Cowboy to the Rescue (21 page)

With a wry smile, he stepped forward and ran a gentle hand over her red hair. “Don't worry, my sweet. Everything is going to be all right.”

T
he next day, in spite of spending most of her time on the telephone with one law official after another, Christina couldn't shake Lex's parting words of the night before.

Everything is going to be all right.

What had he meant by that? Had he been talking about the sting to catch Lawrence or their fragile relationship? God, she wished she'd questioned him before he'd left the porch and retired to his room.

She'd thought she'd have a chance to speak with him this morning, before the day became hectic, but her sleep had been erratic, and by the time she'd finally pushed herself out of bed and stumbled down to the kitchen for breakfast, Lex had already left the house.

Now it was growing late in the evening, and he was quite late in returning to the house. Cook had prepared supper, but Christina had told the woman to put the whole meal in the warming drawer. Sharing supper with Lex had become her favorite part of the day, and she wanted to enjoy it for the few evenings that were left before her time here on the ranch was over.

She was in the den, going over a folder of information she planned to hand over to the DA while watching the evening news on the television, when she heard a vehicle drive up at the west end of the house.

Since Lex always parked his truck in that area and entered the house through the kitchen, she jumped from the couch and hurried through the house to greet him. Just knowing he was home filled her with relief. For some unexplainable reason, she'd been anxious about his safety.

By the time she reached the kitchen, she expected to find Lex already there. But the room was empty, and an odd feeling of alarm sent a chill through her.

Something wasn't right.

She stepped onto the back patio and glanced toward the west end of the house. When she did, her breath caught in her throat as a sinking feeling hit the pit of her stomach.

Lawrence Carter was walking rapidly toward her. And from the cold look on his face, he wasn't on the ranch to make a deal. Why hadn't she guessed something like this could happen?

 

Of all the days for Lex to be delayed, this wasn't the one he would have chosen. He'd planned on being home early this evening to eat supper with Christina, and then he'd planned on taking her on a leisurely drive over a few parts of the ranch she'd not yet seen. She'd been working herself to the point of exhaustion over his father's case, and he wanted her to relax, to forget about Lawrence Carter and insider trading and paralyzing drugs. But mostly he simply wanted to be alone with her, with no outside distractions.

But one problem after another had occurred today, and he'd spent the past four hours helping the hands move a herd of cows from a pasture with a broken windmill to an area of the ranch where water was plentiful.

After unsaddling Leo and leaving him in the capable hands of a stable groom, Lex left the horse barn and started across the ranch yard on foot. Since most of the cowboys had already retired to the bunkhouse, the work area was quiet, and the long shadows of evening were beginning to cool the hard, packed earth.

Halfway to the house and lost in thought, he was faintly surprised when he suddenly spotted his teenage niece, Gracia, riding one of her cutting horses toward him. Normally, she rode those particular horses only in the practice arena.

When she reached him, she pulled her mount to a rapid stop. “You're out late this evening,” she observed.

“So are you, young lady. Why aren't you riding in the arena?”

She shrugged. “Cloud Walker needed a bit more exercise, so I rode him down the road for a couple of miles.” She wrinkled her nose and glanced back in the direction she'd just traveled. “Who is that creepy man at Aunt Geraldine's house? I saw him on the back lawn with Christina. They were walking together toward the house. Christina was smiling like he was a friend, or it looked like she was smiling. Is he a guest of hers?”

Icy fear rushed through Lex as his gaze shot past Gracia and on toward the house. “A man? What did he look like?”

She made a face of disgust. “Like a weirdo. Skinny and sorta old, with plastered hair. What is he doing here?”

Jerking his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans, he tossed it to the teenager, then took off in a run toward the house. “Call your father, and tell him what's going on!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Now!”

 

As Christina reentered the house, her mind was frantically searching for a way to deal with the maniac pointing an automatic pistol at her back.

Clearly, he had evil on his mind, and she had to think fast to come up with some diversionary tactic and snatch the weapon from him before he decided to use it.

As they walked into the kitchen, he asked gruffly, “Who else is in the house?”

“I don't know,” she lied. “The maids could be upstairs.”

Christina wasn't about to tell him that Cook and the maids had left hours ago. With Lex still out working, there was no one here but her.

“What about that old crow that calls herself a cook?”

Christina silently promised herself she was going to make this man pay for every evil thing he'd said and done to the Saddler family.

Looking over her shoulder at him, she said, “If you mean Hattie, she's retired for the night.”

He grunted. “What about Geraldine and Lex?”

“I—I don't know. This is a big house.”

After mouthing a few curse words, he waved the gun toward the swinging door that led from the kitchen to the rest of the house. “I'll take care of them if I have to. Where's the safe in this dump, anyway? In Paul's office?”

“Why would Paul still have an office? He's been dead for twelve years. Thanks to you,” she said coldly. “The safe where Geraldine locked the evidence is in the den.”

Actually, the only safe in the house that Christina was aware of was located in the den. And she only knew about that one because Lex had opened it one night to show her a set of antique jewelry that had belonged to his great-grandmother.

“Take me to it! And be quick about it!”

He shoved the gun against the back of her rib cage in an effort to hurry her along. Christina shouldered through the swinging doors, then made a sharp right down the dimly lit hallway leading to the den. Normally, the room was the least used in the house. Mostly, Geraldine stuck to her office in the parlor, and Lex used the kitchen for his hangout. As for Christina, she spent most of her time in her little office, but this evening she'd taken her work with her to the den so she could relax on the couch while she waited for Lex to return. Now she took hope in the fact that the den was located at the rear of the house.

If she could throw something through the picture window that faced the back lawn, there was a slight chance one of the men at the bunkhouse would hear the crash and come to investigate.

“You're making a mistake, Lawrence,” she said in a deliberately calm tone. “This isn't the way to handle things.”

“You said I was stupid, but you and that bitch Geraldine are the stupid ones for thinking I'd give you a cent,” he gritted between clenched teeth.

She'd been stupid, all right, Christina thought, for not anticipating this deranged man making a counter move of some sort. But not in a million years would she have thought he would be crazy enough to show up here at the ranch. Damn it! If only she had her revolver. But it was stashed away in the bureau in her bedroom.

When they reached the den, she could see the room appeared the same as when she'd left it. A table lamp shed a small oval of light near the end of the couch where she'd been working. Nearby, on a small table, a fat scented candle flickered in the semidarkness. Next to it, she'd dropped the folder jammed with notes concerning Paul's case when she'd hurried out to meet Lex. Across the room on the television screen, a female news anchor was continuing to read the evening news and the wild thought that her homicide might be the next story flashed through Christina's mind. But just as quickly, she flung the thought aside.

She had to fight in every way she could against this man. She had to stay alive—to stay with Lex as long as she could, in any way she could.

Deliberately drifting toward the table where the papers were lying, she pointed to the farthest wall of the room. “The safe is over there. Behind that shelving with the horse sculptures.”

Following close on her heels, he said, “Get over there and open it! And don't try anything funny!”

“I wouldn't dream of it,” Christina said sarcastically. “I'm not a funny kind of girl.”

“Shut up and do as I say!”

Intensely aware of the gun pointed at her back, she walked ever so slowly across the room. All the while, her mind was racing, calculating. The only things she recalled being inside the safe were the jewels and a few old maps of the ranch from when Lex's great-grandparents had first purchased the property. There was nothing that she could use to fake Lawrence out, even for a few seconds.

Stall, Christina! Stall! Lex will surely be home soon!

The moment she reached the table, she paused and glanced back at her captor. His gaze was roaming wildly about the room, as though he expected someone to jump out of the shadows. For a second, while his eyes darted away from her, she considered leaping straight at him, but before she could make a move, his eyes were back on her, demonic and threatening.

“Did I tell you to stop, bitch?”

“No. But I don't have the combination to the safe. Besides, all the evidence isn't here. Geraldine has some of it with her.”

“Then you'd better get it here. Fast!”

Christina stared at him. If he was brazen enough to walk into the house without knowing how many people might be inside, then he'd obviously come here prepared to shoot whoever got in his way.

“She isn't here. She's away—on a trip with her daughter.”

“You're lying! She was supposed to meet me tomorrow at the Red Road Inn. She couldn't be away on a trip.”

Seeing she'd obviously confused him, she pressed her luck even further in hopes that she'd get him so distracted, he'd lose his focus. “I don't know where you got the idea that I would allow Geraldine to join our meeting,” she told him. “The only guests at that little party were going to be you and me, buster.”

His face turned beet-red; then he sucked in a deep breath and shook like a wet dog. Christina braced herself, half expecting him to lift the pistol and fire at her. Instead, he surprised her by suddenly taking on an eerily calm appearance.

“I'm beginning to see right through you,” he said, with smug certainty. “You and Geraldine don't have any evidence at all. You're running a bluff. You can't prove anything.”

Even as he spoke, Christina's mind was racing ahead, planning her next move. “That's where you're wrong. Geraldine has a tape recording that Paul made a week before you killed him. We discovered it among his things only a few days ago. He was having a very enlightening discussion with Edie Milton.”

His beady eyes widened, telling her that she'd momentarily stunned him.

“Edie? She didn't know anything about Paul's little accident.”

“Maybe not, but she knew you were a major thief. That's why you disabled the brakes on her car so that she'd be killed on the interstate.”

He sneered. “She was greedy—like you. That's why I killed her. She wanted more hush money. But I know she wouldn't have talked about the stock thing. She didn't want to go to the penitentiary any more than I did.”

“She did talk,” Christina flung back at him. “And so did the person who got the succinylcholine for you. Geraldine has a signed confession.”

His mouth fell wide open. “Gloria Westmore? How—she moved out of the state! You couldn't have known about her!”

Suddenly, from somewhere inside the house, the sound of a door opening and closing caught Lawrence's attention, and his gaze swung toward the open doorway.

Christina realized it was her one opportunity to make a move. All at once, she snatched up the burning candle and leaped to one side, out of the path of the gun barrel.

From the corner of her eye, she could see him turning, aiming and preparing to shoot. At the same time, she ducked and flung the candle straight at the picture window. The heavy metal holder crashed through the glass, while the burning wax stuck to the lace curtains, sending small flames crawling up the fabric.

“Christina!”

Lex's yell sounded somewhere in the hallway and she tried to shout a warning back at him, but the sound of her voice was blocked out as Lawrence fired the pistol at her.

Wildly, she dove behind an armchair while across the room the flames were growing, filling the room with smoke. She could hear bullets sinking into the padded upholstery as Lawrence began firing the gun into the chair. At that moment, Christina wondered if she'd ever see Lex again.

When Lex shot into the room, he hardly noticed the fire consuming the curtains and spreading across the outside wall. Through the smoke, he could see Lawrence, the gun raised in his hand as he moved straight at Christina.