Clearly uneasy, he looked from Jessie to Henry.
“I’ll be fine,” his mother said, tenting her fingers over one side of her forehead. “Maybe it’s the wind, but this migraine’s getting worse. If you could get my pill right away...”
“Sure, Mama. I’ll be right back,” he said, his concerned eyes as vibrant a blue as his mother’s. But that was where their resemblance ended.
Where Mrs. Rayford was petite and frail, her rancher son was broad-shouldered and long-limbed—a trim six-three, at least, and only a few years older than Jessie’s twenty-nine. The wind, or maybe the hat, had mussed his short jet-black hair, but it was his strong jaw that caught her attention—that and the high cheekbones, deep tan and dark brows that hinted he had Native blood, despite the color of his eyes. To her surprise, there was no ring on his finger, she noticed, sneaking a glance at his strong, work-roughened hands as he rushed back in the direction he had come.
He might be wearing a barn jacket, boots and worn jeans—well fitted to the contours of his body—rather than Armani, but she knew instinctively that if a gorgeous specimen like him showed up in Highland Park, he’d have half the women in that ZIP code lined up, hoping for a ride. And if they had any idea how much land and livestock his family owned—and how much oil had been found here, according to her research—a good number would be out to permanently corral him. She couldn’t imagine herself among them, though, for if she’d learned anything from her last boyfriend, it was that guys who looked that good and had the money to back it up tended to have a lot more ego than she cared to deal with.
“You’ll need to leave now,” Mrs. Rayford told them. “Before my son gets back. Please.”
Jessie squeezed Mrs. Rayford’s ice-cold hand and said, “I’m very sorry you’re not feeling well, but I’m not going anywhere until I find my sister. My own mother— My mother’s seriously ill and needs to see her. And every lead I’ve uncovered stops right here at this ranch.”
Mrs. Rayford straightened to look her in the eye, her otherwise pale face marked by two splashes of bright color. “I told you on the phone, Haley Layton moved on six months back,” she said, her voice going cold and brittle. “She and that good-for-nothing boyfriend of hers sneaked out of the old bunkhouse they were renting without a single word—or a penny of the three months’ rent they owed me.”
The part about the money didn’t surprise Jessie. Haley had a long history of abusing the trust of everyone with whom she came in contact. Jessie herself had fallen for a couple of Haley’s hard-luck stories—the last time to the tune of nearly five thousand dollars—all the savings she’d had at the time.
The very last time, she’d sworn, cutting off all contact once her sister had skipped out of a battered women’s shelter and disappeared almost four years before. It had hurt Jessie, too, turning her back on someone so close. She felt almost like a part of Jessie’s own body, but she knew, too, that if she kept enabling her twin, Haley would never learn to stand alone—and would never stop resenting Jessie for the accomplishments that set them apart.
“I’ll write you a check right now for the back rent,” she offered, now more intent on offering her mother peace than in fixing her sister’s life, “if you can only tell me where she went or even this boyfriend’s name. Then I’ll be on my way.”
The woman moaned. “I don’t care about the money. As I told you before, I have no idea where your sister’s gone.”
“Then why act so evasive on the phone, and why hang up on me every time I tried to call back?” Jessie demanded. “When you saw my face, too, I saw how you—”
From behind her, Zach Rayford returned to interrupt them. “What’s really going on here? Who the hell are you people, and what do you think you’re doing upsetting my mother?”
“I—I’m looking for my sister, that’s all,” Jessie stammered, forced to step aside once more as the rancher gave his stricken mother the pill and glass of water he had brought.
Gently, he touched her rail-thin shoulder. “Don’t you worry, Mama. Take this, and I’ll send these people on their way.”
She tensed visibly and then, a moment later, nodded.
“I—I’ll do that,” Nancy Rayford said, her voice small as a child’s as she pressed the pill to her lips and swallowed with a sip of water. “And then, I might— I think I may go up and lie down for a bit. I’m not— I’m feeling a little—”
“Go on ahead, Mama. I’ll be up in a minute to check on both of you. And I’ll look after Eden, so there’s no need to worry.”
Bending his powerful frame, he helped the fragile woman to her feet. As soon as she was standing, she murmured to Jessie, “Forgive me,” with a plea in her eyes before she started up the stairs.
“Just her boyfriend’s name,” Jessie called after her, caring far less about this stranger’s inexplicable desire for secrecy than her promise to her mother. “Please, if you can tell me that much, I’ll be on my way.”
Zach Rayford narrowed his eyes. “It’s time for you people to leave. Now.”
Still looking at Jessie, Mrs. Rayford shook her head. “I—I’m not sure I can—”
“You don’t have to answer her.” Laserlike in its intensity, Zach’s glare flew from Jessie’s face to Henry’s, where he quickly did a double take. “What the hell? Is that a camera you’re hiding? You people are filming us? Right here in our home?”
He stalked toward Henry, saying, “Give me that right now, you little—”
Scrambling backward, Henry twisted in an attempt to keep the mini-cam out of reach, but the rancher wrested it from his hands before the older man could do anything about it.
“Wait!” Jessie said, fearing the expensive camera would be damaged. And fearing even more that her foolish attempt to appease her boss had cost her her only real chance at finding Haley.
Rayford stopped, a mirthless grin spreading across his handsome face as his gaze swung from her to Henry. “Now that I have your attention,” he said, “maybe I can get some answers. First of all, you’re going to tell me right this minute, who are you?”
He nodded toward the red-faced cameraman, who was rubbing his neck and darting glances toward the door. It didn’t take a mind reader to see that he was thinking about bolting before the rancher’s big hands found him, too.
“Henry Kucharski,” he finally murmured, shoving his own hands into the pockets of his jacket. “And I’ll need that camera back, or I’m a dead man when I get back to Dallas.”
Ignoring him, Zach looked to Jessie. “And now you,” he ordered, “the woman with the questions.”
“As I’ve told your mother,” she said, her voice tight with anger, “my name is Jessie Layton, and I’m looking for a former tenant of yours—”
“A tenant? You think we’re running some sort of a boardinghouse here?” He glanced toward his mother, who lingered on the staircase, gaping at them as she clutched the railing for dear life.
She nodded, desperately, or so it seemed to Jessie. “Back before your brother...” Mrs. Rayford explained to her son. “While you were still away, I let Frankie McFarland and his girlfriend—you remember Frankie, don’t you?—he grew up right here in Rusted Spur—talk me into renting them the old bunkhouse on the East Two Hundred.”
Jessie threw up her hands in exasperation. “If you’d only given me that name when I asked you on the phone, I wouldn’t have had to come all the way here in the first place!”
Paying no heed to her outburst, Zach stared at his mother. “That old place?” He shook his head. “But no one’s lived there in years. It was falling apart.”
“At the time, they seemed like such a nice young couple. Down on their luck, that’s all.”
“From what I remember about Frank McFarland,” Zach said grimly, “there was never one nice thing about him.”
“I thought he’d changed,
” his mother said, “but I was wrong. They disappeared six months back, without doing any of the repairs they promised in exchange for cheaper rent—or paying, either, for that matter.”
Turning to look at Jessie, Zach said, “So you’re looking for this woman, right? This deadbeat with the loser boyfriend really is your sister?”
“She’s my twin, and she’s missing,” Jessie shot back, her face heating to hear this glorified cowboy running down the sister with whom she’d shared a womb—a sister who had shared her every day and every thought for the first sixteen years of their lives. No matter how embarrassed she felt to be judged by Haley’s bad behavior, it came as second nature to defend her. “And for the record, I offered to pay your mother whatever Haley owed.”
Narrowing his eyes, he glared at Henry once more. “If you’re just here to find your sister, why’d you bring a cameraman? Tell me you’re not some damned reporter—”
She pulled a card out of her purse and admitted, “Jessica Layton, Dallas Metro Update, Channel 37. But I’m really here to find my sister, for my mother’s sake.”
“I don’t buy that for a second. You’re here for some sleazy story. Here to make my mother look bad somehow,” he accused as he fumbled with the camera’s buttons. “How do I— Where’s the release on this thing, before I have to tear it apart? There’s a memory card in here, right?”
“Don’t you touch that,” Henry managed, but, thoroughly intimidated, he sounded more apologetic than outraged.
Finding the right lever, Rayford ejected the memory card and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket.
“No, please. I don’t—” Jessie shook her head. “Forget that. You can keep it. Just— I need to ask your mother a few more questions. Please.”
“What I need,” he said as he jammed the mini-cam back at Henry, “is for the two of you to get the hell out of my house and off my property before I call the sheriff—or go get my gun.”
Chapter 2
Zach was gratified to see the little cameraman scuttling out the door without a moment’s hesitation.
But the slim, green-eyed woman didn’t move a muscle as she stared him down. “For the record,” she challenged, the wind from the open door whipping her long, red-gold hair around her, “you’re threatening to shoot us?”
Though he’d like nothing more than to answer, Hell, yes, he hesitated for a heartbeat, remembering reporters and their underhanded ways. Innocent as this Jessica Layton appeared, with her tangled waves and a smattering of girl-next-door freckles, there was a stubborn set to her delicate jaw that promised trouble if he wasn’t careful. For all he knew, she had a digital recorder hidden on her and would take his bluff to the law if he were stupid enough to threaten her. Not that Sheriff Canter would likely do anything but escort this troublemaking outsider to the county line, but Zach didn’t need the aggravation.
And he didn’t need her raising more questions about his mother’s strange behavior. Why hadn’t she simply told the reporter what little she knew about Layton’s sister and her boyfriend instead of acting as if there was something to hide? And why had she lied to him about the reporter and her cameraman being lost in the storm and looking for directions?
“I’m not going to shoot you,” he admitted with a shake of his head. “But I promise you, I’ll pick you up like a bawling calf and carry you straight back to your car if you don’t leave.”
To her credit—and his irritation—Jessica Layton didn’t bat an eye at the threat.
“So you’re sending me back out into this storm?” she asked.
“And straight down the road to Dallas, if I have anything to say about it,” he said, thinking of the tears he’d spotted in his mother’s eyes. He wouldn’t have her getting sick again, an illness that had alarmed him into accepting the discharge he’d been offered, as his family’s sole surviving son, and into finally accepting his father’s unwelcome legacy.
The reporter waited without speaking, clearly hoping to make him squirm. But as an officer of the marine corps, he was familiar with the tactic. Had used it himself upon occasion, while staring down the younger pilots he’d trained.
He waited her out, thinking how pretty he might’ve found this clearly smart and stubborn woman if she weren’t some damned reporter, especially one who’d invaded his turf and upset his mother. Did this Jessica Layton have any idea that the woman she’d come here to grill had lost her son—his only brother, Ian—in combat a few months ago? Or that she’d still been reeling from her husband’s death at the time, which had left her responsible for running an enormous spread with no one but hired hands to help her?
“I’ll leave your property,” the reporter finally conceded, “but I’m warning you. I’m not making the drive home until I find my sister—or at least get some straight answers about where she might’ve gone. Because my mother isn’t dying without seeing her again.”
“You—Your mother?” he asked. “She’s—she’s what? You’re saying that she’s sick?”
Her jaw tightening, Jessica Layton nodded. Pain cracked through the mask of fierceness, the pain of a despair barely held at bay. A reminder that death hadn’t made its last stop at Zach’s family’s doorstep.
“I’m sorry for your family,” he said, really seeing the woman behind the reporter for the first time. A gorgeous woman, not just pretty, and one that his instincts assured him wasn’t lying in the hope of getting either an edge or a story. “But you just heard my mother. She has no idea where your sister’s gone.”
“You heard her as well as I did. It’s obvious your mother’s hiding something.” Jessica stared in challenge at his mother on the staircase.
A challenge he cut off by stepping between them, his heart pounding out a warning that this reporter, this intruder in his home, was too dangerous to sympathize with. “You crossed a line today, barging in here with a camera, and you’re crossing another, standing here and calling my mother a liar.” He squared his shoulders and drew himself to his full height. “Now get out before I put you out.”
“I’ll be back,” she assured him, turning on her heel.
And leaving him to wonder, could his mother’s strange behavior have anything to do with another woman who had shown up unexpectedly to knock at their front door?
Reminded of the miracle she’d brought, Zach glanced up toward the landing and glimpsed a tendril of soft golden-brown hair and a pair of eyes peeking through the bars of the metalwork railing.
The green eyes of his four-year-old niece, Eden, who had been dropped off by her mother—an old girlfriend of Ian’s who none of them had ever heard of—in the weeks following his brother’s death. Still in San Diego, packing up the contents of his room in the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters, Zach had never met the woman, but Jessica Layton’s green eyes nudged a suspicion...a suspicion planted by his mother’s too-neat story to the night her “miracle grandchild” had appeared.
The moment the reporter closed the door behind her, the tiny girl—the child Zach swore had restored his mother’s will to live—trotted down the staircase and threw herself into his mother’s arms.
And in a small, sweet voice that drove a shaft of ice through his heart, Eden asked tearfully, “Grandma, is my mama coming back this time? Is she taking me away?”
* * *
“Thanks loads for the backup in there,” Jessie told Henry once she’d climbed behind the wheel.
His bald scalp reddened. “Did you see the size of that guy? And the muscles? Besides, I’ve got at least thirty years on him, or else I would’ve— I could’ve decked him....”
When Jessie raised her brows, Henry laughed at her skepticism.
“You know me all too well,” he conceded with a shrug. “Maybe I wouldn’t have at that, but I could tell that cowboy wouldn’t hit a woman, much less shoot one. You saw how he was with his little mama.”<
br />
“I figured the same,” she admitted as she started the car’s engine. “But he wasn’t going to back down from protecting her, either.”
“Protecting? You still think she’s hiding Haley?”
Jessie turned the car around and started back for the gate. “Not anymore I don’t, but she’s holding back. Or outright lying for some reason. I’d bet money on it.”
“I sure as heck noticed how she lied to him about who we were and then popped off your sister’s boyfriend’s name when her son looked at her funny. And right in front of you, too, after acting like she couldn’t remember.”
Frowning, Jessie shook her head. “She was so flustered by that point, I’m guessing she couldn’t keep it together any longer. But at least I have the boyfriend’s name now, so we can check him out.”
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and glanced down at its face. “Not out here, you can’t. Not online, anyway. There’s no service, and—big surprise—no Wi-Fi signal, either.”
“How do people live like this?” Hours from the nearest Starbucks, she was going into withdrawal, and being cut off from the phone, email and internet was even harder.
As if on cue, a trio of cows—or bulls, or whatever the heck they were—wandered into their path. Apparently unfazed by the wind, the big red-and-white animals stopped to chew and stare at them.
“Come on, you three. Out of the way.” She tapped the horn, and one mooed. Another turned around and mooned her, before lifting its tail to...
“Not on my hood, you don’t!” she said, shifting into Reverse and backing the car a safe distance. Though she’d covered far more than her share of crime scenes, accidents and fatality fires on the night beat, she crinkled her nose and oohed at the disgusting display.
Henry grinned and said, “I’m guessing Bossy there doesn’t like us any better than that cowboy does.”
Jessie snorted, then tried to decide if her Prius could make it if she drove off the graded driveway and carefully skirted the cattle. The ground to either side was lumpy with rocks, and the tough grasses and thorny shrubs could easily hide holes where they might get stuck.
Lone Star Redemption Page 2
