One Night Standoff (5 page)

Chapter Six

Lenora kept her attention plastered to the side mirror. It’d been nearly an hour and a half since she’d last seen the two gunmen in the SUV, but she wasn’t taking any more chances. She’d already made enough stupid mistakes, and she couldn’t afford to make more.

Even though that might be exactly what she was doing now.

That’s because Clayton had insisted on driving them to his family’s ranch, which she estimated was now only a few miles away. She figured with six marshals living there the place was safe enough, but she hadn’t wanted to bring the danger to Clayton’s doorstep.

Soon, very soon, she’d need to make arrangements to leave Maverick County. The state. Heck, maybe even the country.

“Dead end,” Clayton mumbled when he finished his latest call to his brother.

Lenora had lost count of how many phone conversations there had been, all with his marshal brothers, but so far none of the calls had given Clayton and her any good news. This one didn’t sound any better.

From one of the calls, they’d learned that by the time the cops from Sadler’s Falls had made it to the farm road, the gunmen in the SUV had been nowhere in sight, and even a makeshift roadblock had failed to rein them in. Worse, recovering their spent shell casings from the woods and cemetery would probably turn out to be a needle-in-a-haystack search.

“The license plates on the SUV didn’t pan out,” Clayton relayed to her. “They were fake.”

Of course they were. Every indication was that these guys were pros, and they wouldn’t have made the mistake of using a vehicle that could be traced back to them or the person who’d hired them. Still, she’d hoped Clayton and she would get lucky.

“Dallas thinks he’s figured out how these guys found you,” Clayton added. “Apparently, the Sadler’s Falls newspaper ran a front-page article about the restoration of the stained-glass windows at the church. In addition to being printed and circulated, the story was posted on the newspaper’s online site.”

“But I used a fake name.” However, Lenora immediately realized that didn’t matter. “These guys had probably scoured the web, looking for anything to do with stained-glass restoration.” And the article had led them to her.

Yet another mistake on her part.

She shouldn’t have taken work doing any restoration, especially not in such a small town, where she couldn’t just blend in.

“These gunmen obviously used the same approach I did to find you,” Clayton reminded her. “That’s why you need to be someplace where I can keep you safe.”

In his mind, that someplace safe was the ranch.

“I really don’t like the idea of coming here,” she said again.

Again, he just seemed to ignore her, and he glanced at her stomach. “Are you okay?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d asked that, and Lenora nodded as she’d done before. To say she was okay would be a lie, but that was only because her nerves were frazzled and she was exhausted. She hadn’t been hurt, and she knew the baby was fine because he or she was kicking like crazy.

She considered plopping Clayton’s hands on her belly so he could feel those kicks as proof that the baby was truly okay, but that seemed almost intimate. Strange, considering they’d had sex, but he didn’t remember that one-night stand, and reminding him of it probably wasn’t a good idea. Not when she was trying to keep some emotional and physical distance between them.

“I guess it’s occurred to you that both attacks have come when we’ve been together,” she tossed out there. “And that’s a good reason for me not to be at the ranch. I don’t want anyone in your family hurt because of me.”

He turned off the main highway and onto a two-lane road. “That baby is part of my family.”

Oh, mercy. That sounded territorial, and while it was true that the baby was his, Clayton was in no shape for fatherhood. He’d been sharp and efficient when making the wrap-up calls about this latest shooting, but his bunched-up forehead let her know that he was in pain. Probably a heck of a lot more pain than he’d ever be willing to admit.

“Are
you
okay?” she asked, repeating his question.

That caused him to scowl, but then he winced at making the simple facial gesture. The pain was obviously getting worse.

He reached over, threw open the glove compartment and took out a prescription bottle. He shoved two pills into his mouth, gulped some water from the bottle on the console between them and threw the meds back in the glove compartment.

“I can drive,” she offered.

When he didn’t answer her, she grabbed some tissues from beneath his meds, wet them with water and pressed it to the back of his neck. At first he flinched as if he might push her hand away, but then he mumbled a thanks.

“My mother had migraines,” she explained. “She said a cool cloth helped sometimes.”

“It does,” he agreed a moment later. “But what’ll help more is to find the person responsible for these attacks.”

She had to agree with that, but so far they had zero leads. Well, except the most obvious one—Clayton and her.

“There’s only one motive I can think of as to why we’ve been attacked twice. Someone wants to eliminate us as witnesses to Jill’s murder. Without us, maybe Riggs’s lawyers might feel they can manipulate the evidence to get the charges reduced or dismissed.”

He made a sound of agreement. “So, Riggs maybe hired someone, but he would have needed help to orchestrate an attack like this. And I don’t mean just money kind of help. He’d need someone he could trust on the outside to do the legwork.”

Clayton took another turn onto an even narrower road, and she saw the sign for the Blue Creek Ranch. Clayton’s home.

Lenora shifted the wet tissues a little, and her fingers grazed the back of his neck. Clayton didn’t move, but he made another sound that might have been a grunt of pain.

But she rethought that.

Even though she couldn’t see his eyes behind those shades, the breath that left his mouth wasn’t of pain, but of discomfort.

Maybe it was this blasted attraction that still seemed to be between them. He probably wasn’t any more comfortable with it than she was. However, that didn’t make it go away.

“Any ideas who Riggs could have hired?” she asked, forcing her thoughts back on the only subject that she should be thinking about—this investigation.

“No one immediately comes to mind. What about you? Any ideas?”

“Yes,” she had to answer. “The task-force leader, James Britt. I told you that his behavior after your shooting was suspicious.”

“You didn’t talk to him about it?” Clayton immediately wanted to know. The concern was in his voice now, probably because he was worried that she’d tipped her hand and let James think she believed he was doing something illegal.

“No. In fact, I haven’t spoken to him since your shooting. He thinks I left the justice department because I was shaken by Jill’s murder. I was,” she added in a mumble.

“Yeah.” That’s all he said, but it was obvious from his expression he was thinking about it. She’d also slept with Clayton because she’d been
shaken.

Lenora quickly moved on to something else that didn’t involve memories of sex with Clayton. “What about Corey Dayton, the gunman I shot at the diner? Did anything turn up on who might have hired him?” Because that could lead them back to Riggs.

“Nothing so far, but I need to take a harder look at everything. That includes a chat with the prison officials where Riggs is being held. I want to know who he’s had communications with. I need to check out his lawyers, too.”

Yes, a lot of work ahead, but first she had to deal with what else lay ahead.
Literally.
She looked out at the sprawling pastures and equally sprawling ranch house at the end of the road. In addition to hundreds of Angus cows, there were also about a half dozen ranch hands milling around and doing various chores.

“My foster father came from money,” Clayton offered, maybe because she seemed so shocked by the sheer size of the place. “But he was first and foremost a lawman.”

A marshal, she recalled from the background check she’d read on Clayton. Now retired, Kirby Granger had rescued not only Clayton but five other boys from the Rocky Creek Children’s Facility.

Clayton tipped his head to an older wood frame house near the front of the pasture. “My brother Harlan lives there. You remember meeting him.”

Yes, he’d given her the third degree about why she was visiting Clayton while they rode in the ambulance to the hospital. Lenora was pretty sure that Harlan didn’t like her much.

He pointed to another place, not nearly as large as the main ranch house. A one-story that looked to be recently built. “My brother Dallas and his fiancée, Joelle, live there. You probably won’t see much of Joelle while you’re here. She’s finishing up her job in Austin, but she’ll move here for good in a month or two and work for the D.A.”

A big family and it was getting bigger. The baby would add to that, and it was a reminder that all the marshals on the Blue Creek Ranch might want to be part of not just the baby’s life but her own.

Not exactly a settling thought.

She’d spent years being private. Secretive. An out-and-out liar on occasion. Now she was about to be under the same roof with people devoted to upholding the law.

Clayton pulled to a stop in the circular drive in front of the main house. Lenora was so caught up in looking at the grounds, pastures and sheer size of the place that it took her several seconds to notice the man and woman seated in the white rockers on the porch, which stretched all the way across the front of the house. The woman was in her late fifties or early sixties, with a sturdy build and graying auburn hair. The man was younger, mid-thirties, and he wore a white Stetson, starched white shirt and jeans.

“What the hell?” Clayton mumbled. Judging from his frown, these were not people he wanted to see.

“I told him it wasn’t a good time,” the woman said, getting to her feet the moment Clayton and Lenora stepped from the truck. She was frowning until her gaze landed on Lenora—specifically on her stomach—and the frown shifted to a puzzling glance at Clayton.

“Lenora, this is Stella Doyle, a friend of the family.”

Clayton’s introduction had some frost to it, but Lenora didn’t think it was aimed at Stella, but rather at the man. When he stood from the rocker, Lenora saw the badge pinned to his chest. Not a marshal—a Texas Ranger.

“Ranger Griffin Morris,” the man introduced himself. He extended his hand, but Clayton didn’t shake it. “I understand you had some trouble over in Sadler’s Falls. Is the sheriff handling that?”

“A lot of us are handling that,” Clayton grumbled. “At least we were before I had to stop to talk to you.”

“He wanted to come in,” Stella explained, her mouth tight, “but I told him it wasn’t a good time, that you two had just got shot at.” Her gaze softened. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Clayton snarled, and Lenora settled for a nod.

“He’s got a headache,” Lenora said to no one in particular and she wadded up the wet tissues that she’d held to the back of his neck.

“Even more reason this isn’t a good time,” Stella mumbled. Obviously, she wasn’t any happier about the Ranger’s presence than Clayton, so that probably meant he wasn’t here about the shooting.

“Where are Kirby and the others?” Clayton asked Stella. He went up the steps and onto the porch, out of the direct sunlight.

Stella hitched her thumb toward the door. “Kirby’s in his room, recovering from the radiation treatment he got today. The nurse is with him. Your brothers are all out working on finding those men who shot at you.” She looked at Lenora then. “Kirby has cancer and is bad off. Might not make it, but Ranger Morris here didn’t seem to understand that this isn’t a good time for a visit.”

Oh, Lenora figured he understood all right, but obviously he had some official reason for being here. A critical reason. Because if he hadn’t, Stella would have probably already managed to send him on his way.

“I’ll handle this,” Clayton told Stella. “Why don’t you go ahead and take Lenora inside while I talk to the Ranger.”

Stella aimed a huff at Ranger Morris and motioned for Lenora to follow her. “I’ll be inside in a minute,” Lenora explained to the woman. First, she wanted to make sure this visit had nothing to do with everything else going on, and if it did, she was staying to hear what Morris had to say.

The Ranger volleyed glances between Clayton and her as if he was checking with Clayton to make sure it was all right for her to be there.

“You’re here about Jonah Webb,” Clayton said to the Ranger. So, not about the shooting, but Clayton didn’t seem to be shutting her out of the conversation.

Lenora remembered hearing that the body of a man had been found several months earlier. Jonah Webb. He’d been head of the children’s home where Clayton was raised. It’d been a nightmare of a place, from all accounts, and Webb had been responsible for most of the bad stuff that’d gone on there.

“I remember reading that Webb’s killer was caught,” she said to the Ranger.

Morris nodded. “His wife, Sarah, confessed to the crime, but we have a lot of evidence to indicate that she didn’t act alone. She’s not a large woman, and someone would have almost certainly had to help her move the body from the second floor of the building and then bury it.”

Oh, mercy. Did the Rangers think Clayton had done that? “Did Sarah Webb name an accomplice?”

He shook his head. “And she’s in a coma. She’s been that way since she was shot three months ago.”

By Clayton’s foster brother Dallas. Lenora had read all those details, too. Dallas had been forced to shoot the woman when she tried to kill him and his soon-to-be wife, Joelle.

“I wanted Webb dead,” Clayton volunteered. “But I didn’t help Sarah kill him or dispose of the body. And no one else in my family did, either.”

Ranger Morris didn’t have a reaction to that and looked at the notepad he pulled from his pocket. “I saw in your medical records from Rocky Creek that you were running a fever the night Webb disappeared.”

“One hundred two degrees,” Clayton confirmed. “I slept through the night.”