.”

  A buzzing built in Ian’s head, the angry sound of a wasp’s nest, as his mind whirled through several methods of overcoming and incapacitating an armed man. Methods he remembered being trained in. Methods he’d had occasion to use, even if they hadn’t worked that night in Pakistan, where he’d been ambushed with another...

  “Ian.” Zach’s voice filtered through the buzzing, and Ian recognized the warning in it. “Don’t rise to the bait, man.”

  Zach stared at the sheriff, his voice going hard as steel. “He’s a former POW, Canter. A national hero—didn’t you hear it on the news? Be a damned shame not to give him the respect that he’s got comin’, the kind of disgrace that wouldn’t look good on a campaign poster if it happened to get out.”

  Hero. The word lodged like a thorn in Ian’s throat, as one of his captor’s demands floated up from the black depths. An English-speaking captor brought in especially for this interrogation. The listening post—you will tell us where it is. You will tell us today, or by all that is holy, you will not live to see tomorrow.

  Beyond that, he remembered nothing but a bolt of blinding pain.

  Shaking if off, he grew aware of Canter, who was clearly weighing the chance of settling whatever grudge he held against the Rayford brothers and Zach’s unspoken reminder that his wife was more than capable of influencing media coverage. After a bit of boot-scuffing, the sheriff said, “Don’t you boys worry. I’ve got this covered. I should be able to find
the place just fine, with those GPS coordinates you gave me. I’ll head out now and collect any evidence around the rim where you said, then photograph any tire tracks, all that sort of thing.”

  Judging from the curdled-milk look on his face, he was none too happy about it, but at least he was willing to go through the motions.

  “Track’s pretty rough,” Zach warned him.

  “Shouldn’t be an issue, with the new department SUV.”

  “Well, call us if you get stuck or run into any trouble. I can send Virgil or a couple of the hands out, no problem.”

  Canter nodded and donned his hat before leaving the barn but not before giving the brothers a look that said he wouldn’t forget this indignity. The two Australian shepherds, who tagged along with Zach when Eden wasn’t around, wagged their fringed tails after him, leaving Zach to shake his head.

  “There’s proof positive those goofball pups are no damned judge of character.”

  Ian laughed. “Where’s Gretel when you need her? And what’s the German command for ‘Rip that ugly sneer off his face’?”

  Zach shot him a wry grin. “She’d probably catch rabies.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised, but seriously, man. You need to watch your back around him. Because whatever your beef is with him, it’s clear he’d love a chance to lay you low.”

  Zach’s smile turned to a grimace. “Come here. I want to show you something. Something that might explain a whole lot.”

  He led Ian to the barn office and gestured toward the window. “You see that brand-new Tahoe he’s heading out in? The one with every freaking option you can put on one? That was donated to the department by our mama this past November, when Jessie and I were off on our honeymoon.”

  “So Mama did it while you were out of sight, then,” Ian said, understanding that in accordance with the terms of his father’s will, he and his brother were each meant to have a vote on all large expenditures, as the three of them were equal heirs. Once Ian was reported killed in action, their mother—who despised dealing with the everyday decisions and recognized that her prescription-pill problem had caused her to make a mess of things in the past—had insisted on signing over her proxy to Zach.

  Zach nodded. “While I wasn’t around to guard the henhouse from one determined fox. She went all teary when I confronted her about it later, said she’d only wanted to ‘give back to the community,’ since we’ve been doing so well thanks to that natural gas find. I told her I’d be behind that idea 100 percent. I’d be glad to pitch in for a new truck for the fire department or a playground over at the school if she asked me, but no more to the sheriff. Not another dime.”

  “So what’s his hold on her? Is it just he pays her attention, or does he have something on her?”

  “He may’ve at one time, but that’s all in the open now, and we have Eden,” Zach said, referring to the dark time in his and Jessie’s past that had ended up bringing them together as a family. “So I don’t know what it could be. I only know it’s been tough keeping them apart.”

  “You’d almost think he might suck up to us, too.”

  “Maybe he’s too disgusted, remembering how he used to drag us back to the old man when we got rowdy, or he’s just too eaten up with jealousy over the new money from the gas find.”

  Ian winced. “He wouldn’t be so jealous if he knew how the old man lit into us whenever he brought us home.”

  “So you remember?”

  “Not all of it, just bits and pieces I’d as soon’ve left forgotten.” Only six months prior to Ian’s disappearance, the old SOB had keeled over of a heart attack. Neither Ian nor his brother had attended the services that followed; nor had either one reached out to the mother who’d implored them to keep up appearances at all costs, never lifting a finger to protect them from his rages, not even when blackened eyes and broken bones were involved.

  Still, for some reason Ian might never understand, this land had called him back to it, this once-shattered family drawing him the way a magnet pulled a compass needle.

  When Zach said he had a call to make, Ian headed back to the house in hopes of scaring up an extra sandwich. When he’d first returned, weak and dehydrated, he’d had almost no appetite, but these days, whenever he wasn’t working, he was hitting the kitchen between meals.

  He forgot his hunger when he passed the little nook outside the kitchen, where he spotted Jessie at the built-in desk, completely engrossed in something she was reading. “What’s wrong?”

  As she turned to hide the folder behind her, he caught a glimpse of what looked like handwritten script. “Oh, nothing. Just going through today’s mail, that’s all. Nothing but the usual junk.”

  “You sure? You look a little— Is everything all right with Andrea? What did the doctors say about her head?”

  “She’s fine.” The hand that had held the note came up empty as Jessie brushed aside his concern. “They used this glue stuff to close the cut and told her to take it easy for a few days, but she was feeling well enough to go to lunch—and I only had to twist her arm a little.”

  “Do you think there’s any chance she’ll come back? Any chance I haven’t scared her off for good?”

  When Jessie hesitated, he added, “I know you talked about me. I can see it in your face.”

  “I’m sorry, Ian.” Compassion gleamed in her eyes. “I understand how confusing it must be for you, and I think it is for her, too. But it was probably a bad idea to invite her in the first place.”

  “I’m glad you and Zach did.”

  “I’m not, because it’s obvious that both of you are hurting.” She shook her head. “You have to understand, Ian, the way you feel about her has put her in an impossible situation. She could lose her license and hurt a man she seems to care very much about.”

  “I don’t give a damn about him, only her. And if she can’t come back to work as my psychologist, couldn’t she at least come as a friend?”

  “You need to understand. She’s not coming back.”

  The pitying look Jessie gave him set his teeth on edge. He was more than just a victim—and he’d be damned if he’d be victimized by this. “What’s that old saying about Mohammed coming to the mountain? Because if she won’t come here, I’m heading into Marston to see her.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “She’s helping me remember. And besides, I—I still...” He couldn’t get the rest out, couldn’t stand to sound pathetic.

  But Jessie seemed to understand him anyway. “I know you do. But you don’t have a vehicle or a valid driver’s license. Not to mention—”

  “Yeah. Being declared dead is inconvenient that way.” Ian had barely begun to tackle the reams of paperwork it was going to take to get everything sorted. “But if I didn’t let those terrorists stop me, I’m damned sure not about to let a couple of small details like that get in my way.”

  “I was about to say, not to mention the little detail that someone’s tried to blow your head off.”

  “I won’t be caught off guard again.”

  Jessie frowned. “Just promise me you’ll give her a little time, at least. Okay?”

  “Time enough for you to talk my brother into putting me on lockdown?”

  She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “We aren’t your captors, Ian. But we do care about you. All of us. You’re our miracle.”

  When he said nothing, she asked, “So are you and I good?”

  He swallowed hard, then let out the breath he had been holding. “Of course, we are. And thanks, by the way, for taking care of Andrea.”

  “No problem. I really like her. She’s smart, has a great head for people and has the driest sense of humor ever. But I’d better get up to our suite. I’m sure Gretel’s more than ready for a romp outside by now. I can hear her whimpering from here.
”

  “See you later, then.”

  Instead of heading to the kitchen, he grabbed this month’s issue of Working Ranch and feigned fascination with a truck ad until he heard her footsteps heading upstairs. With Jessie safely out of sight, he went through the mail to find the note she’d hidden, but it was nowhere in the stack.

  Had she slipped it under her shirt or tucked it into the waistband of her jeans? Possible, he thought, but tough to do one-handed. He took another look at the desk before trying the top drawer, though he dimly recalled that one had never slid smoothly, opening—when it did open—with a squawk of protest.

  Apparently, someone had fixed it in the many years since he’d lived at home. The drawer moved freely, and sure enough, he found in it a folded piece of unlined paper.

  “Gotcha,” he said, but as he picked it up, a spasm of conscience tightened his gut. Did he really want to do this? Spy on his brother’s wife? What if he discovered something terrible? An affair or—

  No way would she do something like that, he decided, not when she was so clearly devoted to his brother and Eden. Besides, from what he’d seen of Jessie, she had way too much integrity to sneak around behind Zach’s back. But he could easily imagine her trying to protect him by hiding something she thought might set back his progress, so he tamped down his reservations and unfolded the paper, then quickly read the five words someone had handwritten in block letters. Five angry words that had been clearly meant for him.

  * * *

  Humiliated at being sent to her room, Andrea found herself pacing its cell-like confines as the room’s one window grew dark. As hard as it had been hearing the controlled anger in Julian’s voice as he’d demanded she leave his sight, she’d expected—and deserved—no less. What had blindsided her, though, was his reaction to her plea to send someone else to work with Ian.

  “I’m afraid there are...there are other factors in play,” he’d said, but what on earth could he be talking about? Was someone pressuring him about it? Someone he knew from his former military career? Or what if he was still secretly working for the government?