Rustling Up Trouble

by Delores Fossen

  “Are you saying the photo was doctored?” Rayanne snapped.

  “I’m saying if I met with somebody like that, then I wouldn’t have known who he really was. Somebody’s setting me up.”

  Blue huffed. “And who would do that to a kindly old man like you?”

  Wendell shrugged, obviously not offended by his sarcasm. “Rex Gandy. I heard he wasn’t happy when he found out you were an undercover ATF agent who’d been digging into his business and that Rayanne here helped you out with that digging.”

  “His illegal arms business,” Rayanne corrected in case Wendell didn’t know just how dirty Gandy was. However, she was betting that Wendell did know. The man seemed to be well-informed about all of this.

  “Why would Gandy come after Blue and me now?” she came out and asked. Maybe, just maybe, she’d get a truthful answer.

  “I don’t know for sure, but if I had to venture a guess, I’d say it’s because he figured out that Agent McCurdy here was alive and well. Or maybe I should say alive and dirty.” Wendell smiled again. “It doesn’t bother you, girl, that your man was hired to kill you?”

  “A lot of things bother me,” she settled for saying.

  It concerned her more that Wendell had details that he had likely gotten from Gandy. She didn’t want these two snakes teaming up against Blue and her.

  But maybe they already had.

  Blue and she exchanged glances, and she saw in his eyes that he’d come to that same conclusion. If so, it was an unholy alliance with plenty of money and just as much motive. Both men could want revenge against Blue and her.

  “So why are you here?” Blue asked Wendell. “To warn us about Gandy?” He didn’t wait for the man to answer. “Because we already knew he was a dirtbag. The question is, are you a dirtbag, too?”

  That clearly didn’t please Ruby-Lee. She mumbled something about leaving and tried to get Wendell back in his truck. The man shook off her grip.

  “I’m a still-grieving father who lost his son because of her mother.” Wendell tipped his head to Rayanne. “I don’t care what happens to either of you, but I want my name kept out of this. I don’t want Rayanne or you or her badge-wearing brothers to try to muddy the waters of her mother’s trial by saying I tried to kill you.”

  And it would indeed muddy the waters.

  So much so that her mother’s attorney could ask for not just a change of venue but perhaps a mistrial since it’d been the Braddocks who’d pushed for Jewell’s arrest. So Wendell had a good reason to have his name not associated with any harm that might come Rayanne and her siblings’ way.

  Still, that didn’t mean Wendell was innocent.

  “Maybe you believe you can have your cake and eat it, too,” Rayanne suggested. “You could get revenge against Jewell by killing one of her kids and then placing the blame on somebody else.”

  Wendell certainly didn’t deny it with words, but that sent a flash of anger through his eyes. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, little girl. Keep doing it, and you might just get hurt.”

  Wendell turned, and Ruby-Lee and he got back in his truck. Rayanne wanted to grab him, haul him to the sheriff’s office and force him to say more.

  But he wouldn’t.

  Wendell would just hide behind his lawyers and claim the McKinnons were harassing him. What she needed was proof, even if that proof cleared Wendell’s name.

  “You need to be looking at Gandy,” Wendell said, speaking through the rolled-down window. “Or somebody else,” he added, and he looked straight at Blue.

  Because her arm was right against Blue’s, she felt his muscles stiffen. “I’m not behind these attacks, so you’d better not mean me by that somebody else.”

  Wendell shook his head. “Just repeating more little-bird talk. I figure once your head heals, you could remember all sorts of things that a certain person might not want you to remember.”

  “What person?” Blue snapped. “You?”

  Wendell smiled a syrupy-sweet smile that no one could have mistaken as genuine. “No, Caleb Wiggs, your boss.”

  * * *

  BLUE MADE THE CALL to Caleb the moment he got Rayanne inside the ranch house. But he cursed when his call went straight to voice mail. He wanted answers now, but obviously he was going to have to wait. Blue left a message to phone him back ASAP, and that wait had better not be too long.

  “Stating the obvious here,” Rayanne said, “but Wendell could be lying.”

  Yeah, Blue knew that, but until he heard that from Caleb, it wouldn’t sit easy in his mind. Why the heck would a man like Wendell even sling an accusation like that when he must have known that Blue could easily find out he was lying?

  Well, he could if Caleb would answer his bloomin’ phone.

  “Have there been any hints that Caleb’s dirty?” Rayanne asked.

  “None.” But he had to shake his head. “I don’t remember any.”

  So why did he have this nagging feeling that there was something to remember? Something caught in that whirl of details still inside his head? Blue hated to have doubts, but they came. Man, did they.

  “Sit,” Rayanne insisted, practically putting him onto the sofa in the family room. For a moment he thought she’d done that because he looked ready to explode, but she eased his vest and shirt off his injured shoulder and checked the bandage.

  “I’m fine.” Blue nearly pulled away from her but then quickly figured out that he liked Rayanne fussing over him. Even if she was scowling when she did it.

  “At least you didn’t pop your stitches this time.” Rayanne put his clothes back in place, and in the process her fingers brushed over the left side of his leather vest. She pulled her hand away, but she looked at the spot where she’d likely felt the slight indentations caused by pinholes.

  They were still there after all these years.

  “I don’t remember you ever wearing your badge on this vest,” she pointed out.

  “No.” And because he didn’t want her to move away from him, he said something that he hoped would make her stay. “But there was a badge on it a long time ago. My dad’s.”

  Well, she didn’t move. Probably because he’d never before mentioned his father to her. Come to think of it, he hadn’t mentioned him to anyone since he was a kid. It was part of that baggage that he’d always sworn he wouldn’t discuss.

  “He was a cop?” she asked.

  Blue nodded. “A small-town deputy sheriff.”

  Like Rayanne. That tightened his gut a bit because he wanted things to turn out a lot better for her than they had for his dad.

  She opened her mouth, met his gaze for just a second, and with just that glance, he could practically see the wheels turning in her troubled head. Rayanne was still trying to keep him at arm’s length, but a personal conversation like this had a way of pulling a person closer, not pushing him away. She knew that as well as Blue did.

  “It’s none of my business,” she said. Rayanne would have gotten up, too, if Blue hadn’t taken her hand.

  “Maybe not, but since that’s my baby you’re carrying, if anybody’s got a right to know, it’s you.”

  That didn’t help the scowl, but she didn’t knock his hand away. “We agreed we weren’t going to talk about this yet.”

  Not really. She’d laid down the law, and he’d had too many other things on his mind—like keeping her alive—to argue with her. Blue didn’t want to argue with her now, but with Rayanne this close to him, those memories were starting to stir again.

  The kiss in the hospital.

  And before that, before that rock had crashed into his head, there’d been some scalding-hot looks between Rayanne and him. They’d both had enough sense not to act on that heat, because work and sex rarely mixed.

  Well, except for the one night.

  Blue figured it’d been a pretty good mix.

  He reached out and slid a strand of hair off her cheek and back in the direction of her ponytail. “I wish I could remember sleeping with you.” />
  “I wish you’d quit talking about it,” she fired back.

  Yeah, that was his Rayanne. She could get testy if you weren’t on her side, and she probably wasn’t sure if she could fully trust him yet.

  She could.

  But that kind of trust had to be earned, and it wouldn’t help matters if the heat got all mixed up in this again.

  “I might just kick you six ways to Sunday if you try to kiss me again,” she warned him.

  “It’d be worth it,” he mumbled.

  That put some more annoyance in her eyes, but she stayed put as if steeling herself to weather a mighty storm.

  Blue eased his hand onto her shoulder, then to the back of her head. He slipped his fingers in her hair and gave Rayanne a chance to settle and go still. He also kept an eye on her knee. She wouldn’t actually try to hurt him—well, maybe not, anyway—but he didn’t want her using that knee to try to get her point across.

  Besides, he already knew this was a mistake.

  The mistake went full-blown when he touched his mouth to hers. He felt the jolt just as he had in the hospital. Felt the heat, too.

  She shook her head, maybe trying to clear it, but she didn’t back away. Instead Rayanne cursed him.

  Then kissed him right back.

  Another jolt. It was a nice one that slipped through his body and settled right behind the zipper of his jeans. He kept things gentle. At first. But with each movement of their mouths, each shift of the pressure, the heat went from a simmer to a full flame.

  “You taste good,” he whispered against her mouth.

  “You taste bad,” she answered.

  He pulled back, met her eye to eye. His eyebrow rose a fraction.

  “You always were the bad boy,” Rayanne explained. “And I don’t want you to taste good. Or smell good. Or feel good.” She cursed him again and gave his hand a slight squeeze before she looked away. “But you do, and that makes you bad.”

  Sadly, he knew exactly what she meant. Did that stop him?

  No.

  “This would be so much easier if I didn’t remember the attraction,” he told her. “I could focus just on making sure you and the baby are safe. Yeah, I know,” he added before Rayanne could dole out another warning about that. “A conversation about the baby’s off-limits.”

  She stood, her back to him now. “Once your memory returns, then you’ll know more of how you feel about what happened between us.”

  Okay, now he was confused. “Are we talking about sex?”

  Rayanne didn’t jump to answer, but after several long moments, she nodded. “Sure.”

  Which was probably female code for you idiot, we’re not talking about sex.

  Blue stood, fully intending to admit his idiocy—embrace it, even—and insist on the heart-to-heart that Rayanne clearly wanted to avoid. However, his phone rang before he could even get the conversation started. Huffing, he glanced at the screen, figuring it was Caleb ready to give Blue some much-needed answers.

  But Unknown Caller popped up on the screen.

  He hit the answer button and put the call on speaker. “Agent McCurdy,” he answered.

  “Blue,” the man said. His voice was a husky whisper, mostly breath. “This is Woody Janson.”

  Woody, his missing friend and former partner at the ATF. “Where are you?”

  “Someplace safe. I can’t say the same for you, Blue. You’re in deep trouble. Rayanne, too.”

  “Yeah, someone’s trying to kill us. What do you know about that?”

  “Everything,” Woody answered. “God, Blue. I’m so sorry.”

  Chapter Ten

  Rayanne held her breath, hoping that Woody would just blurt out everything he knew. Not only about the attacks but also about why Blue had gone missing in the first place. However, Woody didn’t.

  “I have to go,” Woody said instead. “But we need to meet right away.”

  Of course he would say that, and Blue shook his head before the man even finished. “I’m not leaving Rayanne, and I don’t want to take her off the ranch. Just tell me what you know.”

  “I can’t get into it all over the phone. Someone might be listening. I’ll send you a text with a meeting place and time.” With that, Woody hung up.

  Blue cursed, groaned and tried to call the man back, but he didn’t get an answer. However, he did get a text within just a few seconds. One that obviously confused him, because he held up the screen for her to see the address.

  Now she groaned. “It’s a house on the ranch, about a quarter of a mile from here. It used to belong to my grandfather, but when he passed away, he left it to my brother Tucker. He lives there now.”

  Blue stayed quiet a moment, obviously giving that some thought. “He’s the one who’s a Texas Ranger. You think he knows Woody?”

  “Maybe, but Tucker’s not there and hasn’t been for a couple of days. He and his fiancée are in San Antonio trying to expedite the paperwork for the twin babies they’re adopting.”

  Just to be sure that Tucker hadn’t returned, Rayanne tried to call his house phone but as expected, she got no answer. “When does Woody want to meet?”

  “In thirty minutes.”

  So soon. Rayanne heard the concern in his voice, the same concern flashing in her head like a neon sign. Danger. But was the danger worth learning what Woody might know?

  Everything, the man had said.

  “Can we really afford not to hear what he knows?” Rayanne asked.

  Again, he started shaking his head. “I’m not putting you in danger again.”

  “Maybe the danger’s already right here. You heard what he said about you and me not being in a safe place. If there’s something going on, I want to know what it is so we can stop it.”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled, but he didn’t sound convinced.

  “You could text him back and tell him to come here instead.”

  More head shaking. “I don’t want him inside.”

  “Then we’ll talk to him on the back porch with the ranch hands standing guard. If he tries to bring anyone else with him, we’ll know and nix the meeting.”

  Still he didn’t jump to agree, but his jaw was flexing. “You won’t be with me while I talk with him.”

  Because she wanted to hear what Woody had to say, Rayanne considered arguing, but she felt a strange flutter in her stomach. Like butterflies flapping their wings. The timing was certainly odd—and a little eerie, too—but she was certain this was the baby.

  A first, though the doctor had said she would feel “quickening” around twenty weeks, and that was exactly how far along she was.

  Blue practically jumped to his feet. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. The baby just moved, that’s all.”

  Her words were meant to assure him that she wasn’t in pain or anything, but those little flutters were one of the most important things that she’d ever experienced.

  Blue pressed his hand on her stomach, but the fluttering stopped. She wasn’t sure who seemed more disappointed about that—him or her. Rayanne hadn’t expected to want to share this with anyone, including Blue, but she found herself wanting to do just that.

  “The text,” she reminded him, stepping back so that his hand was no longer on her stomach.

  Yes, it was a special moment, but distractions like that could get them killed, or at least prevent them from getting the information to put an end to the danger.

  Blue glanced down at her stomach, then the phone, and after mumbling something, he sent the text to Woody switching the location to the back porch. The moment that Blue got a confirmation text back from the man, Rayanne called one of the top ranch hands, Arlene, and told her about their visitor who’d be arriving shortly. She asked Arlene to make arrangements for some security.

  And for Woody to be frisked for weapons.

  It might be overkill, but after everything that’d happened, Rayanne wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Is it possible to sneak up on the house from
the back?” Blue asked the moment she was done.

  “Maybe,” she had to admit. “There are acres of pasture, some with trees and rocks like the place where those other men attacked us.”

  That got his jaw muscles working again. “You will stay inside.” He waited until she nodded. Waited even longer until she actually said “Yes” before they started toward the back of the house.

  They’d made it only a few steps when Blue’s phone rang, and Rayanne held her breath while he checked the screen. She hoped Woody hadn’t already changed his mind about this meeting. Hoped even more that nothing else had gone wrong.

  “It’s Clifford Hale, Caleb’s boss,” Blue said, and he hit the speaker button. “Agent McCurdy.”

  “Blue,” the man said, his voice all business. “Where the hell is Caleb?”

  “I don’t know. I was about to ask you the same thing. He’s not answering his phone or returning my calls. What’s going on?”

  “Well, it’s not good, and he needs to come in and answer some questions.”

  Blue huffed. “Questions about me?”

  “Yes, and his possible involvement with one of the suspects in your shooting. Rex Gandy.”

  Gandy again. She hated how his name kept popping up, and she nearly blurted out some questions for Hale, but Rayanne figured those questions would be better coming from Blue, one of Hale’s fellow agents.

  “Possible involvement?” Blue repeated. “You got any evidence?”

  “I got squat, other than a questionable tip from an equally questionable criminal informant who wants to be paid and could be yapping his trap just for the money.”

  “Is it the same one who claimed I’d been hired as a hit man?” Blue pressed.

  Hale hesitated, probably because he was trying to figure out how much to tell him. “Yeah, the same one. But I’m sure Caleb could clear all of this up if he’d just get his butt back in here and start talking.”

  Rayanne hoped that was true. Not just for Caleb but for Blue and Woody, as well.

  She waited to see if Blue was going to mention the meeting with Woody, but he saw her eyeing him and must have guessed what she had on her mind, because he shook his head.