Hard Ride to Dry Gulch

“A promise is a promise.”

The man was persistent. If the cops handling Cornell’s missing-person case had been half as determined, they likely would have located him by now.

“No reason for you to leave the reception,” she said. “I’m sure I can find my way to my car on my own.”

“But what kind of gentleman would I be if I let you?”

“A sensible one.”

“Not my strong suit.”

“I got here late and had to park in the pasture across the road. You’ll get those gorgeous boots of yours dirty,” she said.

“I’ll risk it.”

Further protests would sound ungrateful or just plain pigheaded. Besides, it would be a lot darker once they left the twinkling lights. Her car could be difficult to locate among all the other vehicles. Travis might just come in handy.

Reaching into the petite jeweled evening bag that swung from her shoulder, she took out the keys to her aging Honda and started walking. Their shoulders brushed. A zing of awareness shot through her.

Disgusted with herself for letting Travis affect her, she picked up her pace. Bad call. Maneuvering the grass and uneven ground in her six-inch stilettos proved to be a dangerous balancing act.

The second time she almost tripped, she was forced to accept the arm Travis offered for support. A traitorous flutter appeared in her stomach.

It had to be just her nerves, or the fact that Travis was several cuts above the perverts she’d been spending her time with. Not every night the way she had in the beginning, but every weekend.

A breeze stirred. Faith looked up and was struck by the brilliance of the stars now that they’d left the artificial illumination.

“Amazing, aren’t they?” Travis said, apparently noticing her fascination with the heavens.

“Yes. Hard to believe those are the same stars that appear over Dallas. They look so much closer here.”

“Nothing like getting out in the wide-open spaces to appreciate the splendor of nature,” Travis agreed.

“Do you spend much time out here?”

“At the Dry Gulch? No way.”

“I guess that will change now that Leif will be living out here.”

“It won’t change anytime soon.”

“Because of your relationship with your father?”

“You got it. And you apparently know a lot more about me, Faith Ashburn, than I do about you.”

“Joni told me a bit about why you and Leif have issues with R.J. But Leif changed his mind about his father. Perhaps you will, too.”

“Sure, and Texas might vote to outlaw beef.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Not in my lifetime,” Travis countered. “But it was a beautiful wedding.”

“I’ve never seen Joni so radiant.”

“Have you and Joni been friends long?”

“Eight years. We met in a psychology class at Oklahoma University. We clicked immediately and became fast friends even though I was divorced and had a young son.”

They made small talk until she spotted her car and unlocked it with her remote device. The lights blinked. “That’s my Honda,” she said, grateful for an excuse to end the conversation before he started asking personal questions again.

She let go of Travis’s arm and hurried toward her car.

Travis kept pace, then stepped in front of her at the last minute, blocking the driver’s side door. “You know, Faith, you look a lot better without all that makeup you were wearing the first time we met.”

Her mouth grew dry, her chest tight. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen you before tonight.”

“Actually, we met a few months ago. You’re not the kind of woman a man could forget.”

Faith wondered at what point during the night he’d figured that out. She shrugged. “Sorry. You must have me confused with someone else.”

“Not a chance.” He propped his left hand against the car roof and leaned in closer. “Let me refresh your memory. The Passion Pit. Four months ago. You were cruising the bar when one of your admirers got out of hand.”

She rolled her eyes. “Cruising the bar?”

“Don’t go all naive on me, Faith. A lady doesn’t just drop into the Passion Pit unescorted because she’s thirsty. You were wearing a black dress that left little to the imagination and a pair of nosebleed heels that screamed to be noticed. We talked. I asked you to wait so that I could see you safely home. You didn’t.”

“You definitely have me confused with someone else.”

“Not unless you have an identical twin. I asked Joni. She assured me you don’t.”

And Faith was a terrible liar. That left truth or some version of it as her only feasible choice if she wanted to get the detective off her back.

“You’re right.” She cast her eyes downward, to the tips of Travis’s cowboy boots. “I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I was in that disgusting place once. A detective came to my rescue when a rowdy drunk got out of hand. That must have been you.”

“Yep. Apparently, I am easy to forget. So why the denials?” Travis asked. “As far as I know, you didn’t break any laws that night.”

“I absolutely didn’t. Not that night or any other. I’d just rather Joni not know I did something so stupid.”

“Not only stupid, but dangerous,” Travis corrected. “Why were you there?”

“I was writing an article for a magazine on the increase of gentlemen’s clubs in the Dallas area. I decided I should at least visit one of them for firsthand research.”

“Dressed like that?”

“I thought I’d be less conspicuous that way.”

“There was no way you’d ever go unnoticed, looking the way you did that night. Those red shoes alone were enough to guarantee you’d get hit on.”

So he’d noticed more than that she’d needed help. At least she’d had an effect on him. Not that she cared.

“I’d love to read that article,” Travis said. “Which magazine was that in?”

“It doesn’t matter. It was a busy month and they decided not to run the story, after all.”

“So all that work for nothing.”

“That’s freelance,” she quipped. Even to her ears the attempt at nonchalance fell flat. She was too nervous. And she’d never written a magazine article in her life. The closest she’d come was a letter to the editor they had actually printed in the newspaper.

“I thought Joni said you worked in the personnel department of a department-store chain.”

“Benefits manager, but I occasionally freelance.”

“You’re a lousy liar.”

And always had been. She was going to have to come nearer to the truth if she expected Travis to buy her story.

“Okay, I wasn’t there to write an article. A good friend of mine was worried about her daughter. She’d heard a rumor that she was dancing at the Passion Pit. I offered to go there and find out for certain.”

“Just helping out a friend.”

“Yes. Look, Travis, I know your cop instincts are running wild. But this time they’re way off base. I went to a strip club one night. I wasn’t looking for a job or trying to pick up tricks. I’m thirty-five years old, for heaven’s sake. Way too old to peddle flesh even if I was interested. End of conversation.”

“Not quite. If I ever find out that you’ve exposed my niece to drugs, alcohol or any other sordid behaviors, I’ll tell Joni everything and see that you never come around Effie again.”

Travis Dalton was not only arrogant, but overbearing. That would have turned her off in a second, except that he was being that way to protect his niece. That was the kind of dogmatism she’d craved from the cops investigating Cornell’s disappearance.

The temptation to tell him the truth flared inside her. It passed just as quickly. There was no reason to think he’d be any different than the other officers she’d talked to.

No. She’d made her decision. She had to go higher than the cops if she was to find Cornell. She’d done that. Now she was just waiting to hear back from a man she knew only as Georgio.

“You don’t have to worry about Effie,” Faith assured him. “I would never corrupt a child.”

“Good.” He opened the door.

She slid past him and climbed behind the wheel. “Good night, Travis.”

“One last thing.”

She looked up just as he leaned forward. Their faces were mere inches apart. The musky scent of soap, aftershave and sheer manliness attacked her senses, and a riotous surge of attraction made her go weak.

His hand touched her shoulder. “If you ever need to ask me about your friend’s problems—if you ever need to talk about anything at all—call me.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a business card and pressed it into her hand.

His voice had lost its threatening edge. His tone was compelling. “I’ll do what I can to help, Faith. You can trust me.”

Finally, he closed her door. She jerked the car into Reverse, backed from the parking space and then sped away. Her insides were shaking. Tears of frustration burned the back of her eyelids.

Trust him. She’d love nothing more than to believe that. Desperation urged her to turn back. Put Travis Dalton to the test. Avoid getting involved with Georgio, a man whose power frightened her and whose dark and forbidden world made her sick to her stomach.

But she’d tried working with the cops first, lost months doing things their way, wasted precious time not knowing if Cornell was sick, in pain, held captive or even...

No. Cornell was alive. She’d find him. She was on the right track now. Trusting Travis would accomplish nothing except to drag Joni into this nightmare.

Far better if she never saw Travis Dalton again, never gave him another chance to mess with her mind or her resolve.

* * *

TRAVIS TOOK A few steps, escaping the cloud of dust Faith left behind in her haste to get away from him. He was one of the best interrogators in the whole homicide department. He could recognize a liar as easily as some people could recognize a guy was bald or a woman was wearing a wig.

And that was with a good liar. Faith Ashburn wasn’t. But he still couldn’t buy that she was a hooker or an addict looking for a way to feed her demon. So what had she been doing at the Passion Pit that night and what really haunted those captivating deep brown eyes?

Travis started back to the party. He’d lost the mood for celebrating, but he couldn’t haul ass without letting Leif know he was leaving. His boots stirred up loose gravel as he neared the sprawling ranch house. Music from the band wafted through the night, competing with the cacophony of thousands of tree frogs, crickets and the occasional howl of a coyote.

Welcoming lights spilled out from every window of the old ranch house. The glow did nothing to make Travis feel more at home, but oddly, he didn’t experience any rancor toward the house or the ranch.

Even more surprising, he didn’t hate R.J., not the way Leif had at first or the way Travis had expected to before he’d met the man. Hard to hate a dying man, even a father who hadn’t bothered to find out if you were dead or alive or being daily abused after your mother died of cancer.

Not hating R.J. didn’t mean Travis gave a damn about him or wanted anything to do with him or the bait R.J. was casting out to lure his estranged family home.

Bottom line: if home was where the heart was, the Dry Gulch Ranch didn’t make the cut for Travis.

He spotted R.J. rounding the side of the house. The old man hesitated, then swayed as if he was losing his balance. Travis rushed over and caught him just as he started to crumple to the hard earth.

R.J. looked up at him, but his expression was blank and he looked pasty and dazed.

Travis kept a steadying arm around his waist. “Do you need an ambulance?”

R.J. raked his fingers through his thinning gray hair and looked up at Travis. “An ambulance?”

“You almost passed out there.”

“Where’s Gwen?”

It was the first Travis had heard of a Gwen. “Why don’t I get you back inside and I’ll see if I can find her?”

R.J. muttered a string of curses. “Just get Gwen. And tell everyone else to go home. Don’t know what the hell all these people are doing here, anyway.”

His words were slurred, difficult to understand. There was no smell of alcohol on his breath, so Travis figured this had to be related to the tumor.

Leif said R.J. had occasional moments when he wasn’t fully lucid, but he hadn’t indicated R.J. totally lost it like this. Could be the tumor had shifted or increased in size.

Travis looked around, hoping to see someone who knew more about R.J. than he did heading back to the house or to their car. No such luck. Everyone was obviously still in the party tent.

“Let’s go inside,” Travis said again. “Maybe Gwen’s in there.”

He began leading the old man toward the back porch. “Just a few yards to go,” Travis said. He walked slowly, supporting most of R.J’s weight. When they reached the steps, R.J. grabbed hold of the railing.

“Take a second to catch your breath,” Travis told him.

R.J. shook his head, then straightened, still a bit shaky. He looked back toward the area where the reception was going full blast and then up at Travis, as if trying to figure out what the devil was going on.

“Did I drag you away from the party?” he asked.

“Nope,” Travis said. “I walked someone to their car and ran into you a few yards from the house. You looked like you could use some help.”

R.J. scratched his chin. “Damned tumor. Can’t make up its mind if it wants to kill me or drive me crazy. Gets me so mixed-up I don’t know if I’m shucking or shelling.”

“Do you want me to drive you to the emergency room?”

“Hell no. Nothing they can do. I’ll just go inside and sit down awhile. Tell Leif that if you see him. I don’t want him worrying about what happened to me while he should be celebrating.”

“Shouldn’t I get someone to come stay with you? You probably shouldn’t be alone.”

“Nope. Tumor’s going to kill me and that’s a fact, but it ain’t gonna rule me. I’m okay now. You go back to the party afore that looker friend of Joni’s you were dancing with hooks up with some other guy.”

So the old man didn’t miss much when he was lucid. “If you’re talking about Faith Ashburn, she’s already left.” Probably to hook up with another guy. Hopefully not one picked up anywhere near the Passion Pit.

“C’mon. I’ll walk inside with you—not that I think you need help,” he added before R.J. could rebuke him. “I could use a glass of water. Then I’ll let Leif know where you are and see if I can find Gwen for you.”

“Gwen?”

“You mentioned her a minute ago.”

“Did I?”

“You did.”

“Don’t that just stitch your britches? Far as I know, there ain’t no Gwen around these parts.”

But there had been one wherever R.J. had gone in his mind. By the time they were inside the house, the old man seemed as alert as he had at the start of the evening. He walked on his own to the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out a bottle of milk. Travis reached into the cabinet, took out a glass and set it on the counter for him.

“Join me in a drink?” R.J. asked. “There’s beer or whiskey around here somewhere or you can just get water out of the faucet. We don’t drink that fancy bottled designer H2O around here.”

Sitting around drinking like old friends with R.J. had about as much appeal as being invited to shovel manure out of the horse barn.

“Another time,” Travis said. “If you’re okay, I need to be going.”

“Sure. I’m good. You head on back to the party. You know your being here tonight meant a lot to your brother.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it. Leif’s family.” All the family he had. Meeting R.J. hadn’t changed that. “You take care,” Travis said. Eager to clear out before the man started talking family or brought up his bizarre will, he turned and started back to the party.

“Thanks, son,” R.J. called after him.

Travis didn’t stop or turn around. But the word son clattered in his head, knocking loose some bad memories as he pulled the front door shut behind him. Memories he’d banished to the deepest, darkest abyss of his mind years ago and wasn’t about to let R.J. rekindle.

But Travis had accomplished one thing tonight other than doing his duty by Leif. He now knew the mystery woman from the Passion Pit’s name.

First thing tomorrow, he’d start his own investigation of Faith Ashburn—which might plunge him into a new set of problems.

If he discovered that she wasn’t as innocent as his hunch indicated and she was involved in some kind of criminal behavior, he’d have no choice but to arrest her.

News that your brother had just arrested your wife’s maid of honor would no doubt ensure a dynamic beginning to the honeymoon. Leif would love him for that.

* * *

FAITH PULLED ON the cotton T-shirt, drew her bare feet onto the bed and slipped between the crisp sheets. The once-cozy home felt even lonelier than usual tonight.

Perhaps it was the contrast between the glorious future filled with love and happiness stretching in front of Joni and Leif, and the heartbreak that filled these walls that made the desperation almost too much to endure.

Whatever the reason, the fear for Cornell pressed against her chest with such force she could barely breathe. Tales of past real-life abduction horrors roamed her mind like bands of deadly marauders. Victims kept against their will, sometimes for years. Abused. Tortured. Killed.

She shuddered and beat a fist into the pillow. Knowing she’d never find a shred of peace on her own, she finally gave up and retrieved the bottle of antianxiety medication the doctor had prescribed.

She shook two pills from the bottle and swallowed them with a few sips from the glass of water she’d placed on her nightstand earlier. She switched off the lamp and lay in the muted moonlight that filtered through her window. The branches of the oak outside creaked in the wind and sent eerie shadows creeping across her ceiling.

Counting backward, she tried to force her mind to dull and welcome sleep. Instead, her thoughts shifted to Travis. The instant attraction she’d felt in his arms was difficult to figure. Not that his rugged good looks wouldn’t have been enough to grab almost any woman’s attention, especially one who hadn’t been with a man in over two years.

Only it was more what she sensed with him than what she saw. Strength. Determination. Protectiveness toward his niece.

And a promise that she could trust him. She’d wanted to believe that, wanted it so badly that she’d almost turned around and driven back to the ranch after fifteen minutes on the road.

But she’d tried the police. They saw things in black-and-white. Her son had left home. His friends had suggested he was on drugs. He’d been seen in the seedy area of town and inside a strip club where he’d appeared to be enjoying himself.

Their deduction: no foul play suspected.

The police might be right to a point, but she knew her son. He might have caved in to peer pressure and smoked a joint, but he was not an addict. He might even have gone along with friends for a night of carousing, but unless something terrible had happened, he would have come home.

The black of night had eased into the gray of dawn before sleep finally claimed her.

She woke to the jarring ring of the phone. Anticipation stabbed her heart the way it did at every unexpected call, and she grabbed the receiver, knocking over the glass of water. The liquid splattered her arm and the side of her bed as she clutched the phone and put it to her ear.

“Hello.”

“Mom.”

Chapter Three

Faith’s heart pounded against her chest. Her breath caught. She jerked to a sitting position and forced her words through a choking knot at the back of her throat.

“Cornell. Is that you? Is it really you?”

“It’s me.”

“Where are you? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. Only...”

“Tell me where you are, Cornell. I’ll come get you. Just tell me where you are?”

“I can’t, Mom.”

“Are you having seizures? Have you been taking your meds?”

“I have a new prescription. No seizures in months.” His voice shook. “I’m so sorry. So sor—”

His voice grew silent. Curses railed in the background. The phone went dead.

“Cornell! Cornell!” She kept calling, but she was yelling his name into a lifeless phone. Her insides rolled sickeningly.

“Please call me back. Please, Cornell, call me back,” she whispered. The phone stayed silent.

There had to be a way to reach him. A hard metal taste filled the back of her throat as she punched in *69. A brief sputter of interference was the only response to her attempt to reach the number Cornell had called from.

Her head felt as if someone had turned on strobe lights inside it. A pulsing at the temples tightened like a Vise-Grip. She buried her head in her hands in an attempt to stop the dizzying sensation.

Was this just another nightmare or had she actually heard her son’s voice?

No, even trapped in the shock, she was certain the call had been real. Tears burned in the corners of her eyes and then escaped to stream down her face.

Cornell was alive. Finally, the truth of that rolled over her in waves. Her son was alive.

But where was he and what could he possibly be sorry for? For taking drugs? For drinking? Was he staying away because he thought she was mad at him? But if that was all there was, who had yelled the curses in the background that had frightened Cornell into breaking off the call midsentence?

He was not alone and whoever was with had him under their control.

Possibilities exploded in her mind, all of them too frightening to bear.

There had to be a way to find out where that call had originated. If she knew where Cornell was, she could rescue him. She could bring him home.

His interrupted call was proof he was being held or at least intimidated by someone. Even the Dallas Police Department couldn’t deny that.

Call me. You can trust me.

Travis’s words echoed in her mind. But was it Travis Dalton she should put her faith in or a man she knew only as Georgio?

* * *

OFFICIALLY, IT WAS Travis’s day off. Unofficially, he strolled into the precinct about 7:00 a.m. No one in the front office seemed surprised to see him. Homicide detectives never kept normal hours.

Neither did crime.

Jewel Sayer raised one eyebrow as he passed her desk. “I thought you were partying in Oak Grove this weekend?”

“Just stayed long enough to get my brother married.”

“What? No hot chicks at the wedding reception?”

“None as hot as you, Jewel.”

“Can’t go comparing the rest of the mere mortals to me, Travis. You’ve got to learn to settle for someone in your league.”

“So you keep telling me.”

Jewel was in her mid-thirties and a far cry from the beauty-pageant types who filled the Dallas hot spots six nights a week. She had a boxlike face hemmed in by dark, straight hair cropped an inch from her scalp. Her breasts were lost beneath boxy, plain cotton shirts. Her trousers bagged. Her face was a makeup-free zone.

Jewel was, however, a wildcat of a homicide detective. She could tear more much meat out of a seemingly useless clue than most of the men who’d had years more experience. And she had great instincts. She also had a husband who adored her.

Her phone rang. She lifted her coffee mug as a sign of dismissal before answering it.

Travis stopped at the coffeepot, filled a mug with the strong brew and took it to his office. He dropped to the seat behind his cluttered desk and typed Faith Ashburn into the DPD search system.

A few sips of coffee later, her name came up as having filed a missing-person report a few days under ten months ago, on June 25. That would have been approximately six months before he ran into her at the Passion Pit.

He pulled up the report she’d filled out. The missing person was her eighteen-year-old son, Cornell Keating Ashburn, a high-school student about to start his senior year.