by Rachel Lee
“That was a damn fool thing you did,” she told him.
“You think I was going to let him get a shot at you?”
“The way I had it set up…” She trailed off. Then, “You should have done it my way. You could have been killed.”
“You care?”
That felt like a gut punch, despite the fact she was in hyperdrive after a close call, still trying to operate as a professional, still trying to keep her head clear. “Yes!” she snapped. “I do care. A whole helluva lot.”
Then she sat back on her heels, told him their captive he was under arrest and recited his rights. When he acknowledged he understood them, her voice hardened.
“Talk,” she said.
“I got nothing to say.”
“You got plenty to say,” she said harshly. “Did Metcalfe put you up to this?”
She caught his expression as she said the name, and she knew, absolutely knew. And the fact that she knew the name seemed to take the wind out of the guy’s sails.
“You know?” he asked hoarsely.
“I know. So unless you want six consecutive life terms along with him, you might want to start talking. I’m still with NCIS. I can still get you a deal.”
“We could always just shoot him here,” Dom said. “My friend the sheriff would consider it justified as self-defense. And frankly, so would I.”
Courtney glanced at him, astonished to hear such a thing come out of Dom’s mouth. It seemed so unlike him. But there was no mistaking the fury on his face. His horse and his girl. Maybe this guy had an unexpected side to him. Maybe the Wild West hadn’t completely died out.
And that’s when the story spilled.
Metcalfe had been the ringleader, start to finish. He’d started worrying almost from the moment Mary met Courtney for the first time, because Mary was working with some of his victims. People who could identify him if they ever surmounted the wall of social shame and fear that kept them quiet.
This guy didn’t know the details of how Metcalfe had arranged for the convoy to be reduced to only one Humvee, or even how he had staged her shooting, but he knew Metcalfe had been behind it all. Metcalfe had told him so when he explained why Courtney had to be eliminated.
“Why did you agree to come after me?” Courtney asked.
“Because Metcalfe said he’d pin the whole thing on me. All of it. And if anybody could pull those strings, it’s Metcalfe, damn it. He’d have made the other guys say it was all me. All of it, and they’d claim I shot my mouth off and that was how they found out.” He closed his eyes a minute. “You don’t know what that guy gets away with. You don’t have a clue. He can still get you.”
Courtney finally asked him point-blank, “Were you involved in any of it?”
The guy sighed and let his head fall back against the tree. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Yeah. I was a lookout.”
The next couple of hours passed slowly. Courtney gave the guy, who finally identified himself as Barry Hardwicke, plenty of water from his own stash. His blood loss seemed to have stopped and when he asked for food, Dom fed him a granola bar out of his rucksack.
Courtney finally sat back against a tree herself, and Dom joined her.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
“Oh, I’m fine. I got my answers. I’m just sorry as hell that I cost you Arnett.”
“You didn’t cost me Arnett. He did. Just like you didn’t cost me Mary. Crap, Courtney, next thing you’ll be telling me is that you were somehow responsible for what happened to your father.”
She tilted her head to look at him, realizing that now that the adrenaline had worn off, she was as exhausted as she could ever remember feeling. “Do I seem that off-kilter?” She hated to ask, but if that’s how he saw her, she needed to know now.
“No.” He shook his head. “I was just trying to tell you to cut it out. You didn’t do anything to deserve a killer on your tail. No more than Mary did. God, this is ugly.”
“Yeah. Start to finish. It could hardly get uglier.”
“Do you think you’ll get this Metcalfe guy now?”
“Probably. If Barry here knows who else was involved, I can guarantee folks are going to start singing in order to cut deals.”
“So it’s good.”
“For me. But…” She bit her lip. “Your boys.”
“I just won’t tell them. They don’t need to know any of this. Not one bit. And I’m sure when Gage gets here with his posse, he’ll understand that, too.”
“Okay. Okay.” She sighed and closed her eyes for a minute. “I couldn’t stand hurting those boys.”
He slipped his arm around her shoulders and held her close to his side.
“I hope,” he said, “that the posse arrives soon. That guy isn’t looking too good.”
“No.” But at the moment it was hard to care. Gathering her energy, afraid that if she let herself relax too long, afraid of what Dom’s arm around her made her feel, she went over to check Barry out. “The bleeding has almost stopped.” Feeling his cheeks and forehead, she noted that they were dry. “I don’t think he’s in shock.”
She sat cross-legged on the ground beside him. “Why don’t you give me some names?” she asked.
So he did, and she wrote them all down on a piece of paper she found in his rucksack along with a pen. Then she gave him some more water. He drank thirstily.
“Help will be here soon,” she assured him. But for an instant it was hard to feel even that basic human compassion. This man had tried to kill her. He was part of a group that had killed Mary and raped women and girls. He could have killed Dom.
It was hard, just then, to care if he lived or died. Except that she needed him, so somehow he had to live.
She loathed the ugliness in herself, but there it was.
She was almost as bad as he was. But just almost. Because she made sure he got plenty of water and she’d patched his wound. She had absolutely no doubt that he wouldn’t have shown her or Dom the same mercy.
But there were a couple of other questions she wanted answers to. “Was it you who shot at me last week? And why were you stupid enough to come after me when you knew you’d have to take out someone else, as well?”
“Metcalfe,” he said, and groaned. “Metcalfe. Something set him off this past week. He insisted it was now or never.”
The photo, she realized. Metcalfe must indeed have his file flagged somehow, and had been alerted that someone had done a face match on him. Oh, man, she almost shuddered. This was going to get ugly and reach into places that… She halted herself midstream. No, they wouldn’t let that happen. The higher-ups would prevent it. But she was certain now that she’d get to make her case against Metcalfe. The rest of the bastards who’d protected the guy could slink away under their rocks again.
The important thing was to get the murderer and rapists. And she had enough now to do that.
Hanging on to every shred of strength, she forced herself to remain icy, even though she wanted nothing now but to start shaking in reaction, to rage at what these men had done to Mary, to those Iraqi women, to Dom and his sons. What they had tried to do to her didn’t even seem to enter into it really.
Besides, watching the prisoner was a good excuse not to look at Dom, not to look at all she could never have. All of it belonged to another woman.
The shaft of ice that pierced her heart right then felt as if it would kill her.
They heard rescue arriving long before it appeared. The drum of hoofbeats grew from more than just a sense of something more felt than heard until there seemed to be a thunder rolling up the mountain.
Courtney gaped when at last rescuers began to appear on both sides of the ravine. Not only were there mounted sheriff’s deputies, but there appeared to be a phalanx of local ranchers and cowboys, all armed, all of them wearing determined faces.
“Told you there’d be a posse,” Dom said.
He stood up and shouted to get their attention as they approached. Those who could
, including Gage Dalton and Micah Parish, wheeled toward them. The others on the far side of the ravine, halted, too, and began to look for ways to cross.
It was over. At least this part was. Courtney sagged back against the tree and let Dom explain everything. She’d have a job to do later, but right now all she wanted to do was bask in a strange sense of lightness, as if a burden had been shed for good.
The next arrival was a helicopter, which hovered above the trees and lowered a basket into the small clearing. Ropes were exchanged for handcuffs as they loaded Barry into a basket stretcher, and the cuffs were attached to the stretcher itself. One of deputies wound his finger around, telling the chopper to raise the patient. A few minutes later, the roar of the blades disappeared back down the mountain.
Little by little, the milling men and women began to disperse back down the mountain, calling cheerfully back and forth now that everything was okay.
Then Ted arrived, leading two saddled horses. “Figured you two might need a lift,” he said.
“Much appreciated,” Dom told him. “Arnett’s back up the mountain a ways. I need to get my saddle and gear.”
“I’ll do that,” Ted said. “You and your lady just head on home. One of these folks’ll help me.”
“Thanks, Ted.”
Ted shrugged. “I called Mary’s parents. They know you got held up. I didn’t tell them why. Didn’t want to upset them.”
“Thanks again.”
“Seems the least I could do.” Ted touched the brim of his hat, made a gesture to another man and they set off.
Dom passed the reins of one of the mares to Courtney. “She’s not quite as placid as Marti, but she’s good. Think you’re ready?”
“You know what? I do believe I am.”
Approaching the mare, she patted her neck and let her sniff her hand. “What’s your name, beautiful?”
“That’s Cindy Lou.”
Courtney shot a look at Dom. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“Blame it on Kyle. Of course,” he added, looking at his own mount, “this guy is Grinch. For good reason.”
Courtney slipped her foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. Immediately she felt the strength of a younger, more active horse beneath her, and she thrilled to the sensation of power. Dom adjusted the stirrups a bit for her, then swung up on the gelding who immediately sidled a bit as if unsure he liked this.
“I thought your horses never misbehave,” Courtney said.
“There’s an exception to every rule.” Dom winked. “Actually, he’s a pretty good cutting horse. But I don’t think either of them are all too fond of the smell of blood. Let’s get out of here.”
It was amazing, after the horrible hours they’d just been through, that the day felt so beautiful, and her mood so light.
She was probably just high on survival, she thought. High because the nightmare was behind her. The bad guys would go down, they’d survived a killer and caught him and…
And she was with Dom. Probably for the last time.
Tomorrow, or whenever they let her prisoner out of the hospital, she’d be on her way back to her old life, to deal with a case that was probably going to bite her just as hard as she’d bitten it, given who was involved.
But she wouldn’t be staying here. She hadn’t been asked to stay. And even if she had, she still had duties that had to be completed before she could even think of such a thing.
Her mood dived a bit at the thought. Clearly she had some serious thinking to do.
Because all of sudden, she didn’t at all want to go back to her old life. No. Whatever did or did not happen with Dom, she knew with absolute certainty as she rode down a mountainside in Wyoming, that she did not want to go back to the life and the person she had been.
The kids were in bed, unaware that bad things had happened that day. Dom had tucked them in just as if it were any other night, telling them not one thing about the day’s events.
On the threshold of their room, he turned off the light and stood still for a few minutes. Courtney was downstairs, and he felt as if he was facing doom. She’d made it clear she was going, she’d even pushed him away last night after calling their lovemaking a fling.
Of course she was going. She’d always been going. The question was why he’d let himself get so involved that the inevitable was going to hurt. It wasn’t as if she’d misled him in any way.
Yet now there was going to be another hole in his life, another hole at the ranch. He wanted to kick his own butt for being stupid enough to make the same kind of choice twice. Or maybe even a worse one, because Mary had wanted to live out here, she’d never wanted to go some other place. She just had other things to do.
Courtney, on the other hand, was a visitor and had never intended to be anything more.
On feet that felt as heavy as solid lead, he went downstairs. Time to be a man and say goodbye.
He entered the living room and she watched him from those smoky blue eyes. She didn’t look a whole lot better than he felt, but there was nothing he could do about that. She’d had a rough day, and she was leaving. His options were gone.
“After I got the news about Mary,” he said quietly, “I took the boys to their grandparents. Then I got me a horse, a few supplies, and I rode hard until the horse had to stop. And then I rode some more. I rode like I could get away from it.”
The corners of her mouth trembled and her eyes saddened. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry. But I’m feeling like getting on a horse again and riding until we both drop.”
He watched expressions play over her face, so fast he couldn’t read them.
“I don’t… Dom, what are you trying to say? I’m not Mary. I can’t be Mary.”
“I know you’re not Mary. I’m not asking you to be Mary. I know you’re Courtney, and Courtney’s leaving for good.”
She caught her breath. “And that makes you want to ride until you drop?”
“Yeah.” There, he’d said it.
“Oh, God.” She sighed. A tear trembled on her lash.
“Look, I just need to know one thing for myself before you go.”
“Yes?”
“Did you mean it when you said you cared about me, or was this all just a fling? Was I just a handy stud?
She drew a sharp breath, and something flared in her eyes. She spoke sharply. “Of course I meant it. I said I care a helluva lot, and I do. But you don’t want me.”
“Who the hell said I don’t want you?”
“You can’t possibly. I’m just your worst nightmare, a career woman who is going away.”
“That was never my worst nightmare. My worst nightmare is losing the woman I love.”
She had opened her mouth, as if to launch into a tirade, but the instant his words penetrated, her entire expression changed. He watched, hardly daring to trust his own senses, as hope dawned on her face.
“You mean that?” she asked finally in a thin voice.
“I wouldn’t have said it otherwise. I know you’ve got a life elsewhere. I know you’re going to have to go away. Well, I handled that before, I can handle it again.” His fists clenched. “The only thing I need to know is if you’ll come back.”
Her face twisted with pain, and he thought, This is it. She’s going to tell me she’ll never come back, that she doesn’t want a rancher with two sons, all the work, all the boring lifestyle. Why the hell would she, anyway?
But then she stood, and walked over to him, until they stood just inches apart. And her words hit him like cool, refreshing springwater.
“I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to go back to my job.”
“But…”
She put a finger over his lips. “Shh,” she said softly. “I’ve been thinking about this constantly. I love it here. I don’t want to go back to my old life, with you or without you. But I thought…I thought you didn’t want me. How could you?”
He didn’t even want to sort through
that mountain of misunderstanding. He did the only thing he could. He pulled her close and kissed her until both of them were gasping for air. “That’s how. And that’s just the start.”
He looked at her bruised lips, saw them begin to smile. Her first smile that day. Like a bird desperately trying to take flight, his heart began to lift. “You really mean it? You want to stay?”
“I was never more serious in my life. But I’ll have to go back at least temporarily to take care of this guy. Once he finishes singing, they’ll probably pass the case to someone else.”
“And if they don’t?”
She shrugged. “I have my answers. I guess that’s enough.”
“Wow.”
She smiled. “That means?”
“That’s a huge thing for you.”
“Well, I figured a few things out. And you’re right about at least some of it. I think I’ve replaced everything in my life with a quest for justice because my dad’s killer was never found. But I don’t seem to feel the need to do that anymore. At least not in the same way.”
“So you’d take on a widower, twin boys and a ranch?”
“Nothing could make me happier.”
“What if you get bored? Every day is pretty much the same around here.”
“Every day in my job is usually pretty much the same. It’s like that thing pilots say, ‘hours of sheer boredom punctuated by seconds of sheer terror.’ Most of it is humdrum. Truthfully. Just routine. And if I’m no longer thirsting for justice, then it’s going to become even more routine.”
“Just so long as you understand. If you need to keep the job, I’m not opposed. If you get bored and want to find a job around here, maybe with the sheriff or the state, I’m not opposed.”
She reached up, cupping his face in her hands. “I want to stay. Other questions are for another day.”
“The boys are falling in love with you, too,” he said quietly.
“I can’t tell you how I felt when they wanted to hug me. I want to hug them every night, Dom.”
“I’d like that, too. So…Courtney?”
“Yes?” Her breath was coming faster as their hips made contact and he hardened against her.
