Angel of Mercy & Standoff at Mustang Ridge

by Heather Graham

  He wasn’t. Well, not her usual type anyway, but Sophie could still feel herself go warm when she thought of his kisses. Now those she remembered. And his body. That’s because he’d been stark naked when she’d woken up in bed with him.

  “There’s something else you’re not telling me,” Royce insisted.

  Good grief. The man had ESP, or maybe his lawman’s instincts were kicking in.

  He tapped her right temple. “What is going on in your head? What are you keeping from me? Because I can promise you, it won’t help. I need to hear everything that happened. Everything you remember because it could help us figure out how to bring Travis down.”

  She desperately wanted to stop Travis. But freedom from Travis came with a huge price tag.

  “Can I tell you something off the record?” she asked.

  Royce looked at her as if her ears were on backward. “Excuse me?”

  “Off the record,” she repeated. “As in you don’t put it in a report, and you don’t mention a word of it to anyone, even your brother.”

  Dead silent, Royce continued to stare at her. “What the hell is going on?”

  Sophie didn’t back down. Yes, she was still trembling from the attack, but this was critical. “You won’t tell anyone,” she insisted.

  He stared. She waited. And the seconds crawled by before Royce finally nodded.

  Sophie searched his eyes for any sign he was lying. She didn’t see anything but the renewed anger and frustration. Too bad. She’d rather that than an arrest warrant.

  “When I was going through Travis’s files,” she said, and she had to take another deep breath and give herself some time to choose her words, “I found some papers that could possibly paint my father in a bad light.”

  Yes, that was sugarcoating it, but she had to be careful with what she said.

  He blinked, paused and then cursed. “Bad light? You mean he did something illegal.” And it wasn’t a question.

  Suddenly the tears were gone and she knew what she had to do. Sophie moved closer because she wanted him to see the determination in her own eyes. Determination not to say or confirm anything that would put her father behind bars.

  “I love my father,” she settled for saying. “And the only reason I just told you about the papers was so you’d have a complete picture.”

  Royce shook his head and took her by her shoulders again. “There’s nothing complete about that. What do these papers have to do with the fact that someone tried to kill us?”

  Nothing.

  She hoped.

  But Sophie didn’t get a chance to say that. She heard the doorknob rattle, and her gaze flew in that direction.

  And her heart went to her knees.

  Travis was standing there, looking right at them through the reinforced glass. Except he was giving them more a glare, and he hadn’t missed the close contact between Royce and her. In fact, Royce’s hands had been on her.

  Royce shoved her behind him. In the same motion, he drew his gun.

  “Call off your cowboy, Sophie,” Travis said, his voice a dangerous warning. His eyes were narrowed to slits. “Or things are going to get ugly fast.”

  5

  Royce hadn’t expected to agree with Travis, but the man was right about one thing—things were about to get ugly.

  Travis was clearly upset. Royce was already past that stage, and he glared back at the man who was glaring at him.

  “I’ll go with him,” Sophie insisted. “I don’t want a fight.”

  Well, Royce did. He wanted to beat this moron to a pulp if he was the one who’d hired those gunmen. And Royce was leaning in the direction of that if being highly likely.

  “You’re not going with him,” Royce insisted, and he shot her a warning glance over his shoulder. “Stay put. I’ll handle this. And then we’ll finish that conversation about your father.”

  Sophie swallowed hard, but he wasn’t sure she would actually listen to him. She was turning out to be a lot more stubborn than he’d thought she would be, and his expectations in that area had been pretty darn high.

  With his gun drawn and ready, Royce went to the door, unlocked it and threw it open. He gave Travis a quick once-over and didn’t see any visible weapons. However, the man was wearing a thick winter coat, and he could hide lots of things under that.

  “I heard about the shooting, and I got here as fast as I could,” Travis volunteered. “How’s Sophie?”

  Royce ignored him and his question. “You don’t mind if I frisk you for weapons, huh?” Royce asked, and he didn’t wait for an answer or permission.

  He took Travis by the arm, pulled him inside and practically shoved him against the desk. Royce also kicked the door shut and relocked it. He doubted Travis would turn and run, but he didn’t want to risk those gunmen storming the place while he was distracted with Travis.

  “This isn’t necessary,” Travis complained.

  “Humor me,” Royce fired back. It didn’t take him long to locate the gun in the slide holster at Travis’s back, and Royce disarmed him.

  Travis whirled back around to face him. “I have a permit to carry that concealed.”

  Royce would check on that to make sure it was true. “Your permit doesn’t extend to bringing weapons, concealed or otherwise, in the sheriff’s office. Especially since you’re a suspect in an attempted-murder investigation.”

  “What?” Travis’s hands went on his hips, and his attention shot to Sophie. “You think I had something to do with this attack?”

  “Did you?” Sophie asked.

  Travis was breathing through his mouth now, and his face was flushed. In fact, everything about him looked ill-tempered and out of sorts. The wind had chapped his face and mouth and torn through his normally styled reddish-brown hair. He still had on his usual fancy rich clothes—a suit, matching overcoat and shoes that probably cost more than Royce’s entire wardrobe—but everything looked askew.

  Maybe because his murder-for-hire plot hadn’t worked.

  “No, of course I didn’t have anything to do with the attack,” Travis told her. “You’re my fiancée, Sophie. I don’t have a reason to hurt you.”

  “Really?” And Royce didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of that one-word question. “She’s your ex-fiancée, and you assaulted her when she told you she was carrying another man’s child.”

  A muscle jumped in Travis’s jaw, and his narrowed dust-colored eyes shifted from Sophie to Royce. “I was upset. Stunned. You would have reacted the same way if you’d been in my position.”

  “No. Hell, no, I wouldn’t. I don’t hit women even when I’m stunned and upset.” Royce stepped closer. Since he was a good six inches taller than Travis, Royce hoped he looked as riled and intimidating as he felt. “I especially wouldn’t hire two dirt wads to kidnap or kill her.”

  “I didn’t do that!” Travis insisted. He tried to move toward Sophie, but Royce blocked his path. Travis huffed. “I’m here to apologize, Sophie. I love you, and I still want us to get married.”

  A burst of air left Sophie’s mouth. “You slapped me.”

  “Only because of those pictures.” He shifted uneasily. “And because of the pregnancy. Honestly, how did you expect me to react? I know you slept with him before we got engaged, but it still stung.”

  Royce didn’t miss the way Travis said him. As if Royce were something lower than pond scum. Well, Royce didn’t think too highly of him, either.

  Of course, there was something a whole lot bigger in Travis’s weasely justification for his reaction. There was that lying part about Royce and Sophie sleeping together.

  Or maybe it was a lie.

  Sophie had admitted to having blank spots in her memory. Royce had them, too, but he figured even if he was drunk off his butt, he’d remember sle
eping with a woman like Sophie.

  “Did you hear me, Sophie?” Travis said. “I was jealous that you’d slept with him, and I lost control for just that split second.”

  Sophie opened her mouth, no doubt to spill the baby lie, but Royce gave a “keep quiet” glare. Travis would learn the truth soon enough, but Royce wanted a few answers first. And he hoped his request for silence in that area didn’t have anything to do with tormenting Travis.

  Though it probably did.

  Even if by some miracle Travis was innocent of hiring those gunmen, Royce still wanted the moron to squirm for slapping Sophie.

  “You told Sophie you had pictures of me and her,” Royce tossed out there.

  Travis nodded. “Someone sent them to me. I don’t know who,” he said before Royce could ask. “There was no return address on the envelope, and it was postmarked from Amarillo.”

  “I want to see them.” Because seeing them might tell Royce who took them. That was the start to finding out why, and it might shed some light on the attack. It might also prove that Travis was lying about the photos and the hit men.

  “They’re at my office,” Travis explained.

  Royce blocked him again when he tried to step around him and get closer to Sophie. “Call someone. Have them brought over.”

  Travis clearly didn’t like that particular order, or maybe his increased scowl was for the body block Royce was putting on him. “There’s no one in my office right now. I’ll bring them back later today.”

  “You could do that, if I don’t arrest you,” Royce reminded him. “Right now, I’m thinking your arrest is a given.”

  The man’s shoulders snapped back. “You don’t have any proof to make an arrest. Because there’s not any evidence against me. Sophie?” Travis mumbled some profanity. “Can you tell this cowboy I wouldn’t hurt you? I just want to work things out with you.”

  “Work out things?” Royce questioned. “What about the pictures and the baby?”

  “I forgive her.” But Travis’s teeth were clenched when he said it, and that wasn’t a forgiving look in his eyes.

  Before Royce could stop her, Sophie walked closer. She stopped at Royce’s side and kept her attention nailed to her scowling ex. “I’m not sure I can trust you, Travis.”

  “You can’t,” Royce insisted.

  But Sophie and Travis kept their eyes locked. “I can regain your trust,” he assured her.

  Royce was about to disagree, but something caught his attention. A dark blue car came to a stop directly behind his truck that was parked in front of the office. He didn’t recognize the vehicle, but he knew the two men who stepped from it.

  Sophie’s half brother and her father, Stanton and Eldon Conway.

  “After all,” Travis said, his gaze drifting toward the visitors who were making their way to the door. “Look at what I’m doing to help you and your father.”

  Even though Royce wasn’t touching Sophie, he could almost feel her muscles tense. He definitely heard the change in her breathing. Travis’s tone had been nonthreatening, but there was indeed a threat just below the surface.

  “Yes,” Sophie mumbled. She looked up at Royce, and he knew she was about to do something stupid. Or rather she’d try.

  “You’re not going with him,” Royce let her know. “Yeah, I know he agreed to pay off your father’s debts, but that’s not worth your life.”

  “Deputy,” Travis said. His tone was now placating. “I love Sophie, and her life isn’t in danger as long as she’s with me.”

  Royce went with a little placating attitude himself. “Someone hired two men to kidnap her. And those two men then fired a boatload of shots at her. Now, if you didn’t hire those men, then who the hell did?”

  Travis’s mouth quivered, threatening to smile, and he hitched his thumb to the door just as Stanton tested the knob and then knocked.

  “Why don’t you ask them that question?” Travis insisted. “Because if you want to pin the blame for this on someone, both of them have a much bigger motive for kidnapping Sophie than I do.”

  Oh, he didn’t like that smug look or the sound of this. “What motive?” Royce demanded.

  “Ask Eldon.” And this time, Travis didn’t fight the smile. He grinned like a confident man. “I’m sure if you press Sophie’s father as hard as you’re pressing me, he’ll tell you all about it.”

  * * *

  Sweet heaven. This was exactly what Sophie had been trying to avoid, and yet here was her father at the sheriff’s office, and he was on a collision course with Royce.

  She had to stop it.

  Sophie hurried to the door ahead of Royce and unlocked it so she could let in her father and Stanton. Her father immediately pulled her into his arms.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “Were you hurt?” Before Sophie could answer, he eased back and examined her face.

  “I’m okay,” she assured him.

  She was far from okay, but her father was already worried enough without her adding the details of the attack. Still, it would take her a lifetime or two before she stopped hearing the sounds of those bullets and how close they’d come to killing Royce and her.

  Her father let go of her, and with his hand extended, he made his way to Royce. “Thank you for saving her.”

  Royce had his gun in one hand, Travis’s in the other so he didn’t return the handshake. Didn’t look too friendly, either. Probably because of Travis’s accusation about her brother and father. An accusation that had to be a lie.

  It just had to be.

  Stanton had an equally bristled expression on his face. “What exactly happened?” he asked her.

  Sophie decided to keep it short and sweet. “Travis and I broke up last night. This morning, an FBI agent called to warn me that someone was going to kidnap me. I ran, and Royce stopped two armed men from taking me. And from killing me,” she added in a mumble.

  Royce tipped his head to Travis. “He says you know something about those gunmen.”

  “He doesn’t,” Sophie argued.

  But her father didn’t exactly jump to agree with her. In fact, he shook his head and blindly fumbled behind him until he located the chair next to Maggie’s desk. He practically dropped down onto the seat.

  Oh, God.

  Sophie started to go to him, but Royce latched on to her arm and held her back. “Just listen to what he has to say,” Royce advised her.

  Sophie didn’t want to listen, and she didn’t want her father to blurt out anything incriminating about those papers she’d found. Royce would have to arrest him then. Besides, she couldn’t believe her father actually had anything to do with this.

  When her father just sat there, shaking his head, Sophie looked at Stanton for some kind of explanation.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” her brother muttered. But it seemed as if he did know something.

  Sophie silently cursed. Stanton and she hadn’t been close, not since her mother, Diane, had died a year ago in a car accident and had cut Stanton out of the will. Of course, maybe Stanton hadn’t been expecting anything since he was Diane’s stepson, but he darn well should have expected it since Diane had helped raise him. Stanton had only been five years old when Diane and Eldon had gotten married, and for all and intents and purposes, she’d been his mother.

  Sophie returned her attention to her father—someone else her mother hadn’t included in her will. She cursed that will now.

  And her mother.

  Because Diane had ripped the family apart by leaving Sophie everything and then forbidding her to give her father and brother a penny.

  Her father finally looked up but not at her. At Royce. “I made some bad investments, and I used the ranch and land as collateral. I was on the verge of losing everything so I got a loan from someone. The
wrong someone,” he confessed.

  “A loan shark?” Royce asked.

  Eldon nodded, and her mouth went dry. Mercy. This was worse than she’d thought.

  Royce turned to her, his eyebrow already lifted. “Did you know?”

  It took her a moment before Sophie could speak and tamp down some of the wild ideas flying through her head. Or maybe not so wild. After all, a loan shark and the attack could be connected.

  “I knew about the debts,” she said. “But not about this extra loan.”

  “That’s why Sophie was marrying Travis,” Stanton added. “So he’d pay off all our father’s debt, including the most recent one.”

  Sophie’s gaze flew to Travis. “You knew about the loan shark?”

  He lifted his shoulder. “Not specifically. I just knew your father was in financial hot water.”

  “And Travis wouldn’t give us the money in advance,” Stanton volunteered. “He insisted we wait until after the wedding.”

  Another lift of his shoulder. “A deal’s a deal, and the deal was for Sophie.”

  “Well, that’s off now, isn’t it?” Stanton snarled. “And this loan shark threatened to get his money one way or another.”

  Royce jumped right on that. “By kidnapping Sophie?”

  The room went completely silent for several long moments. The silence didn’t help steady her nerves, that’s for sure. Neither did her father’s dire expression.

  “Maybe,” her father finally admitted.

  She wanted to scream and pound her fists against the wall. How the heck had her father’s finances come to this? And why had he kept something this important from her?

  Sophie went to her father, latched on to his chin and forced eye contact. “Did this loan shark actually threaten to come after me?”

  Her father didn’t answer. Didn’t have to. She saw it in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “He didn’t threaten you specifically, but he said I’d be sorry if I didn’t pay up. I thought he’d send one of his goons after me.” Her father shook his head, groaned. “I didn’t know he’d go after one of my kids.”