Royal Protector

“I wouldn’t know,” Cal said.

Lucas wasn’t surprised that his cousin had so little information about the couple. Cal had given Mo’s guest operation a wide berth from day one. As long as the tourists who stayed in the four small hunting cabins at the edge of the ranch property stayed clear of his cattle and his hay fields, Cal could almost tolerate them.

“There’s a good chance Mo knows more about both of them,” Cal said. “You know how she is.”

Lucas had to smile. Yes, he knew exactly how his older sister went out of her way to make each guest feel as if they were a member of the Garrett family. And when it came to singles, she could be a shameless matchmaker. Although never married, Mo considered herself an expert on relationships. If anyone could give Lucas the lowdown on the relationship between Hugh Miller and Lexie Dale, it was Mo.

“Cal, what do you make of this shooting?” Lucas asked as he pulled open the door and slid behind the wheel. “Do you think it could have been an accident?”

“Doubtful. There’s a bullet hole between the man’s eyes that looks damn deliberate to me.”

“Sounds like our shooter is better than a fair marksman.”

Cal frowned. “God only knows what he had planned for Miss Dale. She was unconscious when Mo found her.”

A single fact stuck in Lucas’s mind and chilled his blood. “Are you telling me Mo was there?”

Cal nodded. “And lucky for Miss Dale, she was. That worthless pup of Mo’s wandered off again this morning. She and Tucker Oates were driving around in the Jeep, looking for the dog when they heard somebody yelling for help.”

Cal and Lucas exchanged a resigned glance. Both of them wished Mo would be more cautious, but they knew she had a heart as big as all outdoors and would never turn her back on a stray of either the two-legged or four-legged variety.

“Then what?”

“The noise from the Jeep must have scared off the attacker,” Cal went on. “They found Hugh Miller dead at the side of the trail. Not far from his body, Lexie Dale was tied up and unconscious.”

“She was drugged?”

“Looks like whoever killed Hugh Miller meant to carry her off with him,” Cal said.

“And Mo interrupted him right in the middle of his crime.” His own sister could have easily become the killer’s next victim, Lucas thought grimly. If he’d needed further incentive to bring the killer in, he’d just found it.

He put the SUV in gear. “Did you see anything that might give us an idea who did it?”

“No. But, then, I didn’t do much looking around. I didn’t want to destroy any evidence.”

Lucas nodded and started to pull away when an afterthought struck him. “Tell Mo not to worry. If she needs me to help out with Pop, I’ll be around later.” It had been six months since Will Garrett’s stroke. During that time, the family had formed a protective circle around the ailing patriarch, hoping to make his recovery as peaceful and complete as possible.

Cal said he would deliver the message and Lucas gunned the engine and raced out of the ranch yard and past the stables toward the trail that wound seven miles to the summit of Mt. Destiny.

Despite the disturbing reality that a man had been murdered on Garrett property, Lucas experienced immeasurable relief knowing his family was safe. As he bumped along the trail headed for the crime scene, however, the reality of what had happened took shape in his lawman’s brain: A man had been shot to death and a woman attacked. A killer was still on the loose.

It was the kind of crime he might have expected on the city streets where he’d spent five years becoming the kind of lawman qualified to become Bluff County Sheriff.

At age thirty-two, with nearly ten years law enforcement experience under his belt, Lucas Garrett could hardly be called naive, and yet the crime that had taken place today—a seemingly cold-blooded and calculated murder and an attempted abduction—still shocked him. Not because of its brutality, but because it had happened here, on the land that had been his family’s home for a generation.

His family and this ranch meant the world to him. Weaned on high-country air and the Garrett heritage of hard work, self-respect and dedication to duty, Lucas took seriously his role as Will Garrett’s son. His place within the family defined him as surely as his badge, and protecting those closest to him was even more important than his career.

For a man like Lucas Garrett, the crime that had occurred this morning was almost a personal affront. Things like this just did not happen in Bluff County. Not on his watch, anyway. And sure as hell not on his own doorstep.

THREE HOURS LATER, the effects of the chemical that had rendered Lexie senseless seemed to have finally dissipated. Except for a small bruise over her eye and a metallic taste at the back of her throat that not even Mo Garrett’s coffee could dispel, Lexie felt almost human again.

Bit by bit, with Mo’s help, she’d been able to piece together the bizarre events of the afternoon, events that had cost a man his life and landed her flat on her back on a couch in the main house at the ranch where she’d rented a cabin for what she’d hoped would be a peaceful month-long vacation.

So much for that fantasy, she thought.

While the paramedics were checking her out, tending to her minor cuts and bruises, a deputy sheriff had taken her statement and then asked Lexie to remain where she was until the sheriff could interview her himself. He also informed her that she was not to leave the main house, where uniformed deputies had been placed on guard.

Lexie had listened politely to the deputy and assured him of her cooperation. But even as she’d given her statement, Lexie knew talking to the local authorities was a waste of everyone’s time.

What happened this morning went way beyond anything the Bluff County sheriff’s department had the resources or the ability to handle—not that she didn’t wish they could. If only it could be so easy….

But Lexie knew better than to even hope. Nothing in her life had ever been that easy, that simple. Or even normal, for that matter. And now, in light of this latest tragedy, it seemed it never would.

If a killer had found her here, in this remote corner of the Colorado Rockies, then there was no safety anywhere. No normalcy. No hope for the peaceful anonymity she’d tried so long to attain. After all her efforts to prove her father wrong, in the end it seemed that maybe he was right. Maybe a simple day-to-day existence really was impossible for someone born to a family whose mere existence made headlines.

As it had countless times over the course of her twenty-eight years, the unfairness of her situation frustrated and angered her. If she lived to be one hundred and two she’d never understand why an accident of birth should hold such power over one’s life. Or why the lives of everyone with whom she came in contact seemed to be so negatively impacted. It all seemed so unfair—unfair and obscene—to think a man’s life counted for nothing.

Once the wheels of her father’s publicity machine started grinding, the events of today would no longer be a matter of who had been murdered this afternoon on that mountain trail, but why. The humanity of Hugh Miller would be lost in the gears of political damage control, sensationalism and spin.

Shuddering at the thought of the turmoil the next few days and weeks would inevitably bring, Lexie realized the time had come to get herself together and make some decisions. And the most immediate decision had to do with how she was going to handle the local sheriff, what she would and would not tell him about what she suspected was the motive for Miller’s murder and the attempt to abduct her. It had been a kidnapping attempt. Of that, she was certain.

But before she could decide anything, she had to get to a phone. And fast. If news of Hugh Miller’s murder reached her father secondhand there would be hell to pay. Of course, there would be hell to pay, anyway, she thought grimly.

For as far back as she could remember, her longing for independence and her determination to live her own life her way had put her at direct odds with her powerful father. An incident like this would only refuel that conflict and reinforce her father’s position that she should be brought back immediately into the family fold, under his control. And coming as it had on the heels of the debacle at Marycrest Prep, Lexie didn’t know if she had the strength to stand up to him again.

Although she dreaded making the call and facing the inevitable confrontation, Lexie knew she couldn’t put it off any longer. With a resigned sigh, she swung her legs over the edge of the couch and sat up. Immediately a wave of dizziness pushed her back down.

The middle-aged woman in the chair across from Lexie set aside the book she’d been reading. A frown pulled her pale mouth downward.

“I wouldn’t try to get up too fast, Lexie. You know what the paramedics said, that the effects of the drug might still be working their way out of your system.” She refilled a water glass from the pitcher on the table beside her and handed it to the grateful Lexie.

“You know, I still think it would have been a good idea to let the paramedics take you to the hospital to be thoroughly checked out.”

There was no way Lexie could tell Mo Garrett that in all probability she would be examined by the world’s foremost physicians some time in the next twenty-four hours. A woman like Mo would, no doubt, find that claim incredible. Everything about Lexie’s hostess and unlikely rescuer, from the silver-gray braid that hung down the middle of her back to her well-worn moccasins and faded blue jeans, reflected her utter lack of pretense.

“The paramedics said my vital signs were normal,” Lexie reminded Mo. “And I am feeling much better. Really,” she reiterated, hoping to make up for the lack of conviction in her voice.

The older woman tipped her head to one side and studied Lexie skeptically. “Well…maybe so. But I’ll still feel better once Doc Rogers gets here.” Mo rose from her chair to pace across the room and stand peering out one of the two large bay windows that dominated the west wall. “He ought to have arrived by now. I left the message with his secretary an hour ago.”

“I’m surprised he makes house calls,” Lexie said.

“Doc Rogers spends more time running around than in his office. He not only has a general practice, but he’s the county coroner. I guess he got tied up at the crime scene.”

Lexie filed away that piece of information. She needed to be careful what she said around the doctor. It bothered her that she had to watch her every word. But such was the reality of her life—a life she’d spent shunning the spotlight and yet despite all her precautions, all the scheming and planning, here she was center stage again.

Would it ever be any different? she wondered miserably. Or was she doomed to a life of unsuccessfully playing a game of hide-and-seek with first one pursuer and then another?

A sudden realization of the self-pitying nature of her thoughts brought Lexie up short. A horrible tragedy had occurred. A man was dead. A life had been lost for the sake of preserving hers.