The Rancher Bodyguard

Who would want him dead? He’d been a wealthy man, a generous benefactor to numerous charities. He’d been well liked in the community and loved and respected by the two stepdaughters he’d claimed as his own.

Although he was the CEO of several industrial companies, he’d stopped working full-time a year ago and went in only occasionally for meetings.

He was kind and gentle, and his heart had been broken when Hope and Grace’s mother had left him, left them. Tears burned her eyes again and she struggled to hold them back as she realized she’d never again see his gentle smile, never again feel the touch of his hand on her shoulder.

It was just after seven when the hospital door creaked open and Charlie motioned her out of the room. She got up from the chair and joined him in the hallway, where he took her by the arm and led her away from Ben Taylor.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said when they were far enough down the hallway that Ben couldn’t hear their conversation. His gray eyes were like granite slabs, revealing nothing of his thoughts.

“What?” she asked.

“I have every reason to believe that as soon as Hope is well enough to be released by the doctor, she’s going to be arrested for the murder of your stepfather.”

Grace gasped. “But why? How could anyone think she’s responsible?”

He shifted his gaze and stared at some point just over her head. “Hope wasn’t just found passed out on her bed. Her room had been trashed as if she’d been in a fit of rage.”

“But that doesn’t make her a murderer,” Grace exclaimed. Although it was definitely out of character for Hope to do something like that. Hope had always been a neatnik who loved her room neat and tidy.

Charlie sighed and focused his gaze back on her. The darkness she saw there terrified her. “The real problem is that Hope was found covered in William’s blood—and she had a knife in her hand. It was the murder weapon.”

Chapter 2

Charlie watched as the color left Grace’s cheeks and she swayed on her feet. His first impulse was to reach out to her, but before he could follow through, she stiffened and took a step back from him.

She’d never been a needy woman—that was one of the things he’d always admired about her and ultimately one of the things he’d come to hate. That she wasn’t needy—that she had never really needed him.

“So, what do we do now?” Her strong voice gave away nothing of the emotional turmoil she must be feeling.

“Zack West wants to question her tonight. I just saw him in the lobby and he’s chomping at the bit to get to her. Give me a dollar.”

“Excuse me?” She looked at him blankly.

“Give me a dollar as a retainer. That will make it official that at least for now, I’m Hope’s legal counsel. She’s a minor. She can’t be questioned without me, and we can argue that as her legal guardian you have the right to be present, too.”

She opened her purse and withdrew a crisp dollar bill. He took it from her and shoved it into his back pocket. “I’ll go find Zack and we’ll get this over with.”

As he walked away, her scent lingered in his head. She’d always smelled like jasmine and the faintest hint of vanilla, and today was no different.

It was a scent that had stayed with him for months after she’d left him, a fragrance that had once smelled like desire and had wound up smelling like regret.

This was a fool’s job, and he was all kinds of fool for getting involved. From what little he’d already learned, it didn’t look good for the young girl.

If he got involved and ended up defending Hope, then failed, Grace would have yet another reason to hate his guts. Even if he defended Hope successfully, that wasn’t a ticket to the land of forgiveness where Grace was concerned.

Still, Charlie knew that in all probability Hope was going to need a damn good lawyer on her side, and he was just arrogant enough to believe that he was the best in the four-state area.

Besides, he owed it to Grace. Although at the time of their breakup they’d been not only on different pages but in completely different books, he’d never forgotten the rich, raw pain on her face when she’d been confronted by the knowledge that he hadn’t been monogamous.

Maybe fate had given him this opportunity to right the wrong, to heal some wounds and assuage the guilt he’d felt ever since.

He found Zack in the waiting room. The handsome sheriff was pacing the floor and frowning. He stopped in his tracks as Charlie approached him. “If you want to question Hope, then Grace and I intend to be present,” Charlie said.

Zack raised a dark eyebrow. “Are you here as Hope’s lawyer?”

“Maybe.” Charlie replied.

Zack sighed. “You going to make this difficult for me?”

“Probably,” Charlie replied dryly. “You can’t really believe that Hope killed William.”

“Right now, I’m just in the information-gathering mode. After I have all the information I need, then I can decide if I have a viable suspect or not.”

Zack had only been sheriff for less than a year, but Charlie knew he was a truth seeker and not a town pleaser. He would look for justice, not make a fast arrest in order to waylay the fears of the people in Cotter Creek. But if all the evidence pointed to Hope, Zack would have no choice but to arrest her.

“I heard you were working for Dalton,” Zack said.

Dalton was Zack’s brother and ran the family business, West Protective Services, an agency that provided bodyguard services around the country.

“I told him I’d be interested in helping out whenever he needed me,” Charlie replied. “But I need to get this situation under control before I do anything else.”

“Then let’s do it,” Zack said. He headed down the hallway toward Hope’s room and Charlie followed close behind.

Dr. Dell met them at her door, his arms crossed over his chest like a mythical guardian of a magical jewel. “I know you have a job to do here, Sheriff, but so do I. She’s still very weak, so I want this interview to be short and sweet.”

Zack nodded, and the doctor stepped away. Grace’s eyes narrowed slightly as Zack and Charlie entered the room. She sat next to the bed, where Hope was awake.

The kid looked sick and terrified as her gaze swept from Charlie to Zack. “Hope, you remember Zack West, the sheriff,” Grace said. “And Charlie is here as your lawyer.”

Hope’s eyes widened, and Charlie had a feeling she hadn’t realized just what kind of trouble she was in until this moment. Tears filled her eyes and she reached for her sister’s hand.

“I want to ask you some questions,” Zack said. He pulled a small tape recorder from his pocket and set it on the nightstand next to the bed. “You mind if I turn this on?”

Hope looked wildly at Charlie, who nodded his assent. Charlie stood next to Grace, trying to ignore the way her evocative scent made him remember the pleasure of making love with her and how crazy he’d been about her.

He couldn’t think about that now—he knew he shouldn’t think about that ever again. He couldn’t go back and change the past and that terrible mistake he’d made. All he could do was step up right now and hopefully redeem himself just a little bit.

“I told her about William,” Grace said to Zack, her chin lifted in a gesture of defiance. “She knows he was murdered but insists she had nothing to do with it.”

A knot of tension formed in Zack’s jaw. “I need to hear from her what happened today,” he said, and focused his gaze on Hope. “What’s the first thing you remember from this morning?”

Hope raised a trembling hand to her head and rubbed her temples. “I woke up around nine and went downstairs to get some breakfast. Nobody was around. It was Lana’s day off, and I figured William was still in bed. Lately he’d been sleeping in longer than usual.”

She stopped talking as tears once again filled her blue eyes. “I can’t believe he’s gone. I just don’t understand any of this. Why would somebody do this to him? What happened to me?”

“So, you made yourself breakfast, then what did you do?” Zack asked, seemingly unmoved by her tears.

Grace’s lips were a thin slash, and her pretty features were taut with tension. Several more strands of her shiny blond hair had escaped her barrette and framed her face.

Charlie was surprised to realize he wanted to do something, anything to erase that apprehensive look on her face, to alleviate the tortured shadows in her eyes.

“After I ate breakfast, I was still tired, so I went back to bed,” Hope replied. “And I woke up here.” Her features crumbled. “I don’t know what happened to William. I don’t know what happened to me.” She began to cry in earnest, deep, wrenching sobs.

Grace got up from her chair and put her arms around Hope’s slender shoulders and glared at Zack as if he were personally responsible for all the unhappiness on the entire planet.

“Isn’t this enough?” she asked, those blue eyes of hers filled with anger. “Can’t you see what this is doing to her?”

Unfortunately, Charlie knew that Zack was just getting started. “Grace, let’s just get this over with,” he said. “Zack has to question her sooner or later. We might as well get it finished now. We’ll give her a minute to pull herself together.”

Zack waited until Hope calmed down a bit before asking about any tensions between her and William and probing her about any fights her stepfather might have had with anyone else.

Charlie protested only a couple of times when he thought the questions Zack asked might incriminate Hope if she answered.

Despite Charlie’s efforts to protect Hope, what little information Zack got from the girl offered no alternative suspect and merely added to the mystery of what exactly happened in the Covington mansion that morning.

After an hour and a half of questioning, it was Grace who finally called a halt to the interrogation. “That’s enough for tonight, Zack,” she said firmly, as she rose from her chair. “Hope is exhausted. She isn’t going anywhere. If you have more questions for her, you can ask them another time.”

Zack nodded and reached over and turned off the tape recorder, then slipped the small device into his pocket. “I’ll be in touch. I guess I don’t have to tell you and Hope not to leave town.”

“Innocent people don’t leave town,” she replied vehemently.

Zack left the room and Grace leaned over her sister. “We’re going to go now, honey. We need to take care of some things. Nobody will bother you for the rest of the night. Just get some sleep and try not to worry. Charlie is going to fix all this, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

Charlie nearly groaned out loud. Sure, that was easy for her to say. But he was a defense attorney turned rancher, not a miracle worker.

They left the room together, and once out in the hallway Grace slumped against the polished wall. For the first time since arriving at his ranch, she looked lost and achingly fragile.

His need to touch her—to somehow chase away that vulnerable look in her eyes—was incredibly strong. “Do you need a hug?” The ridiculous words were out of his mouth before he’d realized he was going to say them.

She released a bitter laugh and shoved off the wall. “I’d rather hug a rattlesnake,” she said thinly.

If he had any question about the depth of her dislike for him, her curt reply certainly answered it.

“It doesn’t look good, does it?” she asked.

“It doesn’t look great,” he replied.

“So what happens now?” she inquired, as they continued down the hallway to the hospital’s front doors.

“Nothing for now. Questioning Hope is only the beginning. We really won’t know how much trouble she’s in until Zack’s completed his investigation into the murder.”

They stepped out into the unusually warm spring night air, and again he caught a whiff of her sweet floral scent. He wanted to ask her if she was dating anyone, if she’d found love with somebody else in the eighteen months since they’d been together.

He reminded himself he had no right to know anything about her personal life, that he’d given up any such right the night he’d gotten drunk and fallen into bed with a woman whose name he couldn’t even remember.

“I don’t want to wait for Zack,” she said. “I want us to investigate this murder just as vigorously as he will.”

Charlie looked at her in surprise. “That’s a crazy idea!” he exclaimed.

“Why is it crazy? You told me once that you worked as an investigator before you became a lawyer.”

“That was a long time ago,” he reminded her.

She crossed her arms, a mutinous expression on her face. “Fine, then I’ll investigate it on my own.” She turned on her heels and walked off.

Charlie sighed in frustration. “Grace, wait,” he called after her. “I can’t let you muck around in this alone. You could potentially do more damage than good for Hope.”

“Then help me,” she said, her voice low with desperation. “I’m all that Hope has. The only way to make sure she isn’t railroaded for a crime she didn’t commit is for me to find the guilty person, and that’s exactly what I intend to do—with or without your help.” She paused, her eyes glittering darkly. “So, are you going to help me or not?”

He shoved his hands in his jeans pocket and shook his head. “I’d forgotten just how stubborn you could be.”

“I don’t think you want to start pointing out character flaws in other people,” she said pointedly.

To Charlie’s surprise, he felt the warmth of a flush heat his cheeks. “Touché,” he said. “All right, we’ll do a little digging of our own. The first thing you should do is make a list of William’s friends and business associates. We need to pick his life apart if we hope to find some answers.”

“I can have a list for you by tomorrow. Why don’t you meet me at my shop around noon, and we can decide exactly where to go from there.”

“You’re going into work?” he asked in surprise.

“I’d rather meet you at the shop than at my place,” she replied.

“All right, then, tomorrow at noon,” he agreed reluctantly. Charlie had worked extremely hard over the last six months to gain control and now felt his life was suddenly whirling back out of control.

She nodded. “Charlie, you should know that just because I came to you for help—just because I need you right now—doesn’t mean I like you. When this is all over, I don’t want to see you again.” She turned and left without waiting for a response.

Jeez, he seemed to be watching her walking away from him a lot, especially after throwing a bomb at him. Still, he couldn’t help but notice the sexy sway of those hips beneath the suit skirt and the length of her shapely legs. A surge of familiar regret welled up inside him.

He was a man who made few excuses or apologies for the choices he made, but the mistake of throwing Grace away would haunt him until the day he died.

The morning sun was shining brightly as Grace parked in front of her dress shop on Main Street. She turned off the engine but remained seated in the car, her thoughts still on the visit she’d just had with Hope.

Hope had been no less confused about the events of the day before and didn’t seem to understand that at the moment she was the best suspect they had.

Fortunately, Dr. Dell wanted to keep her under observation for another twenty-four hours, and that was fine with Grace. The tox screen had come back showing a cocktail of drugs in Hope’s system but Hope was still vehemently denying taking anything. At the hospital, Hope was safe and getting the best care.

Grace wearily rubbed a hand across her forehead. The day was just beginning, and she was already exhausted. Her sleep had been a continuous reel of nightmares.

She’d been haunted by visions of Hope stabbing William and then taking the drugs that knocked her unconscious. And if that hadn’t been bad enough, images of Charlie also filled her dreams.

Charlie. She got out of the car and slammed the door harder than necessary, as if doing so could cast out all thoughts of the man.

She focused her attention on the shop before her. Sophisticated Lady had been a dream of hers from the time she was small. She’d always loved fashion and design, and five years ago for her twenty-fifth birthday, William had loaned her the money to open the shop.

Grace had worked her tail off to stock the store with fine clothing at discount prices, and within two years she’d managed to pay back the loan and expand into accessories and shoes.

Now all she could think about was whether she’d sacrificed her sister’s well-being for making her shop a success. She’d spent long hours here at the store, and when she wasn’t here she was away on buying trips or at Charlie’s place for the weekend.

As much as she hated to admit it, she didn’t know what had been going on in Hope’s life lately, but she intended to find out.

She entered the shop, turned on the lights and went directly to the back office, where she made a pot of coffee. With a cup of fresh brew in hand, she returned to the sales floor and sat on the stool behind the counter that held the register.

Much of her time the night before had been spent thinking about William, grieving for him while at the same time trying to figure out who might want him dead. The list of potential suspects she had to give to Charlie was frighteningly short.

The morning was unusually quiet. No customers had entered when Dana Taylor came through the door at eleven-thirty. “Hey, Grace,” she said, her tone unusually somber. “How are you holding up?”

“As well as can be expected,” Grace replied. “Right now I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around it all.”

“I’m so sorry,” Dana replied sympathetically.

“I was wondering if maybe you’d be available to take some extra hours for a while. I’m going to be busy with other things.”

“Not a problem,” Dana replied, as she stowed her purse under the counter. “When Ben got home from the hospital last night, he told me not to expect to see a lot of him for the next week or two.” She didn’t quite meet Grace’s eyes.

“There’s a new shipment of handbags in the back. If you have time this afternoon, could you unpack them and get them on display?” Grace asked, desperate to get over the awkwardness of the moment.

“Sure,” Dana agreed. “Any business this morning?”

“Nothing. It’s been quiet.” Grace turned toward the door as it opened to admit Charlie.

An intense burst of electricity shot through her at the sight of him, and instantly every defense she possessed went up.

“Morning, ladies,” he said as he ambled toward the counter. Clad in a pair of snug jeans and a short-sleeved white shirt, he looked half rancher, half businessman and all handsome male.

His square jaw indicated a hint of stubbornness and his eyes were fringed with long, dark lashes. His nose was straight, his lips full enough to give women fantasies of kissing them. In short, Charlie was one hot hunk.

His energy filled the air, and despite her wishes to the contrary, Grace felt a crazy surge of warmth as she gazed at him.

“Good morning, Charlie,” Dana replied. “How are things out at the ranch?”

“Not bad. The cattle are getting fat, and I’ve got a garden full of tomato and pepper plants that are going to yield blue-ribbon-quality product.”

Pride rang in his voice, a pride that surprised Grace. Two years ago, the only things that put that kind of emotion in his voice were his fancy surround-sound system, his state-of-the-art television and the new Italian shoes that cost what most people earned in a month.

He turned his gaze to Grace. “We need to talk,” he said. His smile was gone, and the enigmatic look in his gray eyes created a knot in Grace’s stomach.

“Okay. Come on back to my office,” she said.

He followed her to the back room, where she turned and looked at him. “Something else has happened?”

“No, I just have some new information.”

“What kind of information?” She leaned against the desk, needing the support because she knew with certainty whatever he was about to tell her wasn’t good.

“Did you know that Hope has a boyfriend?” he asked.

She frowned. “Hope is only fifteen. Their relationship can’t be anything serious.”

One of his dark eyebrows quirked upward. “When you’re fifteen, everything is serious. His name is Justin Walker. Do you know him?”

Grace shook her head, and a new shaft of guilt pierced through her. She should have known her sister’s boyfriend. What other things didn’t she know? “So, who is he?”

“He’s a seventeen-year-old high school dropout with a bad reputation,” Charlie replied. “And there’s more. Apparently Justin was a bone of contention between William and Hope. William thought he was too old and was bad news and had forbidden Hope from seeing him.”

Grace sat on the edge of her desk. “How did you find out all of this?”

“I had a brief conversation with Zack this morning. I wanted to be up-to-date on where the investigation was going before meeting you today. And there’s more.”

She eyed him narrowly. “I’m really beginning to hate those words.”

“Then you’re really going to hate this,” he said. “On the night before the murder, Hope and William went out to dinner at the café. An employee told Zack that while there, they had a public argument ending with Hope screaming that she wished he were dead.”

Grace’s heart plummeted to her feet, and she wished she didn’t hate Charlie, because at the moment she wanted nothing more than his big strong arms around her.

Chapter 3

Justin Walker lived with a buddy in the Majestic Apartments complex on the outskirts of town. The illustrious name of the apartments had to have been somebody’s idea of a very bad joke.

The small complex had faded from yellow to a weathered gray from the Oklahoma sun and sported several broken windows. The vehicles in the parking lot ran the gamut from souped-up hot rods to a rusty pickup truck missing two tires.

“You sure you want to do this?” Charlie asked dubiously, as he parked in front of the building and cut his engine.

Grace stared at the building in obvious dismay. “Not really, but it has to be done. I want to know exactly what his relationship with Hope was…is. I want to hear it from him, and then I want to hear it from my sister.” She turned to look at Charlie. “Does he work?”

“He’s a mechanic down at the garage, but he called in sick this morning.”

“You managed to learn a lot between last night and now,” she observed.

He shrugged and pulled his keys from the ignition. “It just took a phone call to find out if he was at the garage today. Somehow I knew you’d want to talk to him.” He directed his gaze back at the building. “But, just because he isn’t at work doesn’t mean he’s here.”

“There’s only one way to find out.” She opened her car door and stepped out.

Charlie joined her on the cracked sidewalk and tried not to notice how pretty she looked in the yellow skirt that showcased her shapely legs and the yellow-flowered blouse that hugged her slender curves.

This whole thing would have been so much easier if during the time they’d been apart she sprouted some facial hair or maybe grown a wart on the end of her nose.

“Which unit is it?” she asked.

“Unit four.” He pointed to the corner apartment, one that sported a broken window. Grace grimaced but marched with determined strides toward the door, on which she knocked in a rapid staccato fashion.

Charlie stepped in between her and the front door, protective instincts coming into play. He had no idea if Justin was just a loser boyfriend or an active participant in William’s murder.

The door opened and a tall young man gazed at them with a wealth of belligerence. He looked like he wasn’t having a good day. “Are you more cops?” he asked, his dark eyes wary and guarded.