Lone Star Redemption

by Colleen Thompson

“And yet you came to our home. Upset her, anyway.”

  “I had no other choice.” Jessie shook her head. “I only wish I’d come alone.”

  “Now you’re sorry. But you made a choice, to try to film your little story. To try to turn my mother’s kindness to your sister against her in some shady ambush interview.”

  Anger heated her face, burning off the opiate haze. Filming her little story, as he put it, had been the only way to find her sister without losing her job. “So you came here to do what? Rub in my friend’s murder? Make me feel even worse?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Then why? Did you think you’d convince me nothing strange is going on in Rusted Spur? Because the way I see it, the fact that I was first attacked in town and then—”

  “Canter told me there was an incident with Hellfire, that you reported that McFarland pushed you.”

  “After mistaking me for Haley. Not that your sheriff buddy was much troubled about it—until after the shooting, that is. Even then, Canter still didn’t act as if he half-believed the guy was capable.”

  “I’d believe it,” Zach said, his tone sober. “Danny might have people thinking he’s turned over a new leaf, but he’s always had a temper. And he’s never meaner than when he’s covering for his little brother. He’s been doing it since junior high, when their mama’s liver finally gave up the ghost.”

  “Protecting a sibling’s a hard habit to break,” she said, thinking of how long and how often she had covered for her own twin before Haley had finally gone too far.

  “As far back as I can remember, Danny’d take the blame for Frankie, or beat down witnesses if he thought he could keep the kid in school and out of trouble. Not that it worked. They both were long gone before graduation.”

  “I can believe he’d pull the trigger,” she said. “The question is, how do I prove it, especially if I have to go back home to—”

  “Is there anyone you’d like me to call to come and get you? A friend or a boyfriend?”

  “I’ve already talked to a coworker,” she said, not wanting to confess that, since she’d centered her life around a guy not worth the effort and a job that kept her working all hours these past few years, she no longer had close friends—or anyone besides the mother she was losing. “But thank you, Mr. Rayfo—Zach. It’s kind of you to ask.”

  “Don’t mistake me for a kind man,” he warned. “It just seemed the decent thing to offer.”

  The words were harsh, and if she hadn’t seen that earlier flash of sympathy in his eyes, felt it in his touch, she might have believed him. Why was Zach Rayford pretending to be so hard? Her reporter’s instincts told her this was a facade he’d adopted. Because what she’d seen at the bunkhouse, what she’d felt when his hand touched her, told Jessie that Zach Rayford was a kind man. Kind and honest, good—everything her ex had not been, all wrapped up in a drop-dead gorgeous package.

  Deciding to call him on it, she said, “And risking your life to go looking for me in that bunkhouse? Did that seem the decent thing, too?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Just like offering to look into your sister’s disappearance feels like the right thing now.”

  “Wait. After telling me to get lost—pretty darned emphatically, as I remember—you’re offering to help me? Why?”

  He glanced back to the open door and then nudged it closed with a boot. A moment later she heard his soft footsteps moving closer, and the fine hairs on her neck rose with sudden apprehension. What if she had been wrong, and it really hadn’t been Danny McFarland who had pulled the trigger earlier? After all, Zach Rayford had threatened to get his gun before.

  For all she knew, Zach’s story about a speeding pickup running his off the road had been just that—a story. Wasn’t it just as possible that he’d been fleeing the bunkhouse after firing on Henry, that he’d overturned his vehicle in his hurry to get away? Knowing there was no way to put distance between himself and the shooting, he could have panicked and then switched roles, covering his own involvement by playing the part of the hero. A part he’d played so convincingly, she’d trusted him without reservation.

  Had that instinct been the right one, or had she been out of her mind with pain and shock?

  He flipped on the bathroom light, which offered enough illumination to ease her mind as he moved to her bedside. “I’m offering to help because I want to know that whatever happened at the bunkhouse isn’t a threat to my family.” His face hardened as he added, “And because I don’t appreciate being warned off like some punk teenager.”

  “Warned off?” she echoed, her head whirling. “You’re saying the sheriff told you to stay clear of his investigation?”

  “Let’s just say he suggested it would be in my best interest. Says he and his men will make sure this is taken care of.”

  “And my sister’s found?”

  “He didn’t mention that.”

  “Because, for whatever reason, the man wants her to stay gone.”

  After considering the statement, Zach nodded, his blue eyes boring into hers. “I figure that’s a fair assessment. Now, all I need to do is find out why while you’re away.”

  Chapter 7

  “This is devastating, just devastating,” Jessie’s news director, Vivian Monroe, said for what had to be the tenth time over the phone the following morning. “You poor thing—what you’ve been through.”

  Yet to Jessie’s ears, each time the woman said it, it somehow sounded less sincere.

  “So of course, you’ll want some time off,” Vivian added. “Several weeks, at least, to recover from the shock and have your surgery.”

  And track down my sister, Jessie thought, but important as that was, it wasn’t her only obligation.

  Had someone broken into the newsroom and stolen her boss’s personality? “Are you kidding?” Jessie sat up in the hospital bed so abruptly that a jolt of pain ran from her bad hand to her spine. “You—you don’t want me on the air with this right away, bringing pressure to bear on the investigation? This is one of our own, Vivian. It’s Henry. We have to do everything we can to—”

  “Of course we’ll cover the story. And we’ll do a nice little ‘In Memoriam’ segment, whenever there’s time to fit it in.”

  “Wait a minute. What? What do you mean, whenever there’s time to fit it in? If Paul or Brenda had been shot to death, you’d have everybody we have on it. And you’d never let up until there was an arrest. A conviction and an execution, if you had anything to say about it.”

  “But Paul and Brenda are our anchors. They’re like family. Viewers invite them into their living rooms every day of the week.”

  “Henry had a family, Vivian,” Jessie said, her outrage growing by the minute.

  “Yes, of course he did, but let’s be realistic, darling. Viewers aren’t nearly as interested in hearing about some part-time freelancer behind the camera as they are—”

  “You know as well as I do that part-time, freelance garbage only started because management decided to solve its budget issues by cheating people out of their benefits and pensions. He’s worked for the station for decades, as long as you have. And longer than any of our on-air personalities.” She knew, right down to her core, why Vivian wanted her off the air for the duration. The duration of the mayoral campaign, at least.

  “Besides,” Jessie went on, “unsolved mysteries are always of interest, especially one involving a missing young woman who just so happens to be the identical twin of one of your station’s reporters.”

  “You’re overwrought, and I can’t blame you,” Vivian said, her crisply polished words a testimony to the years she’d spent as an anchor in her own right. Years that ended too abruptly, as the result of a plastic surgery gone wrong. “With your mother so ill, your sister missing and now this—”

  “What about my ca
mpaign story? We were going to break the news this week.”

  “Listen, Jessica. I know how hard you worked on that story. But after reviewing it again, I’m not so certain that your sources—”

  “You know me. I’m always careful, and that story’s as airtight as they get. Certainly, we’ve run with evidence far less conclusive. Of course, those stories wouldn’t have caused trouble for any of your friends.” Especially a friend everyone knows that you’ve been sleeping with. Because Vivian Monroe might no longer be camera flawless, with her stretched skin and oddly shaped nose, but even at sixty, she was still a polished, slim and beautifully put-together woman, a woman who fit in well with the Botoxed socialites of Dallas.

  A woman who’d attracted the attention of a recently divorced, obscenely wealthy and notoriously opinionated wildcatter who had no qualms about using his fortune to influence local, state and even national elections. And next week’s mayoral contest was currently high on his agenda.

  “What did you say?” Vivian asked, an unmistakable warning in her voice.

  “Perhaps I didn’t phrase that quite right,” Jessie answered, something shattering inside her. The part of her that cared whether or not this cost her her job. Because in the past twenty-four hours, she’d learned some hard lessons about what really mattered. And toadying up to Vivian hadn’t made the cut. “I’m saying you’re more worried about your chances of snagging yourself a billionaire—who happens to be the mayor’s number one contributor—than you are of breaking a story that raises legitimate questions, important questions, about the mayor’s fund-raising tactics.”

  They both knew the story did more than raise questions. Jessie had obtained the proof, surveillance footage showing the mayor strong-arming contributions from bidders for a huge new airport project.

  Vivian’s answer was a silence so glacial that it all but froze the cell phone in Jessie’s hand. As the seconds ticked past, she felt the throbbing in her right hand deepen, as if the chill had gone straight to her bones. Wishing the nurse would come soon with more morphine, she hoped she would survive saying what everyone in the newsroom had been tiptoeing around these past few weeks—the idea that Vivian’s involvement with a man whose deep pockets had swayed many a campaign had seriously compromised her judgment.

  Maybe Jessie already had too much of the painkiller in her system, because she couldn’t resist asking, “Do we have a bad connection? Because I want to make sure you heard what—”

  “Oh, I heard you,” came the cold reply. “I’m only trying to find enough compassion in my heart for what you’re going through not to fire you on the spot for that truly vile lie. For you to dare suggest that I would for a single moment put my personal feelings for a man I’ve—I’ve been in this business for longer than you’ve been on this planet, have put up with impediments women of your generation can’t imagine. And you dare to accuse me—me—of stalling on a story we both know is thinner than a sheet of bargain-basement toilet paper, a story that has more to do with your own political agenda than—”

  “My political what?” Jessie asked, genuinely startled by the accusation.

  “Everyone knows your family’s contributed to the mayor’s opponents for years.”

  “That was my father,” Jessie said, “my father, who is dead. And I can assure you, he’d be laughing in his grave at the notion that his political views in any way impacted mine. Not that it’s any of your business, but I voted for the mayor in the last election. Which is one of the reasons I’m so deeply disappointed in him right now.”

  “You’re on leave, Jessica,” Vivian said. “One month’s leave, which will give you time to recover and me time to imagine how we might possibly move beyond this conversation.”

  “Understood,” said Jessie, comprehending as well that the only reason Vivian didn’t cut her loose right now was the fear that, despite the non-compete clause in her contract, she would find a way to take the story to a rival station—or use her injury and Henry’s murder to garner support on social media. This way, her boss could use the possibility of salvaging her career to keep her under control.

  Good luck with that, thought Jessie as she switched off the phone, because I’m not going to be finessed and managed into keeping my mouth shut for long.

  * * *

  “If you’re the best friend I’ve got, I’d sure hate to see the worst,” Zach told Nate Wheeler the following afternoon, outside what everyone in the area referred to as the Lone Star Barn. The sloped roof, first painted by Nate’s grandfather fifty years before to resemble the Texas state flag, was a local landmark, visible from the state highway that ran through town.

  Aggravated as Zach was, he kept his voice low, mindful that Eden was playing with the puppies just inside.

  Raking a hand through sandy-brown hair that had grown even shaggier than usual, Nate winced, his copper-colored gaze contrite. “I’m sorry, man. How was I supposed to know you hadn’t told your mama?”

  Zach snatched off his own hat and whacked the big doofus on his brawny shoulder. A champion bull rider, Nate probably didn’t feel a thing. “After everything she’s been through lately, do you honestly think I was going to tell her how close a brush I had with a killer who shot down a man on our ranch?”

  “She was bound to hear it pretty quick. I had three people call me by the time I finally decided it was a decent enough hour to check on you.”

  Zach should’ve known that any story involving a murdered cameraman, an injured—and beautiful—reporter and a Rayford would’ve grown legs in a hurry. But he wasn’t yet ready to let go of his exasperation with his longtime friend.

  “Sure, my mama would’ve heard it,” he said, wondering how Jessie was this morning. Wondering if she had been discharged yet and headed home. Once again, he cursed himself for offering to look into her sister’s disappearance—a disappearance that he feared would lead straight back to his fragile mother. “But maybe that would’ve been after I’d had the chance to break it to her gently, instead of you calling at the crack of dawn, scaring her half out of her mind with some wild tale about a shooting, a fire and her son’s brush with the killer.”

  “How is it some wild tale when you’ve already told me it was all true?

  “You didn’t have to be so blunt with her, that’s all.”

  “I just called to check on you, and honest to Pete, she acted exactly like she knew already. Otherwise, I would’ve—”

  “Acted being the key word,” Zach said, “because the second she hung up, she came flying into my room, half-hysterical. I think the scare brought back everything with Ian.”

  Nate’s tanned face reddened. “Shoot, I’m really sorry. She okay?”

  “She will be, I think. At least once things calm down and Canter locks up whoever did this.” If he ever does.

  “How ’bout I bring by one of my mama’s homemade apple-pecan cakes and a fresh bouquet of—”

  “No flowers, man,” Zach warned him. “I tried that a while back and they just ended up reminding her of the funerals. And much as I love your mama’s baking, I’m pretty sure we still have one of her cakes in the freezer with the others.”

  Following both his father’s and his brother’s funerals, his mother had been deluged in food offerings from family friends and church members, food she could do little more than stare at.

  Nate pressed his lips together, shaking his head. “You’re walkin’ a real tightrope with her since you came home, aren’t you?”

  As the heady music of Eden’s giggles floated through the open barn door, Zach blew out a breath. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Again, his mind returned to Jessie, to how dangerous it was, feeling for her the way he did. Maybe it was because the responsibilities she bore toward her family felt so similar to his own, and the grief and guilt so like what he’d been carrying since the crash eight mon
ths before. But as badly as he wanted to reach out, to walk her along this hard path, he told himself that this reporter—this woman who had triggered some latent need he hadn’t even been aware of—wasn’t his to protect and never could be.

  He had a duty and a family he must put first, no matter what the cost.

  “How ’bout I just stop by for a visit sometime,” Nate offered. “Try to cheer her up.”

  Zach forced a grin. “I don’t know. You might want to make yourself scarce till after we get those puppies housebroken.”

  Nate snorted and then quickly sobered. “Seriously, man. How are you? Really?”

  “The cut on my chin’ll leave a scar, but I still have a long way to go to catch up to your vast collection,” he said.

  Nate grimaced at the reminder of the back surgery that had sidelined him these past six months, a sign that soon, all the years and all the injuries he’d suffered would force him to step out of the limelight and return to the reality of helping his dad run the family business, whether or not he felt ready.

  “And the rest?” Nate managed, pretending his brief hesitation had meant nothing.

  “I’m dealing with it,” Zach said. “All of it.” It was a lie, for he’d been far too busy grappling with his mother’s health, his niece’s presence and the ranch’s endless needs to begin to take stock of his own losses. Not only of his brother and the old man, but of the career he’d taken so much pride in, the wings that had failed to achieve enough altitude to keep his past from swallowing him whole. And now, on top of all that, there were the troubling questions raised by Jessie Layton—along with his inability to stop thinking about her.

  “You sure?” Nate asked, but instead of answering, Zach held up a hand, disturbed by something he heard. Or more precisely, what he didn’t, for the sounds of Eden and the puppies playing had turned to a silence still as stone, an absence that caught in his gut and had him stepping through the open door, peering into the box stall where he had left her a few minutes before.

  There, he found no puppies and no Eden, just fluffy piles of clean straw.