Rancher's Redemption

“You still in Esperanza?”

“Yeah. Why?” She nudged a rock with her toe then moved on, her gaze sweeping slowly left to right and back again.

“Just wondering how much longer you think you’ll be.”

“Well, it stays daylight until almost 9:00 p.m., so I’d say I have eight or nine more workable hours.” She lifted a corner of her mouth, picturing her boss’s face.

“The scary thing is, I’m not so sure you’re kidding.” Eric groaned. “Don’t get me wrong. I love your work ethic. But I don’t need you running yourself down, wearing yourself out. I need you mentally and physically sharp.”

“I just don’t want to leave until I’m sure I’ve covered everything this time. I should be finished in a couple hours.”

“Well, you got anything yet?”

She sighed. “Nothing that looks promising.”

When she finished the call with Eric, Tamara snapped her phone closed and cast an encompassing gaze around the area. Had she made the search grid large enough this time? Was she overlooking something?

As she walked the grid, she flipped her phone open again, and using her thumb, she punched in Pete’s number in the photo lab. 5-5-5-3-0—

Suddenly the earth gave way beneath her.

Tamara gasped. Her phone flew from her hand as her arms windmilled and she scrambled to catch herself. The cave-in sucked her down, and she landed with a jarring thud. Terror welled in her throat as gritty dust filled her lungs and scratched her eyes. Raising an arm to protect her head, she winced as dirt and rock pelted her.

When the world stopped shifting, Tamara lifted her head, shook the loose dirt from her. She coughed out dust, and her chest spasmed. Searing pain arced through her torso, stealing her breath. She lay still for a moment, letting the fire in her ribs subside and collecting her wits.

Grit abraded her watering eyes. Blinking hard to clear her vision, she moved slowly, checking herself one limb at a time for broken bones. Every movement made her chest throb. She grimaced. Cracked ribs. Maybe worse.

Adrenaline pulsed through her. Hands shaking, she tried to calm herself without breathing deeply, which would only fill her lungs with more grit. As the dust settled and she could draw clearer air, the putrid smell of rotting flesh assailed her. She wrinkled her nose and squinted in the dim light. How far had she fallen? The sinkhole she’d landed in seemed to be six or seven feet deep. Like a grave.

She shuddered and quickly shoved aside the chilling thought.

Stay calm. Think. Clay and his ranch hands were too far away to hear her call for help. Her cell phone was—

She groped in the darkness, digging with her fingers through the soil and rock.

Fresh streaks of hot pain sliced through her when she moved. Tamara bit down on her lip and rode out the throbbing waves and ensuing nausea. Climbing out of this hole and driving to Clay’s house was going to hurt like hell, but what choice did she have?

Holding her ribs, she shifted to her knees. A moan rumbled from her throat, and she gritted her teeth in agony. Before she tried pushing to her feet, she ran her hand over the dirt one more time, searching for her cell phone. She stretched as far as she could and found nothing but hot, crumbled earth. She crawled forward a bit, deeper into the shadows, and again shifted her fingers through the dusty debris.

Her hand bumped up against something large and heavy. When she tentatively brushed her hand along the object, she found it soft, like fabric. Or clothing.

Foreboding rippled through her.

She fished in her pocket for her keys, where she kept a small light on the fob to help her find the ignition switch at night. The bright LED light illuminated a tiny portion of the sinkhole. Holding her breath, she held the light toward the object.

And screamed.

Lying face down, mere inches from where she’d landed, was a man’s dead and decaying body.

Chapter 4

Tamara struggled to regain her composure, find her professional detachment. She’d seen enough corpses through her job to stomach the grisly sight and even tolerate the smell to an extent. But the shock of finding the body so unexpectedly, the eerie shadows her key-ring light cast, having nearly fallen on top of the dead man…

She swallowed the sour taste that rose in her throat. Clenching her teeth to endure the sharp pain, she pulled herself to her feet. Her fingers scrabbled for purchase to climb out of the pit. By using the toes of her shoes to dig footholds, she managed to pull herself out of the sinkhole, one excruciating inch at a time.

Overwhelmed by the pain, the stench of death, the horror of what had happened to her, she braced on shaky hands and knees and retched—which sent fresh paroxysms of pain through her chest. The unforgiving Texas sun beat down on her and made her head swoon. Common sense warned her she had to get to her car, had to get out of the heat, had to get help for her injuries.

She had to report finding the dead man.

She shuddered.

A body.

The driver of the stolen car? Maybe. But if so, who put him down in that hole?

After struggling to her car, holding her aching ribs as still as possible, Tamara drove slowly toward the ranch’s main house. The idea of facing Clay again hurt almost as much as the jarring bumps and jolts of the uneven pasture and pothole-riddled driveway.

She blasted her horn as she approached the house. Within moments, two irritated ranch hands stalked toward her car, shouting for her to quit honking. Others looked on, clearly curious about what she wanted. She scanned the approaching ranch workers, looking for the one man she wanted most to see and yet dreaded facing.

Finally she spotted Clay, hurrying through the front door of the white house and crossing the wide porch. A familiar beagle rose from his nap on the porch and romped across the yard at Clay’s feet.

Tears of relief pricked her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to force them down. She swore to be strong in front of Clay if it killed her. Gaze fixed on her ex-husband, she waved off the ranch hands when they opened her door and offered her help.

The moment Clay realized who was behind the wheel of the Accord, his gait faltered for a second. His irritated scowl morphed into a look of shock then concern. He sprinted the remaining distance to her driver’s side door.

Pushing aside one of his workers, he squatted in the V of the open car door. “Tamara, what’s wrong? Why—”

“I fell…into a sinkhole. Out by the ravine.” She closed her eyes and waited out a new wash of pain.

Clay mumbled a curse. “How bad are you hurt? Can you walk?”

Before she could answer, he shoved to his feet and leaned in to check her. Taking her chin in his fingers, he swept her face with his gaze, then touched a scrape on her temple.

Wincing, she grabbed his wrist to stop his ministrations. “I found a body.”

Clay’s thick eyebrows dipped, his dark eyes homing in on hers. “A body? Where?”

“In the pit. A man. He’s been dead at least a couple days, judging from the stink.”

Clay stiffened at the news, barely brushing her chest, but the contact sent a fiery spasm through her. She gasped and gritted her teeth.

“Where are you hurt?” he demanded, snatching his hands away from her.

A prick of self-consciousness filtered through her haze of discomfort. She must look frightful, scratched, bleeding and covered in grime. And after baking in the heat for hours, wallowing in a dirt pit, then dragging herself to her car, she had to be ripe.

By contrast, even breathing shallowly as she was to avoid pain, the aroma of sunshine and leather clung to Clay and filled her nose. Her heart gave a hard thump. So many precious memories were tied to his seductive scent. Memories that now left her emotionally raw.

“I…may have cracked…a rib or two. I can hardly…breathe. It hurts…every time I move—”