On the schedule unless she’d already packed up and headed out, looking at Big Heart Ranch in her rearview mirror. He’d messed up big-time. This was far from his first time, but he couldn’t remember when in his thirty-three years that he’d blown things quite this spectacularly.
He could only pray that asking for forgiveness rolled off his tongue as quickly and believably as his harsh accusations had this morning.
* * *
From bad to worse. AJ sat in her truck and stared out through the Chevy’s mud-spattered windshield at the pasture. The only illumination was the waxing gibbous moon against a cloudy sky. Her eyes followed the crooked line of a crack in the glass in front of her. It nearly stretched across the entire windshield like a spider.
What started as a tiny little ding was now out of control. Way out of control. It couldn’t be fixed. Only replaced.
The slight breeze that blew through the open window carried a thick layer of humidity. Maybe it would rain tomorrow. A cleansing rain was exactly what she needed to wash away the pain of this horrible day.
Her eyes were swollen and gritty from crying, yet she stared at the bison until she’d memorized every inch of the silhouette of their shaggy bodies, even in the semi-dark.
Despite the debacle of this morning, she remained a staunch supporter of the beasts. Too bad there was no one supporting her. She’d been tried and convicted without a backward glance. Once again she’d misplaced her trust. The kicker was that this time her heart had been broken, as well.
And now in her most vulnerable moment she’d lost the only other thing she could count on.
Gus.
As she stared straight ahead, the conversation she had this afternoon with Lem played back in her mind.
“Lem, it’s AJ. Is it okay to come by and ride?” She’d desperately needed her horse after the humiliation of the morning.
“Gus isn’t here.”
“What do you mean, he isn’t there?”
“Jace sold him.”
“How could he sell my horse?” She’d been near panic at the words and still was.
“He said he talked to you.”
“No. No. He didn’t.”
“Well, he had the paperwork.”
“Lem, that paperwork has been in my mother’s desk since she bought Gus. All he had to do is look for it.”
“Jace wouldn’t lie to me.”
“Momma bought me that horse. It’s all I have left of her.”
“Take it easy, girl. Don’t get all worked up. We’ll figure this out.”
Figure it out.
Once again the pain punched her, over and over, until she was left battered and bruised.
Where was Gus? That’s all she needed to figure out. There were half a dozen auction houses in the area. He could be waiting at a special sale, or already sold to the highest bidder. Or worse.
Gus wasn’t young. Had her spiteful stepbrother sent the blue roan off to slaughter?
AJ swallowed hard and bit back the awful despair that threatened.
Deep breath. Deep breath. You’ve been through worse, she told herself. But she hadn’t, not really. Each loss was more painful than the next. Travis broke her heart and losing Gus was about to break her spirit.
The blue roan was all she had left.
She whispered a silent prayer. A plea. All she could do now was trust in the Lord. No one else was going to save her or Gus. No one else cared about a second-chance cowgirl.
A glance at her phone said it was midnight. There was a job to do. The bison would not be leaving the pasture on her watch. AJ stretched her neck back and forth and twisted slightly in the seat, easing the muscles in her back.
The sound of a vehicle approaching had her turning around in her seat. The Ute. Its lights blinded her and she held up a hand to shield her eyes.
Travis.
Five hundred acres and she couldn’t find a place to grieve in peace?
After a double knock of greeting on the outside of the truck Travis stuck his head in the cab. “Mind if I join you?”
AJ raised a hand in numb indifference.
Travis eased into the truck and shut the door. The man sucked up every inch of space in the cab with his presence. AJ scooted over until she was hugging the door.
Today’s other pain sat inches away staring at her. His face wore what any other day she would have thought was concern. Not after this morning.
When their eyes connected, all she felt was disappointment for letting herself be fooled into complacency again.
“What are you doing here?” Her gaze skipped over him and then back out the window again, to keep her eye on the bison.
“I’m here to apologize.”
“At midnight?”
“Best time. No interruptions.”
“Have at it and then, if you don’t mind, I have a job to do here.”
He pointed to the tall poles outside the truck. “Those cameras up there recorded the bison this morning at 4:00 a.m. That’s the time they got out.”
She turned to face him. “What?”
“I’ll explain how it works later, but the bottom line is we have recorded video showing someone taking down the fence and leading the bison out.”
Her eyes rounded. “Someone?” AJ said the word slowly.
“We can’t identify him.”
“Him, meaning Jace?”
“Probably.”
“So you’re only here because you have proof I wasn’t at fault?”
“No. That’s not why I’m here.”
AJ shrugged and rubbed her aching eyes. “Sounds like it to me,” she muttered.
“Have you been crying?” Travis asked, his voice low and anxious as he peered closer.
She refused to meet his gaze. There was no way she’d be taken in by the Travis Maxwell charm again in this lifetime. The key was to avoid looking into those dark eyes.
“Don’t flatter yourself. If I’ve been crying it would be about a horse, not a cowboy.”
“Gus? Did something happen to Gus?”
AJ gripped the steering wheel. “Is there something else I can do for you, Travis?”
“You’re not making this easy.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t realize I was supposed to make it easy for you.”
“You’re twisting my words around.”
“You certainly didn’t have a problem with words this morning.”
He hung his head for a moment and took a deep breath.
“You’re right and I’m ashamed of myself. I don’t expect you to forgive me right now, but I want you to know that I am aware my behavior was out of line and I deeply regret my words and, worse, my thoughts.”
“Okay, then. Thank you for that.” She put her hands in her lap.
“Are you going to quit?”
“I hired on to do a job and that job isn’t complete yet. We have another week to get ready for the grant committee walk-through. I won’t let you down.”
“It never occurred to me that you would let me down.”
“Sure it did,” she murmured. “That’s why you asked if I was going to quit. Everything is about you and this grant and your pride and reputation. Someday you’re going to realize you don’t need to prove anything to anybody.”
“The same could be said of you, AJ.”
“Oh, no. You and I are very different. My pride disappeared a long time ago.” She looked at him and gave a sad shake of her head. “I spend all my time wondering which hoop I’ll have to jump through today and what test is next. I thought that ended here when I arrived at Big Heart Ranch. But today you proved me wrong again.”
“Are you sure you aren’t looking to be proved wrong? You can’t go back to your father’s ranch. Maybe you don’t want to be happy anywhere else.”
She glanced at her watch and reached for her thermos. “Are we going to psychoanalyze each other all night? If so, I guess now is as good a time as any for a strong cup of coffee.”
“I came here to apologize.”
“Mission accomplished.”
His expression faltered for a brief moment. “Oh, AJ. How am I going to get through to you?” The words were barely a whisper as he opened the door and slid out.
Outside she could hear the mating duet of the hoot owls.
She rolled down the window and let the full night breeze soothe her. Except that it didn’t. Nothing could soothe what hurt tonight. Nothing.
She’d spent a lifetime giving up things. This was the first time since her parents died that what she lost really mattered. It would be a very long time before she got over Travis Maxwell’s betrayal.
Chapter Eleven
Déjà vu at Big Heart Ranch. Here she was again pulling her thermos out of her backpack at midnight. AJ placed it on the passenger seat for later. This was the fifth night in a row she’d sat out all night in her truck. She didn’t care if the cameras were in place. The bison were her responsibility and until the grant walk-through and approval she’d be babysitting them. There would be no repeat of the other night.
Overhead a full moon and clear sky illuminated the land. Something in her favor at least.
It was Friday night. Date night, she’d told Travis the night they’d gone to dinner. That seemed a lifetime ago.
She nearly laughed out loud at the irony. Never in a heartbeat would she have guessed that the sweetness of that long-ago evening in Bartlesville would be followed by the darkness of this week.
Shifting in her seat, her muscles searched for the elusive sweet spot, a position that was comfortable enough to rest. This was getting old. Next time she’d buy an old Caddy with a couch and a cup holder in the front seat.
She had sore muscles from sleeping sitting up and aches where she didn’t know she could have aches. But she’d do whatever she had to do to stop Jace McAlester once and for all.
Jace typically hit the ranch Friday, Saturday or Sunday when staffing was low. She was ready for him. And Big Heart Ranch was one step ahead because Jace didn’t know about the cameras. At Travis’s directive, the camera company had put in overtime to get them all installed. Every last pasture had at least one camera set up and tested. Each recording angle had been reviewed and fine-tuned. If they could pick up a gopher dancing across the pasture, they could pick up Jace.
She reviewed the camera app feature on her phone, bringing up each of the pasture cameras one by one, then sliding the image to the left until she’d seen them all. The night-vision view offered a black-and-white visual and verified that nothing unusual was going on. Cattle standing in the pasture and newly weaned calves on the fence line. The bison were still and even Natchez stood motionless in his pasture.
Each day she was closer to the grant walk-through and the likelihood everything would occur on schedule without incident. Even the weather had cooperated with a stunning forecast of sunny skies, moderate humidity and not a chance of precipitation. Oklahoma in the spring. Mother Nature’s very finest.
AJ sank low in the seat and pulled her ball cap over her eyes. The phone app would let her know when someone or something triggered the cameras, and her windows were open to catch any sounds in the night.
She was nearly delirious from lack of sleep and too stubborn to quit now. Not that she’d get any rest at home. Lying awake at night fretting about Gus, her questionable future and thinking about Travis Maxwell was enough to make her pace the floor.
Jace McAlester had stolen Gus, but she wasn’t going to let him take anything else. She’d finish her stint at Big Heart Ranch with the knowledge that she’d done an exemplary job. Then she’d walk away.
Her eyes had barely drifted closed when her phone beeped and vibrated in her pocket.
Motion alert!
AJ shot up in the seat, once again hitting her head on the ceiling of the truck. There was someone out there. If her cell was going off, so were the phones that belonged to the rest of the equestrian and livestock wranglers, along with Travis and Tripp. She wouldn’t be the only staff member following up. But she’d be the first on scene. The first one to nab the intruder.
She fiddled with the phone, bringing up the camera’s event feed.
Natchez’s pasture. There was movement near the bull’s paddock gate. She could only see a truck pull up to the fence. It couldn’t be staff this time of night. Only a cattle rustler would be at the fence and in the camera’s eye.
“I’ve got you, Jace McAlester, and this time you’re going to jail.”
AJ locked her truck and tucked her keys and phone in her pocket. It took her fifteen minutes of jogging to cross the pasture to the field where the bull grazed.
Jace’s burgundy pickup was parked along the dirt trail. She could see his form on the other side of the paddock, next to the gate.
Reaching in through the open window of Jace’s truck, she grabbed his keys and pocketed them. Carefully opening the truck door, she climbed in and removed his rifle from the back window rack. She pulled back on the magazine and cycled the charging handle to release any remaining cartridges and carefully placed the rifle in the bed of the pickup.
A sound had her whirling around. Travis Maxwell stood behind her.
“What are you doing here?” he whispered. “You aren’t on call tonight.”
“I’m on self-appointed, on-call night-shift duty until the walk-through.”
“That’s unnecessary.”
“Not from where I stand it isn’t.”
“You can’t work night and day.”
“Watch me.”
“AJ, I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
She ignored him and inched to the front of the truck.
“Look, could we agree to a truce for tonight? Until this little adventure is over?” he whispered.
Her only response was a grunt.
“I’m going to take that as consent.” He moved past her and glanced around. “So where’s our rustler? Are we sure it’s Jace?”
“There he is.” She pointed. “The man is the size of a refrigerator. That is Jace McAlester, all right.”
Travis nodded. “He’s got wire cutters in his hand. We need to catch him in the act.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Nothing,” Travis said. “Let him cut the fence, otherwise all we have him for is trespassing.”
“Okay, and then what?”
“I’ll get Jace and you get the bull.”
“I’d rather do it the other way around,” she admitted.
“I feel the need to protect you from yourself. You take care of the bull and I’ll take care of Jace. He may never know that I saved his life tonight.”
She turned to him. “Did you actually call the police this time?”
“Oh, you bet I did,” Travis said. “And Dutch and Tripp should be here in a minute, as well.” He nodded toward their rustler. “He just snipped the wire. Here we go. Approach from either side. That worked well for us before.”
“Jace,” Travis called.
Jace McAlester froze. He turned around, dropped the wire cutters and started running like a mountain man of a quarterback headed for the goal line in the last minutes of the fourth quarter.
The gate was still closed and Natchez contained, so AJ made the executive decision to follow Jace and Travis.
Eyes adjusting to the dark, she picked up speed and called her stepbrother. “Jace, the police are on the way. Stop now.” She wove around the outside, forcing him to the right.
Good grief. Jace was incredibly fast for a man the size of a tank.
There was no way Travis could keep up with him on his ankle. He’d only recently gotten the okay to remove the orthopedic boot.
She’d have to intercept Jace. Her only advantage was the fact that he didn’t know Big Heart Ranch like she did. If she could just get him to run to the right, he’d fall into the shallow ravine and land in the dry creek bed and they’d have him.
“Whatever happened to plan A?” Travis asked, loud enough for her to hear.
“I’m improvising.”
“Would have been good to know that before now.”
Inching to Jace’s outside was a lot like herding cows on a long-distance cattle drive. It helped to pretend her stepbrother was a recalcitrant steer. With each step, he got closer to the ravine. She kept moving back and forth, boxing him in.
AJ looked over her shoulder and so did Jace. Travis was right behind him. Jace had nowhere else to run.
Except at the last minute Jace stopped and turned. He snorted like a mad bull and, with his head down, he began to charge Travis. Jace wasn’t trying to escape, he planned to mow down the man in his path.
“Jace,” she called to distract him. He refused to budge from his trajectory.
Travis dodged, once. He dodged again, yet Jace kept coming, a massive animal fueled by pent-up rage with a single-minded mission.
“Jace, stop!” she screamed.
The two men collided. Jace tucked himself beneath Travis, slamming him in the gut. Though Travis had crossed his arms in a protective gesture, the force tossed him in the air.
Jace rolled over, scrambled to his feet and ran in the opposite direction again. AJ prayed Travis was okay as she followed her stepbrother.
Once again, she was gaining on Jace, forcing him closer to the creek bed, until finally she heard him cry out as he stumbled into the ravine.
The ravine was steep and he’d never climb out without assistance. Mother Nature’s jail cell for the cattle rustler.
She raced back to Travis, skidding to a halt on the grass beside him. He’d been knocked out cold.
“Travis,” AJ murmured. She leaned over him and pushed a lock of hair from his forehead. His eyes were closed, the dark lashes spread on his pale face. His breathing was shallow.
AJ grabbed a fistful of his shirt and yelled in his ear. “Travis. Open your eyes, right this minute. Stop scaring me.”
Falling for the Cowgirl Page 15
