Cowboy to the Max. Rita Herron
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blame him.
What she had done…was wrong.
She sucked in a sharp breath, then rubbed her finger over the prayer beads around her neck. Her mother’s people had taught her that all life was sacred. That all things on the earth were alive and connected. That all things alive should be respected.
But she had been a party to a murder and sent an innocent man to prison for it.
Shame clawed at her, but she fought it, struggling with her emotions and reminding herself of the circumstances.
She had had no choice.
The sound of the bell over the doorway tinkled, barely discernible over the wail of the country music floating through the Sawdust Saloon. But her senses were well-honed to detect the sound, knowing it might alert her to trouble.
A cloudy haze of smoke made it difficult to make out the new patron as he entered. He was big, so tall that his hat nearly touched the doorway. And he had shoulders like a linebacker.
He hooked his fingers in his belt loops, standing stock still, his stance intimidating as he scanned the room. Shadows hovered around him, and the scent of danger radiated from him like bad whiskey.
She froze, her heart drumming as she studied his features. Carter?
Or the evil monster she’d been running from for five years?
She hated to be paranoid, but life had come at her hard the night she’d met Carter.
He wasn’t the only one with scars.
She had her own to prove it.
Her finger automatically brushed the deep, puckered X carved into her chest, now well hidden by her shirt, and traced a line over it. For a moment, she couldn’t move as she waited to see the man’s face in the doorway. He was imposing like Carter and her attacker. Muscular. Big-boned. Large hands.
His boots pounded the wood, crushing the peanut shells on the floor as he moved into the light, and her breath whooshed out in relief.
Even in the dim lighting, she could see he had dark-blond hair.
Carter had thick brown hair, so dark it was almost black.
Her attacker—a shaved head, and he’d smelled like sweat and tobacco.
A group of the men in the back room playing pool shouted, toasting with beer mugs, and two men to her right gave her a flirtatious grin and waved at her to join them.
Sadie inwardly cringed, but remembered she needed this job, and threw up a finger gesturing that she would be right there.
“Your order’s up!” the bartender yelled to Sadie.
Amber Celton, blond, boobs falling out of the cheap lacy top of her waitress uniform, and a woman who would screw any man in pants, sashayed up beside her and gestured toward the TV screen. “Man, I don’t care if that cowboy is armed and dangerous. He could tie me in his bed anytime.”
Sadie wiped her hands on her apron and reached for the tray of beer she needed to deliver. Carter had been seductive, all right.
All that thick, scraggly hair. Those deep whiskey-colored eyes that looked tormented, like they were hunting for trouble. That crooked nose that looked as if it had been broken and needed kissing.
And his mouth…thick lips that scowled one minute as if he was the devil himself, then twitched up into a lazy grin that had made her weak in the knees.
And Lord, those big, strong, wide hands. What he could do with those hands was sinful. Downright lethal.
He had destroyed her for wanting another man as a lover.
And her attacker, the one who’d held her down, nearly suffocated her and cut her, he had destroyed her trust in men in general.
“If I were you, I’d stay away from him.” Sadie hoisted the beer-laden tray with her right hand, juggling it as she added a basket of peanuts. “Five years in a maximum security prison…you don’t know what they did to him inside.” Horror stories of beatings and prison rapes tormented her.
“Yeah, but that means five years without conjugal visits,” Amber said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “I bet he’s ready for a woman.”
A streak of jealousy pinched Sadie’s gut at the thought of Amber taking Carter to bed. Guilt followed that she had helped put him in that godforsaken jail. That five years of his life had been stolen from him when if she’d only told the truth, he wouldn’t have been convicted.
Yes. And you would have been dead and so would your mother.
“Hey, sugar, we’re thirsty,” one of the men yelled.
“And I’m hungry,” his buddy shouted, as he reached out a hairy hand to pull her to him. “Hungry for you.”
Sadie forced a polite smile as she sidestepped his grip, desperately trying to control a nasty retort that would not only cost her a tip but her job. Five years of working in low-rent restaurants and divey bars just to make ends meet and take care of her mother had taken its toll on her body and shattered her fantasies.
But her mother was gone now, God rest her soul.
Unfortunately so were her dreams of becoming a doctor.
She was broke, alone, and she’d been looking over her shoulder so long that she was half-afraid of her own shadow.
But she had enough sense to know that she was still in danger. Maybe even more so now.
Because Carter Flagstone was most likely looking for her to force her to go to the police about the night of that murder. Which meant the man who’d threatened her life and cut her was probably intent on preventing her from doing just that.
Her own private hell was starting all over.
DARK, HEAVY CLOUDS ROLLED across the night sky as Carter snuffed out the campfire where he’d cooked the fish he’d caught earlier in the stream. He tensed at the sound of a car engine rumbling down the road. He had to hide his tracks.
Still, he was anxious to talk to Dunham and find out if anyone had been snooping around the ranch.
He thought he might have seen something suspicious today. Maybe hints of a cattle rustler. He’d heard they’d had some vandalism and problems before at the BBL, and wondered if this was the same lowlife or a band of rustlers.
Not that he needed to get involved. Hell, no. He had his own problems.
But Johnny and Brandon were dedicated to this ranch, and with more campers due to arrive the next day, they sure as hell didn’t need thieves on the land. Especially if they were toting guns.
Most likely, they were.
He rubbed the matchbook with the BBL logo on it, the image of a group of boys getting shot because they’d stumbled on some rustlers, sitting low and heavy in his belly.
The car engine sounded louder, and he stepped back behind a thicket of trees, gripping his gun to his side as he studied the situation.
Dust spewed in a cloud around the truck, then the muffler made a backfiring sound, and the headlights of a rattletrap truck coasted toward him.
Dunham.
The poor guy’s truck was in worse shape than the one Brandon had loaned him.
Relaxing, he shoved the gun in the back of his jeans, but he waited until the truck had parked and Dunham climbed out before he showed himself.
His boots crunched the dry twigs and grass. “Thanks for meeting me.”
Dunham gave a clipped nod. “You said you saw trouble?”
Carter explained about the two men he’d seen on the hill in the north pasture. “They had binoculars and looked as if they were staking out the lay of the land.”