Rancher's Redemption

“Have you found anything that’d tell us what happened to the driver? Tracks of a second car for a getaway? Footprints leaving the scene? The fact that the money is still here bothers me.” Jericho shook his head. “Who’d leave that much money behind unprotected?”

The crime scene investigator with the wire-rimmed glasses gave Clay a wary look then glanced to Jericho. “Good point. And, no. No footprints or tire tracks.”

“It’s been too dry,” Clay volunteered. “Only rain we’ve had in weeks was a couple nights ago. A squall passed through. Hard and short. Any surface impressions that might have been left in the dust would have been washed away.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” the investigator asked, sending Clay a skeptical frown.

Clay offered his hand, choosing to ignore the man’s churlish tone. “Clay Colton. You’re on my ranch. I found the car. Reported it.”

The man shook his hand. “Eric Forsyth. San Antonio CSI. I believe you already met my assistant, Tamara Brown?”

“Yep. Met, married and divorced.” He gave the man a level stare. “She’s my ex.”

Forsyth arched an eyebrow. “Oh? She failed to mention that.”

Clay quickly squashed the disappointment that plucked him. Apparently she’d cut him cleanly out of her new life. Setting his jaw, he angled his gaze to watch Tamara again. She was giving the driver’s door a thorough go over, her jeans hugging her fanny as she squatted to study the contents of the map pocket. “She had no reason to mention it. It has no bearing on anything related to this case.”

“We’ll see about that.” Forsyth turned to the sheriff, effectively dismissing Clay.

Clay ground his teeth and did his best to ignore the affront.

“Colton is right,” Sheriff Yates said. “About the dry weather and the brief rain on Tuesday night. Whatever slight impressions might have been around before that storm were almost certainly lost to the rain.”

Forsyth crossed his arms over his chest and grunted. “Yeah. There’s a puddle of water in the trunk with the money. If the hood of the trunk was ajar, we can assume it’s rainwater that leaked in.”

“Which helps establish a time frame. If the car sat out here in the rain, we’re looking at events that happened before Tuesday night.” Jericho rubbed his jaw as he thought. “The car was reported missing Wednesday morning when the first shift arrived at the rental place and checked the inventory.”

“I’ll call the rental agency and ask them to send copies of the images from their security cameras for Tuesday. Maybe the theft was caught on tape,” Deputy Rawlings said.

“Good thinking,” Jericho said.

“You oughta talk to my neighbor, Samuel Hawkins, too.” Clay crossed his arms over his chest as he spoke to Rawlings. “He came out here Tuesday evening to investigate a commotion he’d heard and found one of his longhorns tangled in that fence I was working on.”

“Could the commotion have been something besides the steer?” Rawlings asked.

Clay shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him.”

“Why didn’t your neighbor see the car when he was out here?” Forsyth asked.

“It gets mighty dark out here at night.” Clay poked his thumbs in his back pockets and shifted his attention from his ex-wife’s sultry curves and confident investigative technique to Eric Forsyth.

“The moon would have been behind the clouds, making it even blacker. He was on the lower side of that ravine—” Clay hitched his chin toward the steep drop-off a few hundred yards away “—with his hands full, tending an injured and agitated longhorn. Not surprising he didn’t notice anything.”

The crime scene investigator narrowed his eyes on Clay, but before he could reply, Tamara called out.

“Eric! Sheriff! I found something.”

Clay whipped his gaze back to his ex. She lay on her back studying the underside of the driver’s door.

Jericho, Rawlings and Forsyth all trotted closer to the abandoned vehicle. Clay hesitated only a moment before ducking under the crime scene tape and following.

“What do you have?” Forsyth asked, squatting beside Tamara.

“Hand me a swab.” She extended her hand and wiggled her fingers.

Forsyth fished a clean cotton swab from the toolbox-like kit on the ground a few feet away and handed it to Tamara. With meticulous focus on her task, Tamara swiped a spot on the door. After rolling out from under the door and sitting up, she held the swab up to the sunlight and squinted closely at the sample she’d gathered.

“That’s what I thought,” she murmured, then tipped her head back to meet the expectant gazes of the men circled around her. “Our first sign of foul play, gentlemen. This is blood.”

Chapter 3

After bagging the blood sample and wrapping up her sweep of the abandoned car and surrounding area, Tamara collected her equipment and prepared to leave for San Antonio. She was eager to start processing and analyzing the evidence she’d collected.

Blood.

Sure, a past driver could have gotten a bloody nose, and the rental company might have missed this drop during their routine cleanup. But coupled with the curious circumstances surrounding the scene—the money, the indications that the car had been wiped clean, the fact the sedan had been stolen—Tamara’s bets were on the blood pointing to a violent confrontation involving the missing driver. That was the theory she would be trying to prove or disprove back at her lab.

She had ridden over from San Antonio with Pete, and the team’s photographer was loading the last of his equipment into his SUV. Time to go.

But not before she took care of one last item.

She marched across the hard Texas dirt to where Clay stood beyond the yellow crime scene tape talking to Sheriff Yates.

“All finished, Sheriff. We’ll let you know as soon as our test results come in.”

Clay’s gaze stroked her like a physical touch as she offered her hand to Jericho.

The sheriff clasped her hand in a firm grip. “It was good to see you again, Tamara. Take care and thanks for your help.”

She pivoted on her heel to face Clay. Her stomach somersaulted when she met his dark brown eyes. Fighting to keep her arm from shaking, she stuck her hand out. “Clay, thank you for your help.”

She was fortunate she’d finished speaking by the time he wrapped his long fingers around hers, because the moment he grasped her hand, her voice fled. A tornado of emotions sucked the air from her lungs, and heady sensations churned through her.

“No problem.” The intimacy in his tone, the fire that lit his eyes sparked a heated flush over her skin. “If there’s anything else I can do to help, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Was there any hidden meaning behind that offer, or had she imagined the intimate warmth in his tone? Fighting for oxygen, she tried to pull her hand back. But Clay refused to release her. He squeezed her fingers, his hot gaze scorching her, and he stroked the tender skin at her wrist with his thumb. “It was good to see you, Tee.”

Her heart leaped when he used his pet name for her.

She nodded her head stiffly. “You, too.”

“You’re as beautiful as ever.” The soft, deep rumble of his voice vibrated in her chest and stirred an ache she’d thought time had put to rest.

“Thank you,” she rasped. This time when she tugged her hand, he let her fingers slip from his grasp.

Tamara curled her tingling hand into a fist and wrapped her other hand around it, as if nursing a wound. But her scars were internal, and seeing Clay today had only resurrected the pain she’d worked five years to move beyond.

Spinning away, she hurried to the SUV where Pete was waiting. She climbed into the passenger seat and angled the air-conditioning vents to blow directly on her face. If the summer sun weren’t enough to induce heatstroke, the fiery look in Clay’s eyes and the warmth of his sultry tone could surely cause spontaneous combustion.