Cowboy to the Rescue

by Stella Bagwell

  “Lucky dog,” Olivia replied. “None of this sounds like work to me. I’ve always wanted to visit a big working ranch—just to see if those cowboys look as good in the rough as they do in pictures.”

  Christina bit back a sigh. She should be thanking God for this cushy job, which had virtually fallen into her lap, but this morning she wasn’t at all convinced that she should be here. Not because she doubted her ability to find the cause of Paul’s questionable death, but more because of the impact Lex Saddler was having upon her. She couldn’t get the man out of her head.

  “Believe me, Ollie, this case is not exactly simple. I’m going to have my work cut out for me.”

  “So you don’t know how long you’ll be staying on the ranch?”

  She began to draw a horse, then a man wearing a pair of chaps. “No longer than necessary. I want to wrap this thing up as quickly as possible.”

  There was a long pause, and she could hear a frown in Olivia’s voice when the other woman finally spoke.

  “Is anything wrong? I’ve never heard you talk this way before. Normally, you’re happily willing to invest whatever time it takes to wrap up a job.”

  Christina glanced at the open door to the office while wondering if any of the maids or family members might be within earshot. To be on the safe side, she lowered her voice to nearly a whisper. “Ollie, I’m just not comfortable here. Ms. Saddler’s son is not at all what I expected. In fact, he’s been—quite a shock.”

  “Oh?” Olivia sounded intrigued. “What’s wrong with the man?”

  Christina pressed the fingertips of her right hand to her forehead. She’d hardly gotten four hours of sleep last night, and the lack of rest was already catching up to her. “If you don’t count single, sexy and flirtatious as problems, then he’s okay. I thought he was going to be a businessman, Ollie. And he is—but he’s not exactly the desk sort. He’s a cowboy. He wears boots and spurs and gets sweaty and dusty just like the other cowhands.”

  Olivia chuckled. “My, oh my, that sounds like a handful of assets to me.”

  Christina rolled her eyes. “You would think so. But I’m trying to keep my mind on business.”

  The other woman let out a disapproving groan. “You always have business on your mind. Maybe this—what’s his name?”

  Christina smiled in spite of herself. “Lex. His name is Lex Saddler.”

  “Maybe this Lex will remind you that you’re a young, beautiful woman ready for a new man in your life.”

  Christina didn’t know if she’d ever be ready for another man, but she wasn’t going to waste time rehashing the old argument with her dear friend.

  “I’ve got a ton of work to get started on, Ollie. I’ll see you later in the week. I think I’ve got a handle on your missing witness, so I might be able to give you his definite whereabouts then.”

  “Great. We’ll talk more when you get back to the city. But before you hang up just remember this—Mr. Lex Saddler isn’t a police officer.”

  Christina grimaced. Olivia ought to know there wasn’t any need for her to bring up good-time, no-commitment Mike. A woman didn’t ever forget a mistake like him.

  “As if that makes any difference,” Christina said dryly, then quickly told her friend goodbye and folded the cell phone together.

  In the back of the house, Lex was in the kitchen, dancing Cook across the tiled floor as an old country song played on the radio.

  “What are you doing here in the kitchen again?” Cook, demanded. “You’ve already had your breakfast. You should be down at the cattle pens.”

  He twirled the aging but agile woman beneath his arm. “Yeah, I should be. Matt had to pull Lester off the fence building crew to take up my slack ’cause I’ve got other duties this morning,” he said with a grimace. “I’ve told Mom that I don’t want her fretting over Dad’s case, so I’m going to be dealing with it and Ms. Logan. And this morning, she needs my assistance.”

  Cook’s sly smile spread her ruby-red lips. “Ms. Logan, eh? Well, that ought to make you a happy man. So why aren’t you smilin’, and why are you wastin’ time in here with me?”

  He grinned. “What man wouldn’t want to start out his day dancing with his sweetheart?”

  She snorted. “I’ve known plenty.”

  Lex chuckled. “Then they weren’t worth knowing.”

  Cook pinched his shoulder. “Be serious and talk to me.”

  Her order came just as the song ended, so he led the woman over to a long pine table bracketed with benches made of the same wood. After she was seated, he poured two cups of coffee and carried them over to the table.

  “I’m not going to beat around the bush, Hattie, I’ll come right out and say that I think Mom has slipped a cog. Or that damned senator has brainwashed her!”

  Clearly disgusted with his analogy, she said, “What are you talkin’ about? Geraldine is as sharp as a tack.”

  He eased down next to her. “Hattie, when she first talked to me about hiring a private investigator, I wasn’t wild about digging into Dad’s death. But I could see the whole thing was important to her, so I went along with her wishes. If Dad’s death wasn’t an accident, then we need to know it. But last night…well, I got the impression from Mom that she’s doing all of this just to prove to Wolfe Maddson that the Saddler family doesn’t have any hidden skeletons that could come out and hurt his political career. I’ll tell you one thing, Hattie. If that man thinks my mother has to present a clean background to him before he’ll walk down the aisle with her, then he’s gonna be knocked on his ass, and I’m going to be the one doing the knocking!”

  Impatient with his attitude, Cook merely looked at him and shook her head. “So what if that’s Geraldine’s motive? You can use this opportunity to prove to Wolfe Maddson that your father was the honorable man everyone believed him to be. It’ll make the man see that if he plans to keep your mother as happy as Paul did, then he’s got big, big boots to fill.” Her features softened as she laid a hand on his shoulder. “Besides, it won’t be no skin off your hide to work with a pretty thing like Ms. Logan. She seems awfully sweet to me.”

  A wry grin spread slowly across Lex’s face. “Yeah. But you’ve always told me that too many sweets were bad for my health.”

  Patting his cheek, she gave him a wink. “Yes, but that’s the thing about you, boy. You like being bad.”

  Five minutes later, as Lex walked out of the kitchen and headed to Christina’s temporary office, he thought about Cook’s comment. Like the rest of his friends and family, she considered him a ladies’ man, a guy who worked hard but played even harder. None of them understood that most of his flirtatious behavior was just a cover, that his frequent dates were only attempts to fill the lonely holes inside him.

  Both his sisters were married now. Nicci, the oldest, had a new daughter, and Mercedes, his younger sister, had announced a few weeks ago that she and her husband, Gabe, were expecting their first child. All three of his cousins also had loving spouses and growing families. Lex was the only unmarried relative left in the Saddler and Sanchez bunch, unless he counted Cook, his mother and his uncle Mingo. But who knew? By the end of the year, even the old folks would probably have lifelong partners.

  What are you whining about, Lex? If you wanted to be married that badly, you wouldn’t be so particular. You’d settle for a woman you liked, a woman who’d be a good wife, instead of waiting for that one precious love to come along and wham you in the heart.

  Pushing those pestering notions out of his head, Lex knocked lightly on the open door, then stepped into the room.

  Christina was sitting behind a large oak desk, black-rimmed reading glasses perched on the end of her nose as she studied a paper filled with typed text.

  Lifting her head, she smiled at him. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, yourself.” Moving over to the desk, he leaned a hip against the edge. “Cook tells me you’ve already had breakfast.”

  She glanced at a small silver watch on
her left wrist. “About an hour ago. What about you?”

  He smiled with amusement. “About three hours ago.”

  Laying the paper aside, she leaned back in her chair. Lex couldn’t prevent his eyes from drinking their fill. She was dressed casually this morning in an aqua-colored shirt and a pair of jeans. Her fiery hair was pulled into a ponytail, which made her look more like twenty-three than thirty-three, the age his mother had disclosed about the private investigator.

  “You must be an early riser,” she commented.

  “It’s a rancher’s necessity,” he told her. “If he plans to get things done.”

  She smiled wanly. “And I’m going to assume that you’re a man who gets things done.”

  Was she making fun of him? It didn’t matter. She was a city girl. She didn’t know about his sort of life. Or him.

  “When I try,” he drawled. He pointed to the paper she’d been reading. “Is that something about my father’s case?”

  She nodded. “It is. But it’s nothing from your father’s personal things. I’ve not started going through them yet. Before I drove down from San Antonio, I gathered some general information about the company he worked for—Coastal Oil. It’s a huge conglomerate now. They’ve expanded several times during the past few years.”

  The button just above her breasts had been left undone, and if he angled his head just right, Lex could see a tiny silver cross dangling in the shadowed cleavage. Strangely, the sight was both erotic and prim. Like a good girl hiding a naughty tattoo.

  “I don’t know of any oil company nowadays that isn’t making a killing. Yet that wasn’t quite true eleven years ago. Coastal Oil was close to going bankrupt.”

  Her expression thoughtful, she said, “The economy ebbs and flows on cyclical tides. Could be that was simply a downtime for raw crude. Or perhaps the problem was poor management.”

  “Yeah. Or corrupt management,” Lex replied.

  Her brows arched. “Why would you make a remark like that? Do you know for a fact that someone was stealing from the company?”

  “Not at all. I was just speculating. Nowadays white-collar crime seems to be rampant.”

  The curiosity that had been marking her face swiftly disappeared. “That’s true.”

  Feeling restless now, Lex walked over to a window that looked out upon the ranch yard. At the moment, he could see Gabe, the Sandbur’s horse trainer, down at the horse pen, riding a red roan filly. The animal was trying to get her head low enough to buck, but the man was doing his best to change her mind. His brother-in-law was a genius with horses. And women, too, apparently. He’d certainly made Lex’s sister Mercedes happy.

  Lex glanced over his shoulder at Christina. She’d removed the glasses from her face and was eyeing him with easy anticipation. Just to look at her, Lex found it hard to imagine her working on a police force, putting herself in dangerous situations.

  “What makes you do what you do?” he asked.

  “My brother. When he disappeared, the police were useless—or so it seemed. I truly believed that I could do better. Later, after I finally learned how things really worked on the police force, I could see that finding a missing person wasn’t as simple as I’d first imagined.” She leaned forward and folded her hands together on the desk top. “Working with the Rangers was more than great—it was the chance of a lifetime to garner the experience I needed.”

  “Why didn’t you stay there?”

  One slender shoulder lifted and fell. “Because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life sitting behind a desk.”

  Lex gestured toward her. “Looks like you’re still sitting behind one.”

  She appeared faintly amused as she rose to her feet and walked over to a wall lined with book-filled shelves. Lex hoped she stayed there. If she drew near him, he’d be able to smell her rose-scented perfume. He’d want to look at places he shouldn’t and touch even more. He’d find it damned hard to remain a gentleman.

  “But you see, I can get up whenever I want,” she pointed out. “I don’t have a superior telling me what to do or how to go about doing it. If I need to bend the rules a bit, I can take that risk, because I’m the only one who might get hurt.”

  Where was all her confidence coming from? Lex wondered. Or was it more like determination? The question lingered in his mind as his gaze wandered discreetly down her slender curves. Most of the women he’d dated were attractive, but none of them were nearly as interesting as Christina. He realized there were many things he’d like to ask her, but they were all so personal, he decided he’d better keep the questions to himself. At least, for a while.

  “You obviously like being your own boss,” he stated.

  She glanced at him and smiled, and Lex felt a spurt of desire as he watched her pink lips spread against very white teeth. She was like a field of spring wildflowers. A man couldn’t ignore all that vibrant color.

  “Don’t you?” she countered.

  Her assumption made him chuckle. “If you think I’m the boss around here, you’re mistaken. Matt Sanchez, my cousin, is the general manager, but even he doesn’t consider himself the head cheese of the Sandbur. No one does. We’re family, and we work as a unit—makes us stronger that way.”

  His words sent an odd little pain through Christina’s chest. To be a part of a family, and to have that family whole and strongly webbed together with love, was all that she’d ever wanted. But her parents had never known or learned how to love themselves, much less each other or their children, as deeply as they should have. They’d split apart when she and Joel had been young teenagers. Then to add to that messy wound, Joel had gone missing, ripping away what little family she’d had left.

  To hide her dark, unsettled thoughts, she quickly pretended an interest in the books in front of her. “Anything whole is always stronger than something divided.” She darted a glance at him. “You’re a lucky man, Lex Saddler.”

  He didn’t say anything to that, and though her head was turned away from him, she could feel his thoughtful silence, his warm gaze traveling over her.

  “So where do you plan to start this morning on Dad’s case?”

  Bracing herself, she turned to face him. “Right now I have copies of the police and coroner’s reports, so-called witness depositions and general information about the company Paul worked for. Your mother has given me pertinent data as to where Paul grew up, how they met and a general idea of their marriage, especially around the time that he died. For the next couple of days, I’m going to delve into all that.”

  “So what do you need from me? I mean this morning.”

  No doubt he was itching to get outside, and she couldn’t blame the man. From the few open spaces between the live oak limbs shading the window, sunshine was streaming through the panes of glass, slanting golden stripes across the hardwood floor. Out on the lawn, dew glistened on the thick Saint Augustine grass while mockingbirds squawked angrily at a pair of fox squirrels. It was a lovely morning. One that needed to be taken advantage of.

  She looked at Lex speculatively. He was a man who needed to be doing. Sitting and talking about the past would only make him tense again.

  Smiling tentatively, she walked toward him. “I’d like for you to take me on a horseback ride.”

  Chapter Three

  Like an idiot, Lex felt his jaw drop as he stared at the lovely woman in front of him. He’d been expecting a taped question-and-answer session or, at the very least, to help her go over stacks of his father’s personal papers.

  “Riding? For pleasure?”

  She laughed softly. “Why, yes. That’s the only sort of riding I’ve ever done. Don’t you ever ride across the hills just for the sake of riding?”

  He stroked a thumb and forefinger against his chin. “Not since I was about ten years old. After that, I got on a horse to go someplace or to herd cattle. And as for hills, the only kind we have around here are fire-ant hills.”

  Dimples appeared in both her cheeks, and Lex felt the middl
e of his chest go soft and gooey. What was the matter with him? he wondered. A woman’s simple smile had never affected him this way.

  “Well, perhaps this morning you could pretend you’re herding cattle, and we could talk a bit about your father’s case along the way? It’s a shame to waste the sunshine, and I’d enjoy seeing some of the ranch.”

  She was making spending time with her easy, Lex thought, way too easy.

  “Then you’ve got a date.” He glanced at her strapped sandals. “Do you own a pair of boots? Not the kind you wear down a fashion runway, either. The cowboy kind that will hold your feet in the stirrups?”

  “I do. Give me five minutes to change. Where shall I meet you?” she asked.

  “In the kitchen. Cook will give us some cookies and a thermos of coffee to take.”

  “I thought you didn’t know how to ride for fun,” she reminded him.

  Feeling unexpectedly happy, he laughed. “I’m a quick learner.”

  Ten minutes later, the two of them were out the door and walking toward an enormous white wooden barn. At the nearest end, and along one side, wooden corrals separated groups of horses, some of which were munching alfalfa hay from portable mangers.

  Inside the barn, Lex saddled a gentle mare named Hannah for Christina and, for himself, a paint gelding called Leo that he most often used as a working mount.

  While he readied the horses, Christina used the time to look around the inside of the cavernous barn. Besides the outside horses, there were at least thirty stalled inside the structure, and though she was far from an expert on horse flesh, she recognized without being told that some of the animals were worth a small fortune. Their stalls were pristine, and their coats, manes and tails groomed to perfection.

  A number of wranglers and stable boys were already hard at work, and she could easily see why the Sandbur was one of the largest and wealthiest ranches in the state of Texas. But whether that wealth had played into Paul Saddler’s death was yet to be seen.

  “We’ll take them outside and mount up there,” Lex told her. “Can you lead Hannah?”