Cowboy Sanctuary

When Jennie approached, the horse’s eyes rolled and she backed away, whinnying a warning.

Jennie cast a quick glance around at the ground. She couldn’t see a snake, varmint or anything resembling one. “What’s wrong with you, girl?” She eased forward, speaking in a soft crooning voice, holding her hand out for the mare to sniff. When she stood close enough, she snagged the reins and patted the mare’s neck. “It’s okay. Shhhhh. I won’t hurt you, baby.”

The dusky black mare danced in a semicircle straining against the hold Jennie had on the reins. After the horse quieted, Jennie eased alongside her and ran her hand down the horse’s legs, searching for signs of injury.

The horse’s legs appeared to be fine. When Jennie bent to lift the back left leg to examine Lady’s hoof, something warm and wet dripped across her temple. Reaching up, she brushed the moisture from her face with her hand. She glanced down at her fingers where bright red liquid stood out against the light gray of her work gloves.

Blood? Had she cut her head when she fell? She yanked the gloves from her hands, reached up to where she’d hit her head and found a small lump the size of a quarter against her hairline. When she brought her hand down, there was no blood.

Then she looked at the horse. Blood soaked the multicolored saddle blanket and dripped to the ground below. “Holy smokes, Lady. What the hell happened?”

Jennie led the horse to the nearest tree, tied her up, giving her very little slack from her head to the tree. Skimming her fingers along the horse’s neck, she worked her hands over to the saddle, the source of the horse’s obvious pain.

What was causing the bleeding? Lady had been fine when she’d saddled up less than fifteen minutes earlier.

She laid the stirrup gently over the top of the saddle, talking to the horse the entire time. With one hand she loosened the cinch strap and pulled it free. Using as much care as she could muster, Jennie eased the saddle from the horse’s back, lifting it straight up and off. Lady leaned hard against the reins, swinging her backside away from Jennie and the saddle.

The sheepskin lining on the underside of the saddle was soaked in blood as was the blanket still on the horse’s back.

When Jennie lifted the blanket, Lady whimpered, her ears laid back and her withers twitched. Jutting out of the middle of a bloody patch was the metal corner of a razor blade.

“Oh my God.” No wonder Lady tried to throw her. The entire time she’d been riding, the razor dug deeper into the horse’s flesh. Lady’s back was clean when she’d tossed the blanket over her in the barn.

Jennie raised the blanket and found a cut in the middle where the razor had sliced through. An inspection of the saddle revealed another cut buried in the sheepskin underside.

They didn’t use razor blades in the barn and none of the ranch hands shaved anywhere near the horses.

Then how the hell did the blade end up in her saddle?

Leaving the saddle and blanket on the ground, Jennie untied Lady and led her back toward the barn. She’d return later for the saddle and blanket. First, she needed to tend to her horse’s injury, and then she’d find out what happened.

As she walked, she pondered the conundrum of the razor blade. They had no reason to store razor blades in the tack room. How could it have gotten in there and under her saddle? The saddle normally rested on a saddletree inside the tack room. A razor blade would have fallen off. Could someone have intentionally planted the razor in her saddle? The idea made her sick to her stomach. Who would be so cruel to a horse? Another thought followed close behind the first. Had someone intended to hurt her?

If so, why? There had to be a logical explanation. Who would want to hurt her? She didn’t have any enemies except the Morgans and they stayed on their ranch. For the past ten years, not a single Morgan dared cross the boundaries between the Flying W and the Bar M. The only person who’d ever wanted to hurt her was her ex-husband, and he was dead.

Chapter One

Cameron Morgan pulled his cowboy hat from his head, leaned his eye against the scanner next to the door and waited for the green light to pan across his eyeball. When the lock clicked open, he straightened and stepped through the heavy glass doors into the spacious offices of Prescott Personal Securities. After being gone for the past month on assignment, he felt as if he was coming home. He inhaled, expecting the soothing scents of eucalyptus and furniture polish. Instead, an acrid aroma stung his nostrils.

“Hi, Angel,” he said to the receptionist behind the bleached pine countertop. Cameron wrinkled his nose. “Was there a chemical spill somewhere?”

Angel, the street punk adopted by the agency’s owner out of some attempt at being charitable, rolled her eyes. “’Sup?” She barely looked up as she smacked her gum between black lipstick-covered lips while she painted another coat of dead black polish on her clawlike fingernails.

Cameron wrinkled his nose. Ah, the source of the odor. “Do you have to do that here?”

She answered by raising her brows. No wonder memos from Angel were often misspelled and calls were misdirected. With nails like that, she couldn’t possibly hit the right keys on the computer keyboard or the telephone switchboard. Despite the everything-black, Goth look, she showed an occasional spark of intelligence that invariably took everyone by surprise and she was puppy-dog loyal to the boss.

“Any messages?” he asked.

“Give me a few, and I’ll check.” She capped the fingernail polish and shook her hands, blowing on the wet paint.

“A few” meant some time in the next hour or two—if she remembered after the paint fumes subsided and her brain activity reengaged.

Cameron shook his head and continued on to his office.

Before he’d gone five steps, Angel called out, “Hey, wait. I was supposed to tell you something.”

Perhaps the cloud of vapor had cleared and she was remembering. Cameron turned and smiled, encouraging the young woman.

Her pale forehead wrinkled and her thickly lined eyes squinted to slits. “Oh, yeah, the boss wants you in the conference room.”

“When?” Cameron tapped his Stetson against his thigh.

She stopped chewing her gum long enough to snort and say, “Like, now. I believe her words were ASAP.” She resumed blowing on her nails and smacking her gum.

Letters. A S A and P are letters. Cameron inhaled and blew out a calming stream of air before he smiled again. This wasn’t the first time Angel had delayed an urgent message or misdirected a memo. He couldn’t even count the number of times they’d had to call the repairman to fix the copier after she’d done whatever she did to break it. One of the machine mechanics had gone so far as to nickname her the Angel of Death. “Thanks, Angel. What would we all do without you?” Hire a real secretary?

“I don’t know, but you better hurry,” she said without looking up.

When Cameron entered the conference room, every gaze turned toward him. Four other agents sat around the table and an elegant blonde stood at the head. He nodded toward his friend, Jack Sanders, seated to his left and then fixed his attention on the woman standing, Evangeline Prescott, head of Prescott Personal Securities. “You wanted to see me?”

With her long blond hair pulled back in a French twist and wearing a medium gray skirt suit, Evangeline was a cool professional with a warm smile. She looked much better than she had when she’d first lost her husband in a plane crash two years ago. Perhaps she was finally moving on.

Evangeline stood with a laser pointer resting in her palm and her back turned to a projected view of a map depicting the state of Colorado. With a brief smile she nodded toward a seat. “Good. You got my message. If you’ll take a seat, I’ll explain why you’re here.” She nodded, the few curls that had managed to escape bobbed with the motion. “Remember the disk that arrived at the office during the Nick Warner case?”

The head of Prescott Personal Securities made it a point to keep all bodyguards abreast of the caseload. Cameron nodded.

“Cassie deciphered the codes and she’s been working with Lenny to figure out what exactly we have and what it means.”

“How’s that going?” Cameron glanced from Cassie, who hadn’t looked up yet, to William Lennard, affectionately nicknamed Lenny, the group’s incredibly adept techno geek.

“Good, Cam, real good.” The red-haired young man’s gaze remained affixed to the computer screen. He clicked the keys and the image on the big screen zoomed closer.

Cameron was used to Lenny being less than communicative at times. When he got wrapped up in solving a computer puzzle, he lost track of everything else, including time and polite conversation. Which made the hairs on the back of Cameron’s neck rise. What was Lenny working on now?

Cameron’s gaze panned to Mike Lawson and Cassie Allen sitting close together, peering at a printout on the table between them. Mike glanced up and nodded. “We’ve made a little progress.” He nudged Cassie, who looked to Mike first. Deaf since college, she hadn’t heard Cameron enter. When she turned toward him, her face lit with a smile. “Hi, Cameron.”

He nodded and remained standing. “So what did you find on the disk?” And what does it have to do with me?

“Actually, we think the disk is full of land coordinates. Lenny was just showing us where one of those coordinates is in the state of Colorado. Would you do us the honors?” Evangeline glanced at their techno geek.

Lenny clicked a single key. The projected view zoomed in until Cameron could read the town names—one in particular.

“Are you familiar with a small town northwest of Denver called Dry Wash?” Evangeline used the laser pointer to indicate the position on the map.

Was he familiar? Did spending the first eighteen years of your life count toward familiarity? Cameron molded the brim of the light brown Stetson in his hands. “Yes. It’s my hometown.” He directed his stare to Evangeline, his eyes narrowing. “But you know that.”

Evangeline nodded. “The coordinates pinpoint a location near there. I had Lenny pull up the online county plats and overlay it with the exact coordinates.”