Chapter 1

      He had a trespasser.

      Clay Colton narrowed a wary gaze on the unfamiliar blue sedan parked under a stand of mesquite trees. This corner of the Bar None, Clay’s horse ranch, was as flat as a beer left out in the Texas sun, and he’d spotted the car from half a mile away.

      He tapped his dusty white Stetson back from his forehead and wiped his sweaty brow. Finding a strange sedan on his property didn’t sit well with him—especially in light of the recent trouble his sister, Georgie, had endured. He still got sick chills thinking how a woman had broken into his sister’s home, stolen from her, passed herself off as Georgie.

      A shiver crawled up Clay’s spine despite the scorching June heat. Esperanza, Texas, his home for all his twenty-six years, had always been a safe place, no real crime to mention. He clicked his tongue and gave his workhorse, Crockett, a little kick. His mount trotted forward, and as he neared the car, Clay saw that the Ford Taurus had crashed into one of the mesquites, crumpling the front fender. A fresh sense of alarm tripped through him.

      “Hello? Anyone there?” Clay swung down from Crockett and cautiously approached the car. Visions of an injured, bleeding driver flashed through his mind and bumped his blood pressure higher. “Is anyone there?”

      He peered into the driver’s side window. Empty. The car had been abandoned.

      Removing his hat, Clay raked sweaty black hair away from his eyes and circled to the back of the sedan. The trunk was ajar, and he glimpsed a white shopping bag inside. Using one finger to nudge open the trunk, Clay checked inside the bag.

      His breath caught.

      The bag was full of cash.

      Intuition, combined with fresh memories of Georgie’s recent brush with identity theft, tickled the nape of Clay’s neck, making the fine hairs stand up. A wrecked and abandoned sedan with a bag of money meant trouble, no matter how you added it up. He stepped back and pulled his cell phone from the clip on his belt. He dialed his friend Sheriff Jericho Yates’s number from memory.

      “Jericho, it’s Clay. I’m out on the southwest corner of my land near the ravine, and I’ve come across an abandoned Taurus. The car hit a mesquite and banged up the front end, but I don’t see any sign of the driver.”

      Sheriff Yates grunted. “You don’t see anyone around? Maybe the driver tried to walk out for help.”

      Clay scanned the area again, squinting against the bright June sun from under the rim of his Stetson. “Naw. Don’t see