Mason
Not exactly a warm and fuzzy invitation, but Abbie was thankful they were walking. Not easily and not very quickly. After all, she was barefoot, and Mason seemed to be as uncomfortable as she was.
“Tell me why you came here,” Mason tossed out. A demand that almost caused her heart to stop. Until he added, “Why did you want to work at the Ryland ranch?”
“You asked that in the interview,” she reminded him, but Abbie paraphrased the lie to refresh his memory. “You have one of the best track records in the state for cutting horses. I wanted to be part of that.”
Mercy, it sounded rehearsed.
He made a gruff sound to indicate he was giving that some thought. Thought smothered with suspicion. “You knew a lot about the ranch before you applied for the job?”
Abbie nodded—cautiously. The man had a way of completely unnerving her. “Sure. I did a lot of reading about it on the internet.”
“Like what?” he fired back.
She swallowed hard and hoped her voice didn’t crack. “Well, I read the ranch has a solid reputation. Your father, Boone Ryland, started it forty years ago when he was in his early twenties.”
Mason stopped and whirled around so quickly that it startled her. He aimed his index finger at her as if he were about to use it to blast her into another county. Then, he turned and started walking again.
“My father,” he spat out like profanity, “bought the place. That’s it. He didn’t even have it paid off before he hightailed it out of here, leaving his wife and six sons. A wife who committed suicide because he broke her spirit and cut her to the core. He was a sorry SOB and doesn’t deserve to have his name associated with my ranch that I’ve worked hard to build.”
The venom stung, even though Abbie had known it was there. She just hadn’t known it would hurt this much to hear it said aloud and aimed at her.
“You don’t look as much like your father as your brothers do,” she mumbled. And before the last word had left her mouth, Abbie knew it had been a Texas-sized mistake.
Mason stopped again, so quickly that she ran right into him. It was like hitting a brick wall. An angry one.
“How the hell would you know that?” Mason demanded.
Oh, mercy.
Think, Abbie, think.
“I saw your father’s picture,” she settled for saying.
The staring started again. Followed by his glare that even the darkness couldn’t conceal. “What picture?” he asked, enunciating each word.
Abbie shook her head and started walking. Or rather, she tried to do that. But Mason caught onto her arm and slung her around to face him.
“What picture?” he repeated.
She searched for a lie he’d believe, one that could get her out of this nightmare that she’d created. But before she could say anything, Mason’s gaze snapped to the side.
And he lifted his gun in that direction.
For one horrifying moment, Abbie thought he was going to turn that gun on her, but his attention was focused on a cluster of trees in the distance. The trees were near the fence that Abbie had fought so hard to reach.
Mason stepped in front of her so quickly, she hadn’t sensed it coming. He put himself between her and those trees.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Shh,” he answered, and like the rest of this conversation, he sounded rough and angry.
Mason was a lot taller than she was, at least six foot three, so Abbie came up on her toes to look over his shoulder. She saw nothing. Just the darkness and the trees. Still, that nothing got her heart racing.
Because someone had set that fire.
In her attempts to evade Mason, Abbie had failed to realize that if Mason wasn’t on to her, if he didn’t know why she’d really come to the ranch, then someone else had set that fire.
Someone else had tried to scare her. Or worse.
Hurt her.
“You think someone’s out there?” she asked.
But Mason only issued another shh and looked around as if he expected them to be ambushed at any moment.
Abbie stayed on her toes, although the arches of her feet were cramping. She ignored the pain and watched.
She didn’t have to watch long.
There.
In the center of that tree cluster. She saw the movement. So slight that at first she thought maybe it was a shadow created by the low-hanging branches swaying in the wind. But then, the shadow ducked out of sight.
“I’m Deputy Mason Ryland,” Mason shouted. “Identify yourself.”
Silence. Well, except for her own heartbeat drumming in her ears. Who was out there? The person who’d set the fire? Or was this something worse?
“Get down on the ground,” Mason said to her. “I’m going closer.”
Abbie wanted to shout no, that it could be too dangerous to do that, but Mason caught onto her arm and pushed her to the ground. “Stay put,” he warned. And he started in the direction of those trees.
With each step he took, her heart pounded harder, so hard that Abbie thought it might crack her ribs. But she didn’t move, didn’t dare do anything that might distract Mason.
He kept his gun aimed. Ready. Kept his focus on the trees. When he was about fifteen yards away, there was more movement. Abbie got a better look then—at the person dressed head to toe in black.
Including the gun.
The moonlight flickered off the silver barrel.
“Watch out!” Abbie yelled to Mason.
But it was already too late. The person in black pointed the gun right at Mason.
Chapter Three
Mason dived to the ground and hoped Abbie had done the same. He braced himself for the shot.
It came all right.
The bullet blasted through the night air, the sound tearing through him. Mason took aim and returned fire. The gunman ducked just in time, and Mason’s shot slammed into the tree and sent a spray of splinters everywhere.
And that’s when it hit Mason. The gunman hadn’t fired at him.
But at Abbie.
Mason glanced over his shoulder to make sure she was okay. She seemed to be. She had stayed put on the ground with her hands covering her head. Good. But her hands wouldn’t stop a bullet.
What the devil was going on?
First the fire, now this. It wasn’t the first time danger had come to the ranch, but it was a first attack on one of his employees.
An employee who had plenty of questions to answer.
After Mason took care of this gunman, he would ask Abbie those questions. First, he wanted this shooter alive to answer some, too, but he had no trouble taking this guy out if it came down to it.
Mason kept watch on the spot where he’d last seen the gunman, and he lifted his head slightly so he could have a better chance of hearing any kind of movement. He heard some all right.
Footsteps.
Mason cursed. The gunman was running.
Escaping.
Mason fired another shot into the trees and hoped it would cause the guy to stop. It didn’t. Once the sound of the blast cleared, Mason heard the footsteps again and knew the shooter was headed for the fence. He would make it there, too, because it wasn’t that far away, and once he scaled it, he could disappear into the woods.
That wouldn’t give Mason those answers he wanted.
Mason got to a crouching position and watched the fence, hoping that he would be able to see the shooter and wound him enough to make him stop. But when the sound of the footsteps stopped, the guy was nowhere in sight.
“Don’t get up,” Mason barked to Abbie.
But that’s exactly what he did. He kept his gun ready, but he started running and made a beeline to the fence. Mason ran as fast as he could. However, it wasn’t fast enough. He heard the gunman drop to the other side of the fence.
Mason considered climbing the fence and going after him. That’s what the rancher in him wanted to do anyway. But his cop’s training and instincts reminded him that that would be a quick way to get himself killed.
Maybe Abbie, too.
The gunman could be there waiting for Mason to appear and could shoot him, and then go after Abbie. His brothers and some of the ranch hands were no doubt on the way to help, but they might not arrive in time to save her.
So Mason waited and stewed. Whoever had set that fire and shot at Abbie would pay for this.
When he was certain they weren’t about to be gunned down, Mason stood. He kept his attention and gun on the fence and backed his way to Abbie.
“Let’s get out of here,” he ordered.
Mason didn’t have to tell her twice. She sprang to her bare feet and started toward the ranch—backward, as Mason was doing.
“Why did he try to kill you?” he asked her without taking his attention off the fence.
Abbie didn’t jump to deny it, but she didn’t volunteer anything either. She was definitely hesitating, and Mason didn’t like that.
“Why?” he pressed.
“I’m in the Federal Witness Protection Program,” she finally said.
Of all the things Mason had expected to hear, that wasn’t on his list. But his list now included a whole barnyard of questions.
“Who’s the gunman?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Mason couldn’t help it. He cursed again. “And you thought it was okay to bring this kind of danger to the ranch without warning anyone? Someone other than you could have been killed tonight.”
He knew that sounded gruff. Insensitive even. But no one had ever accused him of putting sensitivity first. Still, he felt…something. Something he cursed, too. Because Mason hated the fear in Abbie’s voice. Hated even more the vulnerability he saw in her eyes.
Oh, man.
This was a damsel-in-distress reaction. He could face down a cold-blooded killer and not flinch. But a woman in pain was something he had a hard time stomaching. Especially this woman.
He blamed that on the flimsy gown. And cursed again.
“I need details,” he demanded. “Why are you in witness protection, and why would someone want you dead?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could say anything, Mason heard Grayson call out to them. “Are you two okay?”
Mason was, but Abbie looked ready to keel over. “We’re not hurt,” he shouted to his brother. Because the gunman was probably long gone, Mason turned in Grayson’s direction so he could get to him faster. “The guy shot at Abbie.”
“Abbie?” Grayson questioned. Like the other half dozen or so ranch hands with him, he was armed.
“She’s the new cutting-horse trainer I hired,” Mason explained. “And she’s in witness protection.”
The news seemed to surprise Grayson as much as it had him.
“I don’t know who tried to kill me,” Abbie volunteered.
Her voice wasn’t just shaky, it was all breath and nerves. She let out a small yelp when she stumbled. Probably landed on a rock, because there were plenty enough to step on. That did it. Mason put his gun in the back waist of his jeans and scooped her up. He didn’t forget that it was the second time tonight he’d had her in his arms—and neither circumstance had been very good.
Too bad she felt good.
She smelled good, too, even though he could pick up traces of the smoke. Her scent, the feel of her, stirred things he had no intentions of feeling, so he told those feelings to back off. Way off. He wasn’t going there with Abbie.
Then he looked down at her. Saw the shiny tears in her eyes. Heard the slight hitch in her breath when she tried to choke back those tears.
“I’ve been in witness protection for twenty-one years,” she whispered.
Mason did the math. If he remembered correctly, Abbie was thirty-two. That meant she’d entered the program at age eleven. A kid.
“And nothing like this has ever happened to you?” Grayson asked, sounding a little too much like a hard-nosed cop for Mason’s liking.
That was a big red flag, because Mason remembered that it was a question he should have asked. No. He should have demanded. He forced himself to remember that he was a deputy sheriff and that Abbie had put them all in danger.
Still, he felt that twinge of something he rarely felt. Or rarely acknowledged anyway.
Sympathy.
He’d rather feel actual pain.
“Years ago, someone tried to kill me,” Abbie answered. And she paused for a long time. “Not long after my mom and I entered witness protection, someone fired shots at me.” Another pause. “They killed my mother.”
Oh, hell.
Nothing could have stopped that slam of sympathy. Nothing.
Mason and his brother exchanged glances, and Mason knew there’d be more questions. Had to be. Grayson would need to investigate the fire and shooting. One of them would also need to contact the U.S. Marshals who ran witness protection and let them know that Abbie’s identity had been compromised.
Still, twenty-one years was a long time to go without a compromise. And Mason considered something else. Why had it happened now, only three days after Abbie had arrived at the Ryland ranch?
A coincidence?
His gut was telling him no.
Mason kept that to himself and trudged the last leg of the distance to the ranch. He headed straight for his office, and this time he didn’t intend to let Abbie run away.
The first thing Mason did was place her on the sofa again, and despite all the sympathy he was feeling, he gave her a warning glance to stay put. Grayson followed him inside, no doubt ready to question Abbie, but Mason didn’t plan to start until he’d located a few things. First, he got Abbie a blanket and then he found her some socks.
“Who killed your mother?” Grayson started. “And why?”
Abbie put on the socks, mumbled a thanks and pulled the blanket around her.
Her sigh was long and weary. “My mother and I went into witness protection after she testified against her boss, Vernon Ferguson, a corrupt San Antonio cop.” Her voice was as shaky as the rest of her. “Ferguson got off on a technicality, and shortly afterward he sent a hired gun named Hank Tinsley after us. Tinsley turned up dead a few days later.”
Mason figured there were plenty of details to go along with that sterile explanation. The stuff of nightmares. Something he knew a little about because his grandfather Chet had been shot and left to die. Mason had been seventeen, and even though nearly twenty-one years had passed, the wound still felt fresh and raw.
Always would.
Not just for him but for all his brothers.
That wound had deepened to something incapable of being healed when his father had left just weeks later. And then his mother had committed suicide.
Oh, yeah. He could sympathize with Abbie.
But sympathy wasn’t going to keep her safe.
“You think this Vernon Ferguson came after you tonight?” Mason asked. He stood over her, side by side with Grayson.
Abbie shook her head. “Maybe.”
It was a puzzling answer, and Grayson jumped on it. “You have somebody else other than Ferguson trying to kill you?”
“I don’t know. Over the past twenty years, Ferguson has managed to find me two other times, and both times he sent hired guns. Nothing recent, though. Mainly because we’ve been very careful.”
Mason didn’t miss the we, and later he would ask who this person was in her life. Because it might be important to the investigation. Not because he was thinking she had a boyfriend stashed away. On her job application she had said she was single, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in love with someone.
And for some reason, a reason Mason didn’t want to consider, that riled him a little.
Abbie closed her eyes a moment and when she opened her eyes, she turned them on Mason. “My caseworker is Deputy U.S. Marshal Harlan McKinney over in Maverick County. He’ll need to know about this.”
Mason nodded, but it was Grayson who reacted. “I’ll call him. And check in with the fire chief.” Grayson glanced at her shoeless feet peeking out from the blanket. “I’ll also ask my wife about getting you some clothes.”
“Thank you,” she said in a whisper. Abbie didn’t move until Grayson was out of the office and had shut the door. Then she sat up as if ready to leave.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Mason reminded her.
She blinked. “But I figured you’d demand that I leave. It’s not safe for any of you with me here.”
“That’s probably true, but you’re still not going anywhere.” In case she’d forgotten, he took his badge from his desk and clipped it to the waist of his jeans. “You’ve got six lawmen on this ranch.”
Her gaze came to his again. “And yet someone still got to me.”
Yeah, and that meant whoever had done this was as bold as brass, stupid or desperate. Mason didn’t like any of those scenarios.
“Why would Ferguson still want you dead if he got off on the charges with a technicality?” Mason asked. He located a black T-shirt in the closet and pulled it on. He grabbed his black Stetson, too.
“Maybe he still considers me a loose end.” But she didn’t sound convinced.
And that only reinforced the fact that something just wasn’t right here.
Mason pulled his chair over to the sofa and sat so that he’d be more at her eye level. Abbie adjusted her position, too, easing away from him, and in the process the blanket slid off her.
Great.
He felt another punch of, well, something stirring below the belt when he got another look at the gown. And at her breasts barely concealed beneath the fabric. Not a good combination with that vulnerable face and her honey-brown eyes.
“I swear, I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she said. “I didn’t know Ferguson could find me. I’ve always been careful.”
Mason made a heavy sigh and reached out. He doubted his touch would give her much comfort, but he had to do something. He put his fingertips against her arm. Rubbed gently.
And he felt that blasted below-the-belt pull happen again.
Their gazes met, and the corner of her mouth lifted. Not a smile but more of a baffled expression. Either she figured out he was going nuts or else she was feeling something, too.
“For the record, I didn’t think you’d be like this,” she said.
The cryptic remark got his attention, and Mason would have asked what she meant. If her gown hadn’t shifted. Yeah, he saw her breasts. The tops of them anyway. And while they snagged his attention in a bad way, it was what was between her breasts that snagged it even more.
The pendant.
Or rather, the silver concho.
He instantly recognized it because he had one just like it. All of his brothers did. A custom-made gift from their father with their initials on the back. A blood gift he’d given them all just days before he’d run out on them.
Abbie gasped when she followed Mason’s gaze, and she slapped her hand over the concho. Mason just shoved her hand away and had a better look at the front of it.
And there it was.
The back-to-back Rs for the Ryland ranch. This wasn’t a new piece either. It was weathered and battered, showing every day of its twenty-one years.
Abbie tried again to push his hand away, but Mason grabbed both her wrists. He turned the concho over, even though it meant touching her breasts. But it wasn’t her breasts that held his attention right now. It was the other initials on the back.
B.R.
For his father, Boone Ryland.
Mason let go of the concho, leaned down and got right in Abbie’s face, but it took him a moment to get his teeth unclenched so he could ask her the mother of all questions.
“Who the hell are you?”
Chapter Four
Abbie knew her situation had just gone from bad to worse. She also knew that Mason wasn’t just going to let her run out of there again. Not that she could.
Not now.
Not after the gunman’s attack.
She’d opened this dangerous Pandora’s box and had to stay around long enough to close it. If she could. But closing it meant first answering the Texas-sized question that Mason had just asked.
Who the hell are you?
“I’m Abbie Baker,” she said, knowing that didn’t clarify anything, especially because it was a name given to her twenty-one years ago by the U.S. Marshals when she and her mom had entered witness protection.
Her real name was Madelyn Turner. Maddie. But she no longer thought of herself as that little girl who’d nearly died from a hired gun’s bullet.
She was Abbie Baker now.
And she had a thoroughly riled, confused cowboy lawman looming over her. He was waiting for answers that didn’t involve her real name or anything else so mundane. Mason’s attention and narrowed glare were on the concho.
“Where did you get it?” he asked.
Abbie considered another lie. She’d gotten so good at them over the years, but no one was that good. There was no way she could convince Mason that she’d found the concho and then had coincidentally applied for a job at the Ryland ranch.
There was nothing chance about it, and now she might have endangered not just Mason but also his entire family. Someone had come after her tonight, and she had to get to the bottom of that—fast.
First, though, she had to get past Mason, literally. And that meant giving him enough information to satisfy him but not so much that he would have a major meltdown.
“Where did you get the concho?” he repeated.
Abbie tried not to look as frightened as she felt, but she figured she wasn’t very successful. “Your father gave it to me.”
She saw the surprise go through his eyes. Maybe Mason had thought she’d stolen it or something.
“My father?” he snapped.
Abbie settled for a nod, knowing she would have to add details. But the devil was in those details, and once Mason heard them, he might physically toss her off the ranch. That couldn’t happen at this exact moment.
“When?” he pressed. “Why?”
She had no choice but to clear her throat so she could answer. “When I turned sixteen. He said it was a good-luck charm.”
That was a lie. Actually, Boone had said he wanted her to have it because it was his most valuable possession. Something he’d reserved for his own children.
Nothing about his severe expression changed. Mason’s wintry eyes stayed narrowed to slits. His jaw muscles stirred. He continued to glare at her. For several snail-crawling seconds anyway. Then he cursed. One really bad word. Before he turned and scrubbed his hands over his face. It seemed to take him another couple of moments to get his jaw unclenched.
“So Boone is alive,” he mumbled. “Or at least he was when you were sixteen.”
“He still is alive,” Abbie confirmed. “I talked to him on the phone before I went to bed.” She chose her words carefully. “He met my mother and me about four months before she was killed.”
“Where?” he barked.
“Maverick County. But we’ve lived plenty of other places since then.” She paused because she had to gather her breath. “We move a lot, finding work at ranches all over the Southwest. He’s always worried that Vernon Ferguson will find me.” And finish what he’d started.
Mason’s eyes narrowed even more. “Boone lived with you?”
“He raised me,” Abbie corrected.
That didn’t improve Mason’s ornery mood. More profanity, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a dry smile that held no humor at all.
“He raised you.” And he repeated it. “He couldn’t raise his own sons or be a husband to his wife, but yet he took you in. Why?”
Abbie had asked herself that a thousand times and still didn’t have the answer. “It was either that or I would have had to go into foster care. There weren’t many options for a kid in witness protection.”
“You would have been better off in foster care,” Mason mumbled. “I figured the SOB was dead.” He held up his hand in a stop gesture when she started to speak. “He should be dead.”