Cowboy to the Rescue

by Stella Bagwell

  Behind him, he could hear Christina pushing back her chair, and he glanced over his shoulder in time to see her standing behind the desk, stretching her arms above her head. The sight of her curvy silhouette struck Lex with desire, and he was amazed at how much he wanted to take her upstairs to his bedroom, to take her into his arms and forget everything else.

  “This probably sounds crazy coming from someone with a mother who is unorthodox, to say the least,” she said quietly, “but I happen to think I’d make a good parent. I’ve already learned all the things not to do while raising a child.”

  The dim lighting of the room left soft lights and shadows flickering across her face. As Lex looked at her, he could easily picture her with a baby in her arms, cuddling, loving, nursing.

  “That night of the roundup, when we talked a bit about children, you seemed eager to be mother. But you also seem like a career woman to me. Which one are you?”

  Clearly unnerved by his question, she glanced down at the disks scattered across the desk. “I am a career woman. Because that’s—that’s all I have, for now.”

  The hollowness in her voice touched some place in him that was much too deep for comfort. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked over to where she stood. “This Mike…did you want to have his children?”

  Turning her back to him, she answered in a low, strained voice. “At one time. But I had no intentions of ever having a child out of wedlock.” Sighing, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “If I’m ever lucky enough to have children, I want their lives to be totally different from mine. I want them to have two loving parents, who will always be around.”

  It was on the tip of Lex’s tongue to tell her that he didn’t want her having any man’s child, unless it was his. Did that mean he wanted a deeper connection between them? One that would last forever? Did that mean he was falling in love with her? He’d never even imagined having children with any of the other women he’d dated.

  The idea addled him, shook him right to the soles of his feet, and he was struggling to come up with some sort of reply to her comment when she thankfully changed the subject.

  “What did Lucita suggest about opening the disks?”

  He walked back over to where she stood. “I’ve got to fetch Dad’s old computer from the closet. It should be compatible with the disks.”

  Ten minutes later, Lex carted the computer to Christina’s office. Thankfully, it fired to life, and Christina didn’t waste a moment thrusting one of the disks into the proper slot and punching in the cues.

  They both held their breaths as the machine made a few ratcheting clicks, then continued to rattle and whir.

  “This is taking forever,” Lex complained after several moments passed without anything appearing on the screen. “Apparently, it’s not working right.”

  “Be patient. This is an archaic machine. It takes time for it to work.”

  Nearly forty minutes later, after reading through three of the disks, they declared them totally unimportant and started on the fourth. By now, Lex was losing hope, but Christina was determined to keep searching.

  “We have this disk and one more to examine,” Christina told him. “If we don’t find anything here, there may be more information in the rest of the things we brought from the attic.”

  Lex eased his hip off the edge of the desk and moved across the small room to the mound of things they’d carried down from the attic. “I suppose I could start looking for more while you read through that.”

  She tossed an apologetic glance at him. “It’s getting late, Lex, and I know you have to be up early for work. You don’t have to stay and help. Unless you want to.”

  He met her glance. “I want to,” he said simply.

  Christina’s heart winced with emotion. No matter what happened in the future, it was sweet to have him working by her side, as though they were a real couple with mutual goals.

  Sighing, she turned her attention back to the monitor and was immediately caught by the words that had just flickered onto it.

  Leaning closer, she studied the typed information on the monitor. “Oh my,” she breathed with hushed excitement, “Come here, Lex! I think we’ve found some sort of personal journal!”

  Hurrying to the back of her chair, Lex hunkered down low enough to be able to read over her shoulder. After a few paragraphs, he felt himself going cold, and the words from the page rasped hoarsely against his lips as he spoke them aloud.

  Tuesday. July 14th. I can’t let my beloved Geraldine know what’s going on. It would worry her sick. And if she did know, it might put her in danger. Her and our children. No, I must keep this to myself until I get more evidence.

  Emotions suddenly strangled him and Christina continued on.

  Wednesday. July 15th. Slipped into Lawrence’s office while he was at lunch. Worse than I expected. He’s getting info that only the president or CEO should know. Suspect the latter’s secretary—Edie. Rumors she’ll do anything for money. Met Lawrence in the hall. Not sure if he saw me come out of his office, but I believe he did.

  Christina looked up to see that Lex was now leaning his hip against the edge of the desk. His fingers were kneading his closed eyes as though he was trying to rub away what he’d just seen.

  The sight of his anguish tore Christina, but she realized he couldn’t avoid the truth. No more than she could.

  “Maybe I’d better read the rest of this to myself,” she gently suggested.

  “No,” he said, his voice choked. “Go on. I want to know.”

  Forcing her attention back to the screen, Christina began to read aloud.

  Thursday. July 16th. Pushed my luck and searched Red’s office. Found nothing. Maybe the guy is more honest than I thought. He showed up before I could leave. I played it cool. Came up with the excuse that I was hunting for a lost folder on pipeline corrosion tests. He didn’t appear suspicious, and I felt like a heel for spying on a friend.

  When Christina ended the longer passage, Lex straightened to his full height and looked down at her. “Is that all he entered on that day?”

  “That’s all. Here’s Friday.”

  July 17th. An hour before I left work, Lawrence stopped by my office and invited me on a fishing trip to Corpus tomorrow with him, Red and Harve. He threw this trip together quick. Why now? Harve was supposed to take his son to Dallas to visit relatives. And Lawrence didn’t look me in the eye the whole time he was inviting me. Dear God, the little bastard knows I’ve figured out he’s brewing up some sort of stock scheme. But whether Harve and Red know about his plot is unclear. I’m thinking about asking them point-blank. But what if they’re in on it with him? What might they do? Insider trading is hard to prove without concrete evidence. I need time. But we’re leaving the ranch at six in the morning.

  With his fists gripped at his sides, Lex closed his eyes and groaned. “Christina, you can’t imagine how it feels to hear the last thoughts that were going through my father’s mind just before he was killed. It’s almost as though he understood that he might be in danger, but he was more concerned about exposing a crime than he was about keeping himself safe.”

  “Obviously,” Christina said sadly. “Here’s the last entry. It was made early on Saturday, before he left the ranch.

  Saturday. July 18th. Geraldine has suspected something is wrong for a couple of months now. She seems to think it’s my health or, even more ridiculous, an affair with another woman. Oh God, I’m eventually going to have to tell her what this is all about in order to ease her fears. She’s the only woman I will ever love.

  Maybe it’s a good thing she’s away now, that she took our daughters on a summer trip to Europe. But I wish she was here. At least to warn her that this fishing trip might turn out to be dangerous. Lex and all the guys are over at Mission River on roundup. I need to let him know about this before I leave the ranch. But how?

  The last time Lex had cried was the day they’d buried his father, but he was damned close to it now.

>   Christina’s shocked gaze lifted up to his face. “Apparently, he didn’t get a chance to send any sort of message to you.”

  He wiped a hand over his face. “Twelve years ago most people didn’t carry cell phones around with them, especially when they were out in the middle of nowhere, working cattle. And if he left a note here at the house, no one found it.”

  “Oh, Lex, I—I’m so sorry. So sorry.” Rising to her feet, she gathered his hands in hers and held them tightly.

  He swallowed hard, then sucked in a long, bracing breath. “Somewhere in the deepest part of me, I feared that my father had been intentionally killed. But the idea was so horrible, so heinous, that I wouldn’t allow the suspicion to bloom. I wanted to shove it all away, to pretend that I’d lost him simply because the Lord wanted to take him. But now—now I have to accept that it was nothing like that. He was murdered.”

  She nodded with grim certainty. “Circumstantially, this proves that there was a motive for his death and that it probably was plotted and planned ahead of time. But I’m afraid that none of this would prove the case in a court of law. Paul suspected that Lawrence knew he’d been snooping, but there’s no hard evidence of insider trading, much less murder.”

  The misery in his eyes was suddenly swept away by outrage. “Lawrence—the wimpy little bastard—he was always scared of his own shadow. Apparently, he was afraid of my father, too. Afraid he would sic the law on him and expose his white-collar thievery.” He jabbed his forefinger at the monitor screen. “Why wouldn’t this journal work in a court of law? It was obviously written by my father!”

  “But it doesn’t offer proof, Lex, just theories. A good defense attorney would probably get it thrown out altogether. No, we’ve got to think of some other way to prove this murder happened.”

  Lex inclined his head toward the boxes of papers they’d carried down from the attic. “We still have a few more things to go through. Maybe we’ll find something concrete.”

  “Perhaps,” she mumbled. Then, stepping past him, she began to pace thoughtfully around the room. “But I’m doubting we’ll find the smoking gun we need. In his last entry, Paul spoke of needing more time. Clearly, he didn’t have enough evidence to go to the police, so it’s unlikely there would be anything here.”

  Frowning with frustration, Lex glanced her way. “Then what do you propose we do next?”

  She paused in her pacing as a plan began to form in her head. “From what I can gather from the autopsy report, the coroner believed Paul had some sort of incident with his heart before he went overboard, but he indicated the cause of death was drowning.”

  “Where is this leading?”

  “I’ve been thinking about this for a good while now, Lex. Your father had no outward injuries. No blows to the head, no suspicious bruises or cuts. I think Lawrence gave Paul some sort of drug that disabled him. Maybe he stabbed him with a syringe or put it in his beer. I don’t know. But I believed he drugged him.”

  Lex stared at her, confusion furrowing his brow. “No! That couldn’t be right. The drug would have shown up in the autopsy. Wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, if it had been something very obvious. But some drugs slip under the radar, and a corpse has to have extensive testing for each individual drug before it can be detected. In Paul’s case, that testing wasn’t done. Probably for county expense reasons—particularly when there wasn’t a reason to think that a murder had occurred.”

  “If you believe he was given some sort of drug,” he said, “where does that leave us now?”

  Christina walked back over to where he was standing. “On the offensive,” she stated flatly.

  “What does that mean?” he asked warily.

  “It means that I plan to draw Lawrence out. Force him to expose his crime.”

  His eyes widened. “I—don’t think I like the sound of this.”

  She held up her palms in an innocent gesture. “Look, Lex, I’m not going to do anything foolish.”

  “That’s right. We’re going to contact the police. Now. Tonight!”

  “Forget that, Lex! I know what a police department does with mere suspicions—they put them on the back burner. Especially when a case was pronounced closed a long time ago. No, I’ve got to draw Lawrence out and then call the police in on this. Otherwise, they’ll have no reason for an arrest.”

  He reached out and snared a desperate hold on her upper arm. Christina’s head jerked up, and her gaze clashed with his.

  “And just how do you plan to get Lawrence to incriminate himself? The man is obviously smart. Like a fox. Smart enough to hide his crimes all this time. If anyone would have asked me before, I would have told them that Red would’ve been the most capable of harming Dad out of the three. God, that shows you how wrong appearances can be! Lawrence used his mousy demeanor to mask all his guilty tracks!”

  The touch of his hand on her arm was sending electric impulses straight to her heart, causing it to thump even faster. “I’m going to visit Lawrence and let him know that I’ve discovered how Paul really died. I’m going to step out on another limb and tell him that I know he gave Paul the drug that caused his death—that we have ironclad evidence against him.”

  “But we don’t!” Lex countered.

  “He won’t know that I’m bluffing. I’m going to tell him that I’ll take the evidence to the police—unless he agrees to pay Geraldine twelve million dollars. One million for each year that your father has been dead.”

  “Twelve million dollars! That’s blackmail! What good is that going to do?” Shaking his head, he led her over to the desk chair and eased her down on the seat. “Have you gone crazy, Christina? None of this makes sense! We don’t want money. We want the man arrested!”

  She smiled patiently up at him. “That’s right. I only want Lawrence to believe the blackmail scheme. He’s not going to want to shell out the millions—he might not even have that sort of money now, anyway—so when he tries to make a deal, I’ll be wired, with the police listening in.”

  Frowning, he framed his chin with a thumb and forefinger. “I don’t like it. He might get wise, and then where would you be?”

  “I’m a trained police officer, Lex, and I’ll have the help of the San Antonio police to help me with the wiring. I can do this.”

  Groaning, he pulled her to her feet while his gaze desperately searched her face. “You won’t be going to see Lawrence unless I go with you!”

  Amazed by this protective attitude, Christina stared at him. “Absolutely not! Your presence would ruin everything. I want him to believe that Geraldine and I are the only ones who know about his crime. That she has the evidence locked away in a safe. He’ll figure he can handle two vulnerable women. In the meantime, your mother is away for the next few days, so she won’t be put into any sort of danger.”

  His eyes widened as though he couldn’t believe her audacity. “But what about you? You’re setting yourself up to be either harmed or killed! I won’t allow it! I’ll take this—” he jabbed a finger at his father’s old computer “—to the police first!”

  Christina frowned. “They didn’t do a very good job on this case the first time. Are you willing to chance that happening again? To risk letting your father’s killer remain free? I’m sure as hell not!”

  He suddenly wrapped his hands over her shoulders, and Christina did her best not to shiver as his green eyes bored into hers.

  “What I’m not willing to risk is your life, Christina!”

  Something about his voice, the passionate blaze in his eyes made her almost believe that he cared about her, that he wasn’t just trying to play macho man. But to let herself think in those terms would only be setting herself up for a far bigger hurt than anything Lawrence might try. Only a few hours ago, Lex had admitted that he’d never fallen in love before.

  But there could be a first time, Christina.

  Not about to let herself dwell on the tempting little voice in her head, she tried to reassure him. “I promise not to mee
t Lawrence in a secluded place with no one else present. Will that make you feel better?”

  His jaw remained hard and unyielding, yet she could see the light in his eyes turning tender, and it was that gentleness that nearly had her breaking down and promising to let the authorities take over the investigation. But twelve years ago the authorities had missed their chance to find the truth. For Lex’s sake, and for his late father, she had to bring it out in the open.

  “Not really. I’d like to forbid you to get anywhere near Lawrence! But I’m smart enough to know those old-fashioned manly tactics won’t work on you.”

  Her expression wry, she rose to her tiptoes and pressed a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for understanding that much.” With her feet back on the floor, she allowed her hand to slide up and down his forearm in a reassuring way. “This will all be over with soon, Lex. And your life will get back to normal.”

  Tonight the discovery of his father’s journal had taken her a giant leap closer to finishing this case, Lex thought. And once that happened, she’d be leaving the Sandbur for good. How could his life be normal then? She’d changed his life. She’d changed him. So what was he going to do about it?

  Chapter Eleven

  “Hattie, I think this is the wrong thing to do!”

  The next morning, long before daylight, the old cook stared in dismay at Lex as he angrily paced up and down the long kitchen.

  “You need to remember that Christina is in charge of this investigation,” she pointed out. “You ain’t in no position to be telling her how to do her job. Think about it, son.”

  Lex skidded to a halt in front of Cook, who was standing at the kitchen counter, pouring a cup of coffee.

  Grimacing, he jabbed the air with his forefinger. “Policemen have partners for a reason. No law officer in his right mind tries to handle a job alone. And that’s just what she’s doing.”

  Cook picked up a plate of bacon and eggs and carried it over to the kitchen table. “Quit preaching,” Cook scolded.

  Annoyed that the woman wasn’t taking his side in things, he stalked over to the table and threw a leg over the bench that served as seating. “I’m only trying to save her neck.”