Canyon

“Yes, Samuel. Please connect me with Pete Higgins.”

Pete was best friends with his cousin Derringer and was a deputy with Denver’s police department.

“Please hold on for the connection.”

It didn’t take long for Pete to come on the line. “Deputy Higgins.”

“Pete. This is Canyon. I need you to check out a license plate number.”

“Why?”

Although Canyon knew Pete had every right to ask that question, he couldn’t keep his irritation from escalating. “A woman is being followed.”

“And you know this how?”

Canyon bit his lip to keep from cursing. His patience was stretched to the limit. “I know because I’m following her, as well.”

“Oh. And why are you following her?”

Canyon had always admired Pete’s easy, laid-back manner. Until now. “Now look, Pete.”

“No, you look, Canyon. No one should be following a woman, not you or anybody else. That’s harassment and I can bring you both in for stalking. What’s the license plate number?”

A mad-as-hell Canyon rattled off the number while wondering why Keisha hadn’t noticed she was being followed by not one, but two vehicles.

“Um, this is interesting,” Pete said.

“What?” Canyon asked, annoyed.

“That license plate was stolen.”

“Stolen?”

The driver in the sedan was smart enough not to follow behind Keisha too closely. But evidently he wasn’t smart enough to pick up on the fact that he or she was being followed by Canyon. Maybe the driver was so busy keeping up with Keisha that he hadn’t noticed what was going on behind him.

“Yes. According to our system, that license plate was reported stolen earlier today. Where are you?”

“Right now I’m going through the intersection of Firestone Road and Tinsel, and heading toward Purcell Park Road.”

“You’re way on the other side of town,” Pete noted.

“Yeah.” Canyon wondered if Keisha had deliberately chosen to live on the opposite side of Denver from where the Westmorelands lived.

“Is she driving a nice car?” Pete asked.

“Yes, looks like a pretty new Bimmer. Why?”

“I’m thinking that you might be looking at a possible carjacking. I’m on my way. Don’t do anything stupid until I get there.”

Canyon rolled his eyes. Did that mean he could do something stupid after Pete got there?

The thought of someone stalking Keisha angered him, and he quickly pushed to the back of his mind the thought that he was doing basically the same thing. The big difference was that Canyon didn’t intend to hurt one single hair on Keisha’s head. He couldn’t say the same for the bozo in front of him.

The last thing the other driver needed to know was where she lived. If she was heading home, he didn’t have time to wait for Pete. Pete’s office was on the other side of town. There was no telling how long it would take him to get here. At that moment, Canyon made a decision.

He would handle the situation himself.

* * *

Keisha swayed her body to the music blaring out of her car radio. She loved satellite stations with continuous commercial-free music, and she especially liked this channel, which played her favorite hits nonstop. And today she needed to hear them.

It had been one of those kinds of days.

It had started at ten, in court. She’d barely had time to grab lunch before rushing back to the courthouse for another case at one. Around three, she had returned to her office only to be pulled into a meeting she’d forgotten about. She was glad to have left work to start what would be a busy weekend.

Even knowing everything she had to do over the next two days did not dampen her mood. She’d won three cases this week, and she knew her bosses, Leonard Spivey and Adam Whitlock, were pleased.

Three years ago, Leonard hadn’t liked it when she’d given him only a week’s notice before leaving Denver and moving back home to Texas. But because she’d been one of the firm’s best attorneys, he’d been kind enough to give her a very good recommendation—and to welcome her back to the firm when she’d needed to return.

Sometimes things happened for a reason. When she’d moved to Texas, it hadn’t taken her long to land another job at a law firm in Austin. And had she not returned home, she probably would not have found out about her mother’s breast cancer scare.

Luckily, Keisha had been there for her mother during that difficult time. The two of them had always been close. Lynn Ashford was a strong and independent single parent. After the man who’d fathered Keisha denied she was his, Lynn had moved away from her hometown of Austin and settled with her daughter in Baton Rouge. Then, when Keisha’s grandfather had died when she was fifteen, she and her mother had returned to Austin to be there for Keisha’s grandmother.

There had been many hard times while growing up. To compensate, her mother had worked two jobs, leaving Keisha in the care of her grandmother. But seeing how hard her mother had worked without the help of a man had shown Keisha that if push came to shove, she could do the same.

Her heart ached when she thought about the man who had proved that fact to her.

Canyon Westmoreland.

She’d fallen in love with him the first day she’d laid eyes on him, but that love ended when she discovered he’d been unfaithful to her. She could tolerate a lot of things, but the one thing she wouldn’t tolerate was infidelity. Trust was paramount and a loss of it meant an end to everything...even a relationship that had held so much promise. Or she’d thought it’d had promise. Obviously she had been wrong.

Now, after three years, she was back in Denver. The scandal that had hit the law firm where she’d worked in Austin, and the firm’s eventual shutdown by the Texas Bar and the justice department, had made leaving a necessity. She’d known she would miss her mom, and that she was taking a chance with her decision to return to Denver, but Spivey and Whitlock was the one law office where she wouldn’t have to start at the bottom. She needed the money because she had more than herself to think about these days. However, to assure that she didn’t run into Canyon, other than for business, she’d deliberately moved clear on the other side of town from Westmoreland Country.

She knew the story of how Canyon’s parents, aunt and uncle had died in a plane crash, leaving fifteen orphans. Staying together hadn’t been easy, especially since several of the siblings and cousins had been under the age of sixteen. But together, the Westmoreland family had weathered hard times and was now enjoying the good times thanks to the success of the family’s land management firm, Blue Ridge.

Canyon’s parents had had seven sons: Dillon, Micah, Jason, Riley, Canyon, Stern and Brisbane. His aunt and uncle had had eight children: five boys—Ramsey, Zane, Derringer and the twins Aiden and Adrian; and three girls—Megan, Gemma and Bailey. From what Keisha knew, the majority of the Westmorelands were now college educated and successful in their own right, either working for the family firm or in their chosen profession. She’d met most of them when she had attended the annual Westmoreland Ball while she was dating Canyon. The ball was a huge event in the city and benefited a number of charities.

Her thoughts shifted back to one Westmoreland in particular. Canyon.

The Grand Canyon, as she would sometimes call him during more intimate moments.

The memories of those times hurt the most. She had loved him and had believed he loved her. She had opened her heart, and her home, to him. He had moved in with her after they’d dated for six months. She’d assumed their relationship was moving in the right direction. He had proved her wrong.

The blaring of a horn prompted her to glance in her rearview mirror. What in the world? she asked herself, frowning.

The drivers of the two cars behind her were engaging in some kind of road rage. It appeared that the driver of a burgundy car was trying to run the driver of a black sedan off the road.

Deciding the last thing she needed was to get involved in what was going on with those two drivers, she increased her speed and drove on ahead, leaving behind what she perceived as two hotheads vying to be king of the road.