Cowboy to the Rescue

“I don’t yet know enough about them or the case to form an opinion.” She gave him an encouraging smile. “Can you tell me more about them?”

His expression thoughtful, he gazed out at the open range dotted with gray Brahman cattle. “They were Dad’s work buddies, not necessarily friends of mine. But I recall a little about them. Red Winters was a big, burly guy. A bit obnoxious, always telling crude jokes. He thought he knew more than everybody, including my dad. Which was a joke. Red got his job because of who he knew, not what he knew. Harve Dirksen was sort of the ladies’ man type. Tall, dark, good-looking, and he knew it. About a year before Dad died, he was going through a messy divorce. I guess Mrs. Dirksen had gotten tired of his cheating. But in spite of their personal problems, they were always devoted friends to Dad. If he needed their help for any reason, they’d be there for him.”

“What about the third man, Lawrence Carter?”

“The epitome of a nerd. Physically weak. Smart at his job, but socially backwards. He’d always been big in playing the stock market and had a degree in business along with being a chemist. Like I said, he was smart, but Red always bullied him around. I remember Mom mentioning that Lawrence had a sickly son, but I don’t know what came of that. You might ask her about it. But I’m pretty sure his wife left him, too, sometime after Dad died. But his luck turned around eventually. All three men came into a small fortune about a year after Dad died.”

Christina looked at him sharply. “Oh? How did that happen?”

Lex shrugged. “Dumping a bunch of company stock right before the value crashed. Just good timing, I suppose. A lot of stockholders lost all their retirement investments. Some demanded an investigation, but nothing criminal was ever proved.”

The wheels inside Christina’s head were clicking at a fast rate, but she didn’t voice her thoughts aloud. She needed much more time and information before she could share with Lex any of the ideas she was entertaining. Instead, she said, “Well, could be the men were just savvy traders. Sometimes it’s hard to tell a good businessman from a thief.”

“Yeah.” He rose from his perch on the bridge and offered a hand down to her. “We’d better be getting along. If you’re ready, I’ll show you the family cemetery before we head back to the ranch. It’s a little west of here, but not too far.”

“I’d like that.”

She closed her fingers around his, and with no effort at all, he tugged her to her feet. The sudden momentum tilted her forward, and she instinctively threw her hands out to prevent herself from falling straight into his arms. They landed smack in the middle of his chest, and she found her face only inches from his.

“Oh! I—I’m sorry!” she said breathlessly. “I lost my balance.”

As she started to push herself away, she realized that he had a steadying hold on both her arms.

“No need to apologize,” he said, with a grin. “I’m just glad you didn’t teeter over into the creek. You would have probably taken me with you.”

She desperately wished he would release his hold on her. Standing this close to him was creating an earthquake in the pit of her stomach. Everything about him smelled like a man, felt like a man. And everything inside of her was reacting like a woman.

“That wouldn’t have been any fun,” she said, trying to keep her voice light.

“Oh, I don’t know. Might be pleasant to have a little morning swim together.”

The suggestive drawl of his voice clanged warning bells in the back of her head, and she quickly jerked away from the clasp of his hands. “I—uh, we better head on to the cemetery.”

Christina walked off the bridge, and as she rapidly headed toward the waiting horses, she sensed him following closely behind her.

Once she reached Hannah’s side, the touch of his hand on the back of her shoulder drew her head around. As she met his gaze, she felt her breath lodging in her throat.

“Christina, are you okay?”

The softly spoken question caught her off guard, and for a moment she wasn’t sure how to answer. “Why, yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”

His brows pulled together in a frown of confusion. “Because I saw something on your face back there. You looked at me like you were scared and wanted to run away.” He gently touched his fingertips to her cheek. “You’re not frightened of me, are you?”

Totally disconcerted, she looked at the leather stirrup dangling near her waist, the ground where one of Hannah’s hooves was stomping at a pestering fly, at anything and everything but him. “That’s silly. Of course I’m not afraid of you.”

Her heartbeat hammered out of control as he moved closer and his hand slid lightly up and down the side of her arm. “You don’t need to worry about me, Christina. I would never hurt you or any woman.”

No. She figured this man would die before he’d ever lay an angry hand on a woman. But there were countless ways to cause another person pain, and she wondered how many women in his past had cried themselves to sleep at night, waiting for a call, waiting to hear him say, “Honey, let’s spend the rest of our lives together”. She’d experienced firsthand some of the ways a man could hurt a woman, and she wasn’t up to getting another dose of education on the subject.

Forcing a teasing smile to her face, she lifted her head and met his gaze. “The only thing I’m worried about is convincing your mother that I don’t need you hanging at my side eight hours of the day.”

That obviously surprised him. “You don’t?”

“No. I always work alone. It’s better for my concentration that way. If I come across things I need to ask you, I’ll make notes and get to you later.”

The relief on his face was almost insulting.

“Well, I do have plenty of work that can’t be done by anyone else but me,” he admitted. “And anyway, I’m not very good at putting puzzle pieces together. Now my sister Mercedes is a different matter. She worked as an intelligence gatherer for the military.”

Christina nodded. “Yes. Geraldine told me. But she’s pregnant with her first child, and Geraldine doesn’t want to put any undue stress on her—especially with such dark matters. And your other sister, Nicci, has her days packed full with being a doctor and caring for her family. And your mother is incredibly busy, too. So that leaves you. But I don’t expect you to drop everything and alter your life just because I’m here.”

His gaze was almost suspicious as it roamed her face. “Are you giving me this reprieve for other reasons?”

Forcing a light chuckle, she turned her back to him and reached to untie Hannah’s reins. “Reprieve? You make it sound like spending prolonged time with me would be a prison sentence.”

“That’s a ridiculous notion. You must realize that you’re a very attractive woman. I’m sure you’ve never had a man complain about spending time with you.”

No, she thought dismally. Mike had never complained about spending time with her. Especially while they’d been making love. He’d just never wanted to make their time together into something permanent.

Glancing over her shoulder at him, she said, “You’d better get to know me before you say that.”

“I plan to,” he promised. Then reaching for her arm, he helped her back into the saddle.

During the next week Christina rarely saw Geraldine Saddler. The ranching matriarch was an extremely busy woman, spending most of her waking hours working on some sort of charity project or overseeing the actual running of the ranch’s daily activities. It was as common to see her dressed in jeans and chaps, driving around in her old Ford truck, as it was to glimpse her leaving for San Antonio in a sequin and satin cocktail dress. She was a woman to be admired, and Christina envied her children for having such a strong, respected mother, a mother who viewed loving a man and raising his children as the most ultimate blessings and responsibilities in her life.

As for Lex, she’d been meeting with him in the evenings, after supper, to go over details of the investigation. So far she couldn’t have asked for him to be a more perfect gentleman. And he’d even helped her begin to see inside the person who’d died in the gulf waters off Corpus Christi. She had to admit that Lex wasn’t the problem that she’d first expected him to be. But her reaction to him was definitely a problem. A huge one.

She’d hoped that the more she was around the man, the more she’d be able to control her racing heart and quell the ridiculous heat that colored her cheeks and warmed every inch of her body whenever she was near him. Trouble was, the more she tried to fight the attraction she had for the rawhide-tough rancher, the stronger it seemed to grow.

That fact hit harder than ever later that evening, as she left her room to go to dinner. Halfway down the staircase, she met Lex coming up. He was dressed very casually in jeans and a short-sleeved polo shirt. The moss-green color set off the tawny-blond streaks in his hair and the dark tan of his arms. She drank in the sight of him like a parched flower soaking up raindrops.

“There you are,” he said, with an easy smile. “I was just coming up to fetch you.”

“Oh. Have you been waiting?”

“No. Mom is away for the evening, and I wanted to see if it was okay with you if we had our meal in the kitchen. I hope you’re going to say yes, because I’ve already sent Cook home.”

“Of course it’s okay with me.” In fact, Christina was happy about the change. Even though the dining room of the Saddler hacienda was very beautiful, she preferred a smaller, cozier setting to eat her meals, especially when there were only two people present.

“Good.” He wrapped an arm through hers and began to escort her down the remaining stairs and in the general direction of the kitchen. “Would you like a drink first? Since Mom’s not here, Cook didn’t make margaritas, but I can shake something up.”

Just the scent of him, the touch of his hand and the smile on his face were shaking her up. Much more than a splash of tequila. She wondered what he would think if he knew that. “Actually, I don’t normally drink anything alcoholic.”

He glanced her way. “If having it around bothers you, you should have told us.”

Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t expect people around me to be prudes, and I even drink spirits occasionally—you saw me drink a margarita the first evening I was here. But my father is a recovering alcoholic. Each time I take a sip, I think of what he’s gone through.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. How is your father doing now?”