Last Chance Cowboy. Leigh Riker
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“No, you don’t,” Grey said to himself, but the man was already through. He coiled up a rope then sent the loop sailing through the air with an audible hiss. Not bad form, but his first try missed. One of the Angus cows that had run off before took off again. “You won’t,” Grey said, but he didn’t move. Not yet.
On his second throw, the man snagged a young heifer.
Grey grabbed his cell phone. When the sheriff’s dispatcher answered, Grey said in a low tone, “Get me some help out here. Rustlers,” then hung up.
The heifer, which had recently been weaned, was being herded to the van, protesting all the way. A cow, most likely its mother, bellowed in answer. The whole herd milled around, boxy dark shapes in the night caught between apparent concern for the younger cow and their instinctive need to flee. In the next pasture, Grey’s best bull paced back and forth behind an uncut fence, eyeing the action, intent upon protecting his cows.
Grey reached for his rifle.
The sheriff would come, but his office in Barren was miles away. By the time he got here, the thieves would be gone.
Grey cocked the rifle. He wasn’t close enough to be accurate with the weapon and didn’t want to warn them, but if it came to shooting...he would. He would prefer to get hard proof of the theft, rather than scare them off, just as he wanted evidence to clear himself in Jared Moran’s death—if things turned out his way. That meant waiting until the cows were on board before he made his move.
For a few moments longer, he eyeballed the three rustlers through the scope as they rounded up half a dozen cows and a few calves and drove them up the ramp. The men weren’t subtle; they worked with speed yet didn’t seem to care if anyone saw them. Then again, on this stretch of road that wasn’t likely. The whole time Grey had been here, not a car or rancher’s pickup had passed by. Most local people would be in bed at this time of night. Like Grey, they got up at dawn, if not before, worked hard all day then turned in early to get ready for the next.
The ramp screeched up again. The rear gate banged shut.
The physical evidence he’d wanted was now standing in the stock trailer. Over the noise from those kidnapped cattle, from farther away he could just hear an approaching car, coming fast. The sheriff’s cruiser? But as he’d figured, not quick enough. Before Grey could move, the three men scrambled into the truck, slamming the front doors. The engine fired up, and the headlights pierced the darkness, illuminating the spiky grass along the newly broken fence line and the gravel at the edge of the road as if they were part of a stage set.
He’d waited too long. Aiming for the tires, Grey raised the rifle and fired. The bullet ricocheted off the rim of a rear wheel well, striking sparks. That, and the sound of the gunshot, sent the rest of the herd into a brief stampede.
Grey shot to his feet anyway, ready to shoot again. Needing a better position, he ran down the hill, hoping he wouldn’t bust a leg in the dark. But like the sheriff, he didn’t get there in time.
The rustlers blasted off into the night. Taking his cattle with them.
* * *
STANDING OUTSIDE A large chain bookstore halfway between her house in Barren and her sister’s home in a Kansas City suburb, Shadow watched Jenna Moran Collins get out of a gleaming SUV on the opposite side of the lot—their distance from each other a metaphor for their prickly relationship—and shut the passenger door.
Shadow’s heart sank. After her talks with Grey and her mother, she didn’t expect this to be easy, either, and her mother’s parting words had stuck in her mind.
At least I didn’t abandon my own baby. That wasn’t true, but it still stung. She’d tried so hard to do the right thing for Ava. Today would be no different.
Jenna walked toward her, tall and slim with their father’s auburn hair and blue eyes. Wearing a stylish pair of dark pants and an expensive-looking patterned top, she had a smile on her face that, as usual lately, never reached her eyes.
Shadow led Jenna over to a metal bench, one of several lined up along the walkway of the strip mall anchored by the bookstore and an ice cream/candy shop. Whenever Shadow couldn’t make it to the city, this made a convenient meeting place.
Jenna all but tapped an impatient foot on the sidewalk. She rooted through her designer handbag. “Why did you want to see me?”
Shadow abandoned the soft lead-in she’d rehearsed, as she’d failed to do with Grey before walking into the diner, and plunged right in. “I want to bring Ava home.”
Jenna paled. “Home?”
Ten years ago Shadow had made some tough decisions—decisions she hadn’t gotten to tell Grey about yet—and she and Ava had lived with Jenna and her husband for the two years before Shadow’s move back to Barren. But now Grey knew about Ava, and Shadow could follow through with the rest of her plan. But Jenna kept shaking her head.
Shadow tried to soften her tone. “My business is doing pretty well, and I’ve even saved some money. I can never repay you for stepping in when I needed help the most, for taking us both in. You and David helped me move in to my house, and with the school year ending, you know there’s no reason for her to keep staying with you—except that you want her to. I can’t blame you for that. Ava just lights up a room, doesn’t she?”
And only last night Shadow had gone into what would be her daughter’s bedroom. She’d sat there, hoping Ava would like what she’d done with the space, dreaming of what it would be like when they were together again.
“She can’t move right now.” Jenna met Shadow’s gaze. “Her summer break hasn’t started yet.”
“I know, and I realize we’ll have to transition from your house to mine. That’s why I wanted to talk to you first. Then I’ll speak with Ava. I know she’ll have some objections—”
Her sister’s eyes filled with tears.
“Jenna, I love how good you are with her, I know you’ve become attached—”
“She’s my only niece. This past year she’s spent more time with me than with you.”
Shadow tensed. This wasn’t going well. “That couldn’t be helped. I had to commute between Barren and Shawnee Mission. Building the agency, buying the house...all of that took time and effort, but you knew those were first steps toward me bringing Ava home. I didn’t want to uproot her into yet another uncertain situation. But you knew I’d always planned for this. For us to be together in our own place again.”
She couldn’t wait for the chance to tuck Ava into bed each night, to know that in the morning she would be there, eager to start the day. With Shadow. But Jenna didn’t agree.
“This is just such a...shock.” She took a shaky breath. “Shadow, I love Ava. So much that I would adopt her if I could. No, I want to adopt her.”
Shadow’s pulse hitched. Why hadn’t she seen that coming? She had no intention of giving up her child, and she’d thought Jenna understood that. Shadow had worked and worked toward bringing Ava home. To build the solid foundation she hadn’t been able to provide her daughter for the first six years of her life, when Shadow had struggled just to pay rent on their tiny apartment. Jenna’s statement terrified her. But then, Jenna also had her husband to consider. Had she talked to him?
Shadow doubted he would be as eager to adopt as Jenna was. He’d always liked being her first priority, and more than once Shadow had seen him turn away from Ava as if to cut out the competition. The infertility that had plagued her sister had never seemed to bother him as much, even though he’d agreed to all of the in vitro fertilizations they had tried without success. Would he really side with Jenna on this?
“What about David?”
Jenna’s gaze flickered. “He’s busy right now, planning for a conference in Chicago before he has to go on to his firm’s branch in Salt Lake.” She hesitated. “Dave’s not