Lies That Bind (13 page)

Tessa laughed. Wealthy philanthropist and rumored Dom of all Doms? Yeah, she could see why Rex might wonder. “He’s a friend, a benefactor. As for the rest… Even I’m not brave enough to step into that world.” Though she had tried one night. It hadn’t gone well.

Relief seeped into Rex’s face with his smile. “Good.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I need to get back to work.”

Tessa hated to see him go. He’d had a long day too.

Tyler hauled a T-shirt on, then finger-combed his short hair. “He’ll stay if you ask him.”

Tempting, but he was already out the door, and he did have a job to do. “I’ll never put him in the position of choosing me over work. That’s not right.” She cocked her head to one side. “We could go with him.”

“Whatever you’d like.”

Answers? An easy solution to the problems ahead? She combed the tangles from her hair as she eased from bed. “Don’t worry. I still know how to be a cowgirl.”

Tyler grinned. “Never a doubt. I’ll trust you to tell me when I need to saddle up.”

“You can count on it, cowboy.”

He hooked her elbow when she walked by, dragged her against him, kissed her slow and sweet, made her second-guess her decision to head out rather than crawl back into bed with him.

“Time to cowgirl up.” He swatted her backside and walked away.

Laughter bubbled up. “Oh, you’re going to pay for that, mister.”

“I do hope so,” he said over his shoulder, cowboy boots thunking the floor with every step. “Come on, let’s eat up. We’ve got work to do.”

Tessa grinned and admired his backside as he walked away.
You can run, but you can’t hide.

* * * *

There was the Tessa Rex loved. At least one of the versions. Without makeup and her hair pulled into a ponytail, she looked ten years younger. She’d dressed in worn jeans, dusty boots, and an oversize yellow Western shirt, clothing Tyler insisted they keep “just in case,” then kept them in his own closet. Rex was glad he did.

Tessa walked right up to the serving line, no hesitation in her step, and started to work like she’d never left. Oh the memories that stirred, among other things. He watched her work, the glow in her face. For all her talk, Tessa loved this. She had from the first day she’d arrived three years ago. Mike’s little bombshell ruined it all. Rex couldn’t fault her anger at Mike. He was none too pleased either with the lie. But they’d been caught up in the fallout, and there was nothing right about that. Considering Derek’s condition, a better choice would have been for Mike to keep his damn mouth shut. Derek would have been happy. The land and ranch could have passed into their hands without all this turmoil. Derek never would have cut them out.

Yeah, you used to think that about Tessa too. Look what happened.

Rex told the voice in his head to shut the fuck up. She’d tried to do right by Derek. It wasn’t her fault Derek never filed the quitclaim deed. As for the rest of it… He didn’t want to think about any of that right now. It was in the past. They had a fresh start, and he was going to see they took full advantage of it. Let the chips fall where they may. She could leave, but he didn’t intend to let distance keep them apart. Not now, not ever again. He loved her.

The emotion strangled his heart and nearly brought him to his knees. He loved her, and she’d made it quite clear she had no intention of staying here or keeping the ranch she’d worked so hard to help make successful. Rex would crawl naked through cow shit and broken glass if that’s what it took to get her to stay there with him, with them.

“Whips or lasso tonight?” Brett asked through a lip full of bubblegum. He did it for effect, to seat the character of grizzled cowpoke. Guests thought it was chew.

Rex didn’t have the focus for whip play tonight. “I’m out tonight. Lassos.”

“Could do target shootin’ too.”

“No, I don’t want to risk it.” Chills raced through Rex’s body. Had Derek gone out the night before and gotten hit by an errant bullet? No. He wouldn’t have been stupid enough to put himself in the line of fire. Even if he wanted to end his life, Derek would never have put that kind of guilt on another person.

“He was too far out.” Tyler stood beside him, watching Tessa work the last of the people in the food line. She had a smile for everyone, bright and welcoming.

“We only have Tito’s word that Derek was shot, and we know that was nothing more than a wild-ass guess. Robert Baron said the autopsy hadn’t been done yet.”

Someone was lying. Rex put his money on that being Tito. He’d known Tito for ten years and didn’t have much respect for him as a man or a sheriff. Derek had been pretty vocal about the upcoming election, swearing he’d run himself rather than see Tito Llano in the office again. Tito wouldn’t be above creating a case where it didn’t exist just to prove how great a sheriff he was. With the election looming, Tito had to do something to win. Finding a murderer, even one who wasn’t there, would cinch a victory. God help the innocent person he arrested. Rex prayed it wasn’t going to be one of them.

It’d be the perfect way to shut up the most vocal advocate against him.

Yeah, Tito might be desperate enough to take advantage of Derek’s death, but shooting Nate? Tito was many things, but not a killer.

Rex stretched the kinks from his back, then leaned into the nearest post. Their guests where fully engaged, watching Brett dance his way through loops and twirls and rope anything in sight, including the pretty blonde nearest him—his wife, but the guests didn’t need to know that.

“Robert Baron must have cut us some slack and not filed a report yet.” Tyler braced his shoulder next to Rex’s. “Tito wouldn’t miss a chance to come pounding on our doors again.”

“He could be lying in wait outside Nate’s hospital room.” One of them should have stayed there. Rex hoped hospital security was diligent enough to keep visitors away, as per doctor’s orders.

“If Tito’s going to lie about an autopsy, I hate to see what he’d do to possible evidence.” Tyler moved his head closer to Rex’s. “You get the arrow?”

The news he’d been avoiding. “It’s gone. I asked Brett if he saw the bloodied T-shirt in your quiver, and he said he didn’t.”

“Fuck,” Tyler muttered.

“Any chance it could have fallen out while you were trying to get Nate back?”

“Anything’s possible, but I don’t see how. It was in there tight. Now what?”

Rex pressed his lips together, considering their options. “I don’t know. We could head out in the morning and look. But the chance of a blood-soaked T-shirt still being there are zero.” The critters would have gotten to it by now, destroying it and contaminating any DNA.

“Do we tell Tessa?” Tyler tipped his chin in her direction. She wrestled a pan from the steam table and headed toward the inn. “She has connections.”

Serious connections, all thanks to Oliver Holbrook. And it pissed Rex off to have to use them. He wanted all her ties to be to them, not the life she’d created without them. They could take care of Tessa just as well as Oliver Holbrooke could, and they didn’t need or want his help.

He laughed at himself, realizing too late he’d snorted out loud when Tyler looked at him from the corner of his eye. “I don’t know if there’s anything she can do, but I’m sure not going to keep her in the dark.” They pushed away from the post in unison and headed for the kitchen door.

* * * *

Tessa’s back ached, sweat soaked her scratchy-as-hell shirt, but her heart? Pride nearly burst it. This was
her
work. All the organizational measures she’d put into place still existed. The recipes she’d help create were here, used daily, enjoyed by the hordes of people who came to Rustlers Retreat. The staff might have changed a tad, but these things remained constant. Her work. Still shining.

Her ranch. Her land. A legacy she’d never wanted, yet embraced before she’d known the truth. Talk about feeling conflicted.

Working side by side with the people she admired didn’t help her sort it out either. Ed, the cook, feeling his age at sixty-five, but still ruling the kitchen. Hannah, majordomo over housekeeping, and God help the fool who left a speck of dust where she could find it. A formidable husband-and-wife duo. They were the first hired when Mary Ford’s illness kept her from working. They were fully experienced and ready to work. Neither balked at taking orders from the “kids.” They’d jumped in with both feet.

“How you holdin’ up?” Ed asked. “Been a long time since you worked the line, little missy.”

“I still got what it takes, though.” She scraped the leftover potatoes and onions into a large container. The dish would resurface at breakfast.

“Looks that way to me,” Hannah said.

“Sure coulda used you here last week.” Ed stacked empty trays. “Everybody in town came to Dog Days.”

“I heard it was fun.” Not a good time to point out she was only here now because of Derek. Her conscience was doing a damn fine job reminding her, and Tessa was just about fed up with it. “Heard you had games. What kind?”

“Ropin’, ridin’, target shootin’ both guns and archery.” Hannah crossed her arms and leaned against the counter. “Competition was fierce in those last two. You’d think we were handin’ out gold bars. In the end, Kevin Drummond took the prize for shootin’. Ethel Turnbauer got it for archery. She beat out her daddy, Tito, and Derek. Boy, and her daddy wasn’t too happy about that.”

Tessa imagined not. She felt for the woman. Ethel was always trying so hard to please her father and never quite measuring up to whatever standards he demanded. He was barely civil to her in public. Tessa couldn’t imagine how he treated Ethel in private.

“You know she was back again this afternoon with yet another casserole shortly after you all took off to the hospital,” Hannah told her. “Woman’s testing my patience.”

“I suppose she means well. I saw her at the hospital with a baby present.”

“She sure gets around. I’ll give her that.”

Hannah’s nudge pulled Tessa’s attention to the doorway as Rex and Tyler walked in.

“Can’t help wonderin’ who’s corralled who around here. Maybe a little of both? Or a lot?”

Hannah’s knowing chuckle still had the power to heat Tessa’s cheeks.

“They’ve missed you, sugar.”

Heat built to a burn. She turned away before the men could see it.

“We’ve got this,” she heard Rex say. The kitchen help scattered to other tasks, leaving the five of them alone.

“You’re gonna wash?” Ed asked.

“Calluses need a good soak,” Rex replied.

Tessa looked around to find him smiling, arms deep in the sink, billowing suds kissing his elbows.

“Hmph. Only one reason a man’s wantin’ softer hands.” Ed leaned against the counter, arms crossed, bushy eyebrows shading narrowed eyes. “Ain’t that right, Tess?”

That filled the room with laughter. Tessa wrapped a hug around the man. “I’ll never tell.”

Another
hmph
. This one earned him a towel snap from Hannah. “Mind your tongue, Ed. Boy’ll be on his guard now, sneaking behind our backs.”

More laughter. God, she’d missed this.

“Now that you mention it…” Tyler grabbed another towel from the linen drawer to start drying. “Why don’t you two sneak off for the night? We’ve got this.”

And Tessa thought the younger help could move fast. Ed and Hannah took off like the devil chased them.

She, Tyler, and Rex worked in silence for a few minutes. Rex washed, and Tyler dried. She put leftovers away, wiped counters, and did some general setup for the next morning.

“We have a situation,” Rex finally said, then laid out the problem. “The arrow’s missing.”

Dread crawled down her spine. “I saw it in the quiver when we left for the hospital.”

“That means someone took it.” Tyler slapped the towel onto the counter.

No accident. No suicide. They were being targeted.

Tessa was aware of Rex stepping up, of the tension in his shoulders, the flex of his fingers as he curled them over her shoulder. Tyler came up on her other side, cupping her elbow. She appreciated the support, the show of strength. She sagged into their hard bodies, knowing they’d keep her safe from everything.
This is what it was like to be…

Though she tried to stop her thoughts from thinking the word,
love
appeared anyway. Those raw emotions again, running away with themselves. She kept this one to herself.

“I’m ready to call it a night.” Rex tipped her chin up for a quick kiss. “I’m exhausted.”

Bless you
. Tessa didn’t think she had the energy to keep up with them tonight, and she sure as hell didn’t want to hash out theories.

Tyler dusted his hand down her leg and gave a little pat to her thigh. “Me too. Your place might be better. Fresh sheets.”

With a bed no bigger than Tyler’s. Sleeping separately wasn’t an option—for any of them. They were three, no question about it. How perfect that the declaration came from Tyler. She loved that Tyler liked the semisubmissive side in bed while having no problem taking a dominant role in the rest of his life. As for Rex…

Her heart clenched at the thought, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. A little shiver ran through her.

“Tessa? You okay?” Rex cupped her neck, his thumb tracing her pulse point.

Okay? She couldn’t say. All the reasons she’d fought for being with them rushed in. She was hooked, still crazy in love. The ranch…

Tessa laughed at herself. Only that morning she’d been determined to never have anything to do with it. Now she realized how much it really meant to her. How much
they
meant to her.

She slid out from between them. “I’m good. Tired but good.” Tessa grabbed their hands and gave them a little tug toward the door. “Come on. Though few things please me more than the three of us nice and tight together, I think we can find a bed that’s a little bit better.”

Chapter Ten

Tessa swore she’d never sleep in this room again—the room she’d occupied each time she came to the ranch on business. Somehow the place had gradually become her home, even more so, considering her feelings for Rex and Tyler. Mike never blinked an eye when they’d started sharing the room with her.