Remembering Red Thunder

“Your beef’s not with me.”

“What you’re missing is life.” Kyle pressed closer. Kent took a step back. “It’s gonna pass you by. You’re going to end up all brackish and stale and she doesn’t see that. She doesn’t see she’ll hate you that way. She’ll hate her life, herself in the long run.”

“Kyle, that’s enough!” Both hands around Kent’s biceps, Ellen tried to tug him out of the line of fire.

Kyle’s nostrils flared.

Kent gently set Ellen out of harm’s way.

“Talk to Ellen.”

“I don’t give a damn about Ellen.”

“Yeah, right. Don’t know why she cares for a hothead like you, anyhow.”

Kent made the critical mistake of starting to turn away.

With an explosive grunt, Kyle rammed Kent with all his might. The force of the blow made Kent backpedal. He caught himself, then took another step to steady himself. The sandy bank crumbled beneath the weight of his hiking boot.

Kent fell backward, seemed to hang in midair for an eternity. Horror etched itself into his face.

Garth shot to his feet, then stopped himself short.

Ellen screamed.

Kyle swore and reached forward, grabbing for his brother.

Kent hit the water hard.

Kyle thrust out his hand farther. “Grab it!”

He skimmed the tips of Kent’s fingers. The water carried Kent away. Kent latched on to a root on the riverbank. Kyle threw himself against the bank for a third attempt to save his brother. The sandy bank crumbled beneath him. Gravity pulled him forward and he smacked headfirst into the turbulent water, casting both of them into the current.

Ellen shrieked. “Do something!”

The swift river tugged furiously at both brothers like a predator tearing at prey.

“Kyle, Kyle!” Ellen chased the water along the bank. “Do something, Garth! Help them!”

Garth knew his strengths and weaknesses. He took one look at the water, at his friends being whirled and spun downriver, and knew there was nothing he could do. He wasn’t going to mess with power like that.

“Don’t just stand there.” Ellen grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him toward the shore. “Do something. They’re drowning!”

“I’ll get help.” He turned and headed for the truck.

Ellen pummeled his back. “Help them! You’ve got to help them before it’s too late!”

A look over his shoulder showed him the river, bleeding red under the setting sun, had swallowed them both. Besides, he couldn’t swim. “It’s already too late.”

That stopped the pounding, but did nothing to erase the fury narrowing her eyes and curling her lips. For the first time, he saw an underlying strength in Ellen he hadn’t known existed. “Help them, you gutless wonder, or I’ll tell your secret.”

He sneered. “I don’t have a secret.”

“Alice Addison.”

She knew. He didn’t know how, but she knew.

He had plans, big plans.

He was getting out of this one-stoplight town. He was getting that business degree that would tell the world he was somebody. He was going to the top. Nothing was going to stop him.

Nothing.

He grabbed for Ellen….

Chapter One

Gabenburg, Texas. Present.

The house was cool, cozy and inviting, and a deep sense of contentment filled him as he silently slid the glass door closed.

He was home where he belonged.

The rich aroma of simmering chili tantalized. The anticipated sweet tartness of the cherry pie sitting on the counter made his mouth water. The woman at the stove, adding a dash of cumin to what he already knew was perfection, was more enticing still.

She hummed a tuneless song as she stirred. His mouth quirked in wry amusement. Taryn couldn’t carry a tune to save her life, but if she was humming while she cooked, he knew everything was right. She couldn’t have been home long since she still wore the white T-shirt and white cotton pants that were her uniform at the bakery she owned.

Without taking his gaze off his wife’s back or the pleasing curves that had been on his mind all day, he quietly made his way across the kitchen. With a groan that was part surrender and part captivation, he wrapped his arms around her waist and dropped a greedy kiss on the side of her neck. She smelled like sugar and flour and roses heavy with dew. The combination never failed to make him hungry.

As expected, she jumped and whirled in his arms. “What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you for another half hour.”

The open welcome in her eyes, in her smile, deepened his sense of contentment, allowing him to shed the last of the weariness that had dogged him for the last hour of his twelve-hour shift at the sheriff’s office.

Chance Conover grinned and pretended to look around the kitchen as if he’d walked into the wrong house. In truth, he’d tuned everything out but the woman in his arms. “Don’t I live here?”

“I’m not ready for you.”

Taryn plopped the spoon she was holding back into the pot and frowned her displeasure. But the effect was negated by the fact she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him back. Caught in a ponytail, the ends of her long brown hair tickled his arms. He loved the silky feel of her hair on his skin, of her body against his. After a long day at work, he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in her.

“Well, sweetheart, I’m ready for you.” He kissed her again, long and slow, savoring the heady taste of her, reveling in her ardent response.

Made a man grateful to have a woman like Taryn waiting for him at the end of a long day. She made him feel like a somebody, not the nobody who’d washed up bruised and battered on the shore of the Red Thunder River fifteen years ago. She made him feel real and solid. She made him feel needed.

A man couldn’t ask for more.

“You weren’t supposed to see until I was ready.”

He held her at arm’s length and caged her gaze with his. He loved her eyes, the way they sparkled with life, the way they shone with love for him. “Well, now, I like what I see.”

She blushed and batted her fingers against his shoulder. “You’re impossible!”

Turning her head, she looked at the small round table in the middle of the kitchen floor. “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

For the first time since he’d walked into the kitchen, he noticed the scene set for seduction. On crisp white linen, silverware gleamed in the late-afternoon light. The fancy cream and gold china that had once belonged to Taryn’s mother scintillated. Red candles in their crystal holders were ready to be lit. The fragrance of pink roses from the garden competed with the chili’s spice.

“What’s the occasion?”

Coyly, she fingered the gold sheriff’s star on his uniform shirt. “It’s Friday night. Do we need an occasion?”

Her soft smile and the deepening blue of her eyes were having their usual combustible effect on him. A wave of craving clawed at his insides. Even though Taryn’s chili was his favorite meal and her cherry pie was to die for, right now he’d skip the food for nourishment of the sensual kind. “You want me to leave and come back later?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “We can eat later.”

With swift ease, he scooped her into his arms and started toward the bedroom down the hall. “I promise I’ll be hungry.”

“I had everything planned.” A hint of disappointment colored her voice. She shrugged it away and a Mona Lisa smile soon graced her lips. “I may have a bit of news.”

“What kind of news?” Her full, pouty lips distracted him, so he kissed them and set a sweeping tide of desire surging through him. That he still wanted her this fiercely after seven years of marriage amazed him.

“It’s a surprise. You’ll have to wait.”

But her voice had gone soft and her body molded itself to his with a liquid heat. Her arms twined at his neck and her fingers curled into his hair. And she kissed him back with such passion that his muscles quivered and weakened.

He placed her on the blue-and-white quilt in their bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, admiring her. Her skin bloomed with need for him. Her sexy blue eyes had gone dark and dreamy. She reached for the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it over her head. That she still seemed unable to resist his advances after all this time struck him with wonder.

With a finger he traced the lace edge of her bra. The silk softness of her skin was a delight. The speeding of her breath caused an answering gallop of his pulse. He couldn’t resist the invitation of the pebbling of her nipples beneath the satiny fabric. Her soft sigh, the curling upward of her body to meet his touch as he thumbed one hard peak then the other made him acutely aware of the pulsating hardness of his body.

“Dinner can wait?” He hated to ruin her surprise when she’d worked so hard to set the scene.

She smiled at him in a way that told him she was fully aware of his desire for her and reached for him, bringing his face close to hers. In a voice raw and seductive, she said, “Dinner can wait.”

They came together in a kiss that could have melted the polar ice caps. Taryn was fumbling with the buttons of his shirt when the phone rang.

Both stopped mid-caress. Forehead rested against forehead. Breaths came in short, heated bursts.

“Don’t answer,” she said, clutching his shirt collar with a frantic hold.

“I have to.”

The shrill sound was a counterpoint to their racing pulses. Then suddenly her eyes showed both disappointment and acceptance. “Tad’s on duty.”

“I’m on call.”

He nibbled the lobe of one ear, but the ring of the phone was fast cooling his ardor. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Taryn bussed his cheek with a stiff peck. “I’ll go check on dinner.”

Heart heavy with regret, he picked up the receiver on the small night table beside the bed.

Before he could say anything, RoAnn McGarrity’s cutting voice chimed in. “Chance? Are you there?”

“I’m here, RoAnn.” Taryn reached for her T-shirt and pulled it back on. Quietly, she left the room and a sinking feeling settled in his stomach. “If you think you’re sending me anywhere now that I’m home, you’d better think again.”

RoAnn acted as the local sheriff’s office dispatcher. Folks kept their band radios tuned to the station frequency just to hear all the local gossip she managed to air over the waves.

“I know it’s been a long day for you and I wouldn’t ask except Tad ain’t got your skill at dealin’ with an incendiary temper like Billy Ray Brett’s, and besides, he’s yankin’ old Ruby Kramer out of a ditch again.”

“What’s with Billy Ray this time?”

“He’s mutatin’ coyotes into wolves again. Swears he saw one sniffin’ at his herd.” She snorted. “As if his one mangy beast makes a herd. He needs your reassurance there ain’t no wolf-release program active in these parts. Before nightfall—if you know what I mean.”

Yeah, he knew. If he didn’t handle this now, he’d be up handling it in the dead of night, and he had other plans for his evening.

Resigned, he said, “I’ll go soothe Billy Ray.”

He found Taryn in the kitchen. She accepted his arms around her, his kiss, but a skin of cool distance had grown between them. “I’ve got to go talk Billy Ray Brett out of hallucinating wolves. I won’t be long.”

Her smile had a sad quality to it. “I’ll be waiting.”

He jostled her hips against his. “It’ll give you time to finish your surprise.”

She nodded and turned to the chili.

Reluctantly, he stepped into the late afternoon’s skin-drenching humidity and into his cruiser.

As sheriff, keeping Gabenburg safe was his job, and Chance took pride in what he did—just as his mentor, Angus Conover, had taught him. He owed Angus and he owed Gabenburg for taking him in, but it wasn’t gratitude that drove him to serve and protect as much as a genuine caring for the place and the people. Still, some days, like today when he was bone-weary tired and wanted nothing more than a quiet evening at home with his wife, he yearned for a simple nine-to-five occupation.

He shook his head and mumbled, “You’d go stark raving mad inside a week.”

He had a loving wife, a job that fulfilled him and friends who accepted him as he was. What more could a guy ask for? He and Taryn had even talked of making a baby—which would be the icing on an already sweet cake.

She was the blue sky in his life, and his greatest fear was that one day, without quite knowing how, he’d mess up, that the needs of others would take him from Taryn one time too many, that he would lose her and his life all over again.

“Sheriff One.” RoAnn’s voice squawked over the radio. “Chance, are you there?”

As good as RoAnn was at coordinating calls, he could never get her to use the proper radio lingo. Chance keyed the mike. “Sheriff One. Go ahead.”

“Sam Wentworth just buzzed me. He’s out by Gator Park and thinks he’s found the safe that was heisted from Leggett’s Antiques yesterday.”

“Tad can check it out when he’s done with Ruby.”

“You really ought to yank her license. Ruby’s a menace on the road. But does anyone ever listen to me? No. Look, Gator Park’s on your way to the Brett ranch, Chance, and Tad’s way out on the other side of town. Won’t take but a minute of your time. Oh, and since you’ll be going that way, might as well stop by Nancy Howell’s on your way home and pick up that blackberry jam she’s got for Taryn.”

Taryn would want the jam to sell at her little Bread and Butter bakery. Might as well give her another reason to smile at him when he finally made his way home again. “All right. Show me en route to Gator Park.”

“Don’t forget the jam.”

“I won’t.”

Gator Park, the Brett ranch, the Howell farm—then home. He couldn’t wait to watch Taryn’s face light up at the sight of him, to run his fingers through her soft brown hair, to get his arms around her once more.

Heading north, beyond the Gabenburg town-limit sign, land rolled into gentle hills and patches of pine forests. To the south, the terrain leveled out into grassy marshlands and drifted into the Gulf of Mexico. Ahead in a field, cattle and egrets clustered around a water tank. Here and there an oil derrick pumped. A flock of geese passed over low and honked as they crossed the highway.

The cruiser’s air-conditioning was on the fritz again, so Chance drove with the windows rolled down. The air was sticky and heavy with the odor of pine, cow dung and flood-swollen river. He took it all in and smiled. These sights and smells and sounds were all precious to him. Fifteen years ago, he’d been given a second chance at life and he wasn’t going to waste a moment of it regretting a past he couldn’t remember.

For a while he’d wondered at the blankness of his memory, at his missing childhood. Then, ten years ago when he’d joined the sheriff’s office, he’d run a set of his prints through the system. Nothing had matched. He’d felt a measure of comfort in that.

Chance signaled his exit off the highway. The Red Thunder River ran fast and hard in the spring, calmed enough to harvest tourist dollars in the summer, and turned uninviting again in the fall. Sam Wentworth claimed he was born on the river and spent most of his time on the water. If the suspects had dumped the safe in the river, it didn’t surprise Chance in the least that Sam would be the one to uncover the fact.

As Chance crested the hill off the ramp, the river appeared. The recent rains had swollen it to the top of its banks and it roared like an awakening giant, churning silt as it rushed to the Gulf. The sun glittered off the racing water, bleeding it red like an open vein. He was halfway down the hill, letting gravity pull the cruiser down, when a flash zapped through his brain.

A picture bolted through his mind. Clear, vivid, horrid.

The sounds, the smells, the sights assaulted him in one overwhelming blow, ripping him from this world and pitching him into another.

Inside this strange realm, everything is tinged red.

Panic surges through him. He’s fighting with everything he has, but something bigger, stronger has hold of him and is intent on destroying him.

The smell of death hangs heavy in the sticky air. The taste of muddy water fills his mouth, makes him gag and sputter. The river surrounds him. He’s tugged and tossed and tumbled like debris. He tries to swim, but the current is too strong. “Hang on!” His voice? Someone else’s? Something catches his foot, drags him under. Black, nothing but black. Hands grab at him. His head is above water once more.

Breath, where is his breath? He’s not moving, hanging on to something hard and slippery. A branch. Something bumps into him. He turns. He screams.

A body floats on the water. Bump, bump, bump against his side. Long blond hair writhes on the waves. From a gash on the side of her head pours blood.

Then hands again, tugging, yanking. Pulling? Pushing? Dizzy. Nothing makes sense.

He looks up. Through the water’s silver-red surface, he sees his own shimmering face.

Terror engulfs him. He fights with all his might, but the hands only get stronger around his neck. Blond hair flails around him.

He’s dying.

He’s dead.

THE CHILI WAS HOT. The beer was cold. The green beans were fresh from Ruby Kramer’s garden. Taryn had traded for them that afternoon with a loaf of sourdough bread. A cherry pie waited on the counter—a sweet ending to a meal meant to win a man’s heart.

All that was missing was Chance.

Taryn flopped into a kitchen chair and straightened a linen napkin. She’d planned everything to the last second.

Then Chance had come home and knocked her best intentions haywire. She couldn’t resist him; never had been able to.

The attraction wasn’t just that his distinctive cheekbones made him look at once savage and sexy. It wasn’t just that his bottomless dark eyes seemed to take her in and hold her safe. It was also because the bone-deep goodness in him made her believe in the possibility of enduring happiness.

She hated herself for making Chance feel bad about doing his job. His loyalty and his genuine care were two qualities she admired in him.

She’d wanted everything to be perfect, everything to feel right. Determined, she stood up. “It still can be.”

The evening was young. Chance could handle Billy Ray Brett in no time. He’d done it often enough. She hurried toward the bathroom and started the shower. This was going to be a special night. One she hoped Chance would never forget. She wasn’t going to ruin it with a fit of resentment.

She would feed him. She would seduce him. Then she would tell him their world was about to be turned upside down. As steam started to fill the small room, she stood before the mirror and cleared her throat.

“Chance, I have something to tell you,” she said out loud, testing the words she’d practiced all day in her head as she’d mixed and kneaded and baked. Why was her heart beating so fast? Why did her tongue feel so stiff and clumsy? Why did her eyes look so wild with apprehension? She swallowed hard and tried again. “Chance, remember when you said—” She growled at her disappearing image in the mirror. “Chance, I’m…we’re…”

A gulp of fear brought one hand to her belly, the other to her throat. What if…? No, she wasn’t going to worry. Chance would be pleased. Hadn’t he said so a dozen times already?

She undressed and stepped into the shower. There she lathered in a shower gel of Chance’s favorite summer-rain scent and lingered for a long time under the hot spray of water until the fear and resentment flowed down the drain along with the soapy water. After drying herself, she slathered on a body lotion of the same summer-rain scent. Hair wound in a turban of towel, she headed for the bedroom.

Out of the closet, she took the tiny red dress she’d been hiding for a week—until the time was right. She planned to meet her husband at the door wearing nothing but that scrap of cloth. It left little to the imagination. And this time, she would make him wait before she allowed him to render her mindless in his arms.

A small smile of satisfaction curled her lips as she imagined Chance’s appreciation of the dress. She loved the way his gaze seemed to eat her alive when he was aroused, the way his dark eyes glittered with desire. And she loved that little groan deep in his throat as he reached for her. That seductive sound was part warrior’s claim, part helplessness—as if he couldn’t resist her even if he tried. That made her feel safe and secure and wanted.

Just as she tossed her towel onto the neatly made bed, she heard a car turn into the driveway.

“No, I’m not ready!” She rushed to the window, snapped the curtain open and peeked out. Not Chance’s cruiser, but Tad Pruitt’s truck. She groaned. Tad was having girlfriend problems and she’d made the mistake of telling him to drop by anytime he needed to talk. He’d taken her up on her offer three times this week already. And what was he doing coming to bother her while he was on duty and Chance was torn from her bed to answer a call?

She’d get rid of Tad quick, she decided as she donned a T-shirt and shorts and stuffed her feet into sandals. Maybe she ought to send him to her grandmother. She shook her head and laughed. Nola Barnes was opinionated enough for three. She’d set Tad straight in no time.

Taryn opened the door. Heat slapped her face, making her suck in a breath. Where was Tad? She couldn’t hear his footsteps on the gravel walkway. Frowning, she stepped onto the deck. She lifted a hand against the setting sun and saw Tad sitting in the truck, both hands on the steering wheel. This wasn’t good. He’d need reassurance and calming words and all she wanted to do was get ready for Chance.

“Tad? Are you all right?” But something about the way he stared at her wasn’t right. An arrow of fear sliced through her heart and razored all the way to her stomach.

The truck door creaked. Tad exited, keeping his gaze toward the ground. In the place of cocky arrogance, he wore a pained expression. His usually straight and tall posture was bowed. His tan uniform shirt sported dark splotches. He fiddled with his hat. Round and round it went. His brown pants were ripped at the knee. His boots were muddy.

“Tad?” Her heart knocked hard. Her limbs felt leaden. She slinked forward, using the railing as a crutch. “Tad?”

“Taryn,” he croaked. He took two steps forward, then stopped. His eyes looked desperate. He braced himself as if for a blow. She knew then that her world was about to come apart.

“Chance?”

Tad nodded. “He’s had an accident.”

Taryn’s ears rang. Her heart stopped beating, then made up the lapse in double time. Her legs shook. Despite the heat that slicked her skin, a cold shiver racked her body. She held on to the deck railing with all of her strength. “No, God, no. What happened? Where is he? How is he?”

“He’s alive,” Tad said in a rush. He climbed the three steps to the deck, started to reach for her, then drew back. “He drove into the river.”

“The river?” She frowned, not understanding. No, no, no. Not the river. Chance was a cautious driver, an expert diver. No river, not even Red Thunder, could get the best of him. Tad had made a mistake. Chance was too strong, too good to be taken by the river. Then why couldn’t she stop shaking? “What happened?”

“We’re not sure. They took him to Beaumont.” Tad put his hand on Taryn’s trembling shoulder. “I’ll drive you.”

She nodded and let him lead her to his truck.

This was not happening. This could not be happening.

He’s mine, she told the river. You can’t have him.

As Tad drove, her world unraveled until Taryn’s mind became nothing more than a snarl of worries.

She could not lose Chance. Not now. Not with a baby on the way.

“HELLO, darlin’.” Garth Ramsey drawled the endearment because he’d learned the ladies liked the sound of his voice deep and gravelly. The performance wasn’t so much for the body on the bed as for the staff tending to it. Image, he’d learned the hard way, bought you more than truth.