Gray Wolf Security: Wyoming

by Glenna Sinclair

  What a full circle we’d come! There was no doubt in my mind. He was the man I was meant to be with. He was the reason I’d come to Wyoming, the reason I was determined to stay and make a life for myself in this beautiful, crazy town.

  I couldn’t wipe the smile from my lips even as my advanced students walked into the last class of the day. Justin couldn’t look me in the eye, and that made the smile falter just slightly. The memory of his hands on me made me a little queasy, but he was my student, one of my greatest successes. It was only one episode, only one mistake. One mistake shouldn’t ruin a child’s future.

  “Okay, guys, let’s talk about The Optimist’s Daughter. Are there comparisons between this book and As I Lay Dying?”

  “There’s a lot of travel,” someone said immediately.

  I nodded. “What about family?”

  “He didn’t have a lot of family, and his wife was only with him because of his money,” Justin said.

  I glanced at him, still bothered by the way he refused to look at me. “That’s right,” I finally said.

  “How did the author portray the relationship between the daughter and her stepmother?”

  “The stepmother was a bitch,” someone announced.

  “Language,” I said, even though a giggle slipped out as everyone else laughed.

  “The stepmother was unkind,” the young woman clarified.

  I inclined my head. “And how did that impact the daughter?”

  “She couldn’t grieve properly for her father at first,” another girl pointed out.

  “Why was that?”

  “Because the stepmother took up too much of her attention.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  The room fell silent. The students stared at their desks and their notes, wondering what the right answer would be. Justin held up his hand, still not looking at me, but focusing on the board behind me.

  “I think it’s a good thing. Sometimes people need a buffer between a bad thing and their reaction.”

  “Very good.”

  I turned to the whiteboard to begin writing themes on it, but caught sight of a familiar face outside my classroom door. My heart jumped a little, but then I realized he wasn’t alone. The door opened and Veronica, a dark twist to her lips, gestured for me to join her there at the door.

  “What’s going on?”

  I could see Frank Cuddy in handcuffs beside a cop a few feet down the hall. Several more cops were standing beside Hank—who was wearing his hat once again, the massive thing shading his face so that I couldn’t read his expression—their hands behind their backs and their eyes on the floor.

  “The police have a witness who pointed a finger at the two boys who vandalized the school,” Veronica said close to my ear. “They’re here for Justin Karl.”

  I shook my head, finding it impossible to believe that Hank would betray me in that way. My eyes shot to him, searching the shadows of his hat for something that would tell me I was hearing this wrong.

  “Justin Karl could not have—”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Frakes,” one of the cops said as he approached the door. “We have a warrant.”

  They—somewhat gently—pushed me out of the way. I could hear the cops talking to Justin, could hear the other students’ gasps of surprise. Hank was turned away from me, and I wasn’t interested in forcing him to speak to me. I went into the classroom just in time to see them put Justin in handcuffs.

  “This is your fault!” he cried the moment his eyes fell on me.

  Now he was looking at me.

  “What did you tell them, bitch?”

  “That’s enough,” the cop said after slapping the kid upside the head.

  “I’ll get you,” Justin promised. “I’ll get you for this.”

  The strength went out of my knees. I felt myself falling, but Hank was there. He caught me with gentle hands under my arms. But the moment I realized it was him, I jerked away.

  “You promised.”

  “Jonnie, there was too much evidence.”

  I slapped him, my hand stinging as I stormed off, chasing after the man who’d handcuffed my prize student in front of the entire class. I couldn’t let him go to jail alone.

  Chapter 24

  Hank

  I stood back from the crowd, watching as Sutherland gave a toast to thank everyone for coming to her barbecue celebrating the first successful case Gray Wolf had completed. The crowd was mostly MidKnight employees and neighbors, but Kirkland was there with his wife and that kid tucked into his hip. Five years old, and he still carried the kid around like he was a toddler. Well, to each their own.

  I slipped away once the toasts were done, not really interested in all the back-slapping people had been doing all night. Yeah, I solved the case. But now my girlfriend wasn’t talking to me, not even picking up my phone calls despite the twenty or thirty I’d made in less than an hour last night. Nearly a week and nothing.

  I hated this, hated that she was so angry with me. What choice did I have? I thought when she saw the evidence against the kid, she’d come around. But she hadn’t.

  I chose Sutherland over her. That’s all she saw. I chose my job, chose my boss, chose the fact that if we’d failed to solve this case Gray Wolf and MidKnight’s chance at staying afloat would have been ruined. I knew that’s what I did. But I also believed it was the right thing to do.

  Why couldn’t she see that?

  I threw myself down on my couch and studied the surveillance footage that was still on the app Kirkland had set up on my phone, the footage of me dropping Jonnie off at work the day they arrested Justin. She’d looked happy that morning, the way she kept pulling me back to her, keeping me from leaving her. It made my chest ache to know I might have been able to prevent this break if I’d simply told her the truth.

  A little alarm went off in the app, telling me there was new footage to be reviewed. That was odd. I’d assumed Kirkland had taken down the surveillance cameras when the case ended. I clicked on the little icon, and an image of the outside of Jonnie’s house popped up. I sat up straighter, wonder what the hell Kirkland had done. And then I saw what had set off the alarm.

  Two men were forcing their way in through Jonnie’s front door.

  I was out of my rooms faster than I could process what I was seeing. The Jeep started immediately—thank God—and I was halfway down the driveway when Kirkland suddenly jumped into the road. I slammed on my breaks just before my front grill gave him a new tattoo.

  “What the fuck did you do?”

  Kirkland was holding his phone, had obviously been on the way to tell me what I already knew. He jumped into the passenger seat and gestured for me to go on.

  “What did you do?” I repeated.

  “I thought you’d feel better if we had some eyes on Jonnie. Turns out I was right.”

  I threw the Jeep back into gear and raced across town to her house. Ten minutes it took us to get there, far too long. Those men could have slit her throat in five seconds.

  “Take the back,” Kirkland ordered.

  “Nope. I go through the front.”

  “Why?”

  “Because her back door is blocked by the couch. And the side door is too far from the center of the house. They probably have her in the living room.”

  Kirkland nodded. “Then we both go in through the front.”

  I didn’t stop to respond.

  We ran low and quick up the front walk. Kirkland glanced through the windows, nodding to let me know I was right. Then he tested the doorknob. He gestured for me to go to the left the moment we were through the door, and then he was gone. I followed, wishing I’d thought to stop and grab the shotgun that hung over my television. I was going into this unarmed, which was probably why Kirkland ran directly into the living room, a 9mm pistol between his hands.

  “Let her go!”

  It wasn’t Kirkland who said it. He wasn’t even in the living room yet.

  What the hell?

 
; I heard Jonnie whimpering and that spurred me on, forcing me into the room in front of Kirkland, in front of his gun.

  Two men, one a slight man with a hoodie tucked around his body, and a bigger man, tall and wide with the red nose of a man who drank too much.

  Leland Karl. I recognized him immediately.

  “Justin?” I asked. “What are you doing?”

  The hoodie held up his hands, turning toward me. His hands were shaking, his chin quivering under the ski mask he wore.

  “This wasn’t my idea. He thought if we got her to keep quiet—”

  “Shut up, boy,” Leland said, reaching over to smack the kid across the back of the head. Then he turned to us, pulling a shotgun out from I had no idea where. Jonnie whimpered again, her mouth covered with duct tape, her hands caught behind her back as she sat on the edge of the couch.

  “You should listen to your boy, Leland,” I said. “Let her go before this gets much worse.”

  “Too late,” he said, waving the gun, gesturing for me to sit beside Jonnie. “I’ll kill as many as it takes to protect my boy.”

  “That’s rich,” the boy himself muttered. “You’re only trying to protect yourself.”

  And that’s when I knew. Justin wasn’t the mastermind behind all this. His father was. His father forced him into it somehow, convinced him to draw his friends into it. It was his father who was taking the money, his father who was forcing his son into a life of crime.

  Son-of-a-bitch!

  “Get out of here, Justin.”

  The boy glanced at me, then back at his father. That gun was still pointed at me, and Kirkland was nowhere to be found. Justin ran. His father fired, but he missed the kid by more than a foot. He cursed as he turned the gun back to me.

  “If you’d kept your nose out of it—”

  “Someone would have figured it out eventually.”

  “Not the cops in this hick town.”

  Leland’s finger tensed on the trigger. He was about to fire, and I was standing just inches away from the end of the barrel. He wouldn’t miss this time.

  Then, Kirkland was behind him, his gun pressed to Leland’s temple.

  “Drop it.”

  It was all over so quickly that I was almost confused. I dove to Jonnie, tearing the tape from her face, her wrists, running my hands over her to make sure she was okay.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered softly. “I’m so sorry.”

  She shook her head, burying her face against my chest. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I’m such an idiot. I knew you wouldn’t have done this if you had any other choice.”

  “I didn’t know about the father.”

  She just shook her head, touching my face before stealing a kiss. We held each other for a long time, not even aware Kirkland had called the police until they were swarming the house. They found Justin a block away, and he gave a full confession. Not just about that afternoon’s activities, but everything. He spilled the beans on his father and admitted to everything he’d done. I overheard a cop saying that they might be more lenient on him because of his father’s influence. He might still get a chance to graduate and have a future.

  That idea made Jonnie smile. Nervously.

  “Thanks, brother,” I said to Kirkland, hours later as we parted at my Jeep. Jonnie was waiting for me on the steps to my room, watching us with her arms wrapped around herself. “I appreciate your help.”

  “Family,” he said with emphasis on every syllable. “That’s what Gray Wolf is.”

  I just nodded. “I get it.”

  He slapped my shoulder, waved to Jonnie, and walked off.

  I joined her on the steps and guided her up to my room, holding her for a long time inside the door. She was shaking a little, but it eased after a while.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said.

  She nodded. “I know.” And then she took my hand and led the way to the bed.

  Chapter 25

  At the Ranch

  “I think we should go with this one,” Sutherland said, touching a resume that was among dozens spread out on the floor in front of them. Hank leaned forward to pick it up, then passed it over to Kirkland.

  “I agree,” Kirkland said. “Grainger North. He seemed like a solid kind of guy.”

  “He was a Navy SEAL,” Hank said. “That’s impressive.”

  “Good. One down, two to go.”

  They sat there, staring at the huge display of resumes. It was almost too hard to imagine how so many people could be qualified, let alone want, to do a job like this. It was exciting to Sutherland, increasing her enthusiasm about this project finally. She ran her fingers over the papers, looking for one that just cried out to her. There were so many—men and women—who seemed to fit her criteria.

  Before she could pick a new one up, Shelby burst into the room.

  “There’s a big damn hole in the perimeter fence along the south pasture.”

  Hank and Sutherland jumped to their feet immediately. By the time they got out there, they’d been informed that the hole was so large that it had allowed nearly fifty head of cattle to wander onto the neighbor’s land.

  It would be a chore to get them all back.

  “How the hell did this happen?” Hank demanded as they got out of Shelby’s truck and surveyed the damage. It almost looked as though someone had set off an explosive charge near the fence.

  Almost.

  “Looks like you’re having a bad day,” a voice called to them.

  They turned, and there was Bodhi Archer atop a horse, smiling down at them as he, too, surveyed the damage.

  “You know anything about this?” Sutherland called to him.

  He shrugged, his big shoulders moving gracefully as he spurred his horse with his expensive boots.

  “I guess that’s the question of the day, now isn’t it?” he called as he rode away.

  “What is he doing over there?” Sutherland asked disgustedly as she touched the shattered edges of the fence.

  “He’s the new owner of the Circle B,” Shelby informed her.

  She nodded, her thoughts a whirlwind as she wondered if the first man to ignite a fire inside of her that she’d assumed was dead was trying to sabotage her ranch.

  GRAINGER

  Prologue

  Eve

  There was a huge crash. I sat up, still in the darkness, my ears straining to hear it again. Where had it come from? Was it inside the apartment or outside?

  Long moments passed where the only sound was the hard beating of my heart. And then—another crash! I got up and ran down the hall to my mother’s room. But it wasn’t her. She was sound asleep, curled up like a child in her narrow, twin bed.

  I paused there in the hallway, my ears once again straining to hear anything, to find an answer to the crash that had woke me. And then it came again from further away.

  The vending machines.

  I grabbed a sweater off the peg by the door and slipped out the main door, making my way down the narrow hall to the reception desk. Marko, my night manager, wasn’t there. He should have been there.

  Another crash, above my head.

  I ran out, rushing up the stairs toward the sound. I could hear voices, could hear Marko’s distinct deep rumble. I ran faster when I heard him suddenly stop speaking.

  I knew what this was. They were back.

  Why wouldn’t they leave us the hell alone?

  Chapter 1

  At the Ranch

  Sutherland thought if she gave it a couple of days, if she let everyone cool off a little, they could have a calm discussion and figure this thing out.

  She was wrong.

  “What do you mean you don’t know what I’m talking about? You were there, on the back of your horse, while we were looking at it! You saw that massive hole in my fence!”

  “I did. But I have no idea who did it.”

  Bodhi Archer, the intensely handsome actor from New Zealand who, for reasons that were far beyond her understanding, had b
ought the neighbor’s ranch, studied Sutherland with this bemused look on his face. She wasn’t sure what she wanted more: to slap him or to kiss him.

  And that—not to even touch on that incredibly sexy accent!—was making it difficult for her to get her point across to him.

  “You said… something that made me feel like you knew something about it. The fence borders your property.”

  “It does, and I was out surveying my land at the time, but I didn’t see anything.”

  “You smiled.”

  His eyebrows arched high up on his forehead. “And that means I’m guilty?”

  Sutherland buried her hands in her pockets because she was afraid she was about to reach out and do something she couldn’t take back.

  “There are rumors in town that you want to expand your ranch.”

  “There are plenty of ways to do that, Mrs. Knight.”

  “Then you didn’t sabotage my fence in order to encourage me to sell?”

  “Why would I do that? I like the idea of you as my neighbor.”

  She bit her lip, trying to keep the inappropriate smile that wanted to burst across her face from making an appearance. It’d been a long time since a man had had the power to make her feel like a giddy teenager. But for him to make her feel that way right now? Highly inappropriate.

  “Then you’ll be happy to return my cows to me?”

  “Of course, the moment they are located and identified.”

  Sutherland inclined her head and turned, determined to leave with some of her dignity intact. But he couldn’t allow that, could he?

  “Would you have dinner with me?”

  Sutherland stopped. Did Bodhi Archer just ask her out?

  She turned and studied him, taking in the dark hair and the boyish good looks, the charming smile and the clear affection for weight lifting that caused his shirt to bulge in all the right places. He was even more handsome in life than he was on screen, a fact she would have said was impossible until now. Her eleven-year-old daughter had a crush on this man—when she wasn’t crushing on MidKnight Ranch’s assistant foreman, Hank Stratton—that included a couple of posters placed prominently in her bedroom.