Rancher's Covert Christmas Page 22

  Bold persistence. The words reminded her of Josh’s advice regarding Zane. Fight for him.

  As she straightened from putting Zeke on the floor, Zane said, “I guess you’ll be leaving soon?”

  She blinked at him. His words were so in the face of her line of thought, she had to wonder if he could read her mind. “Leaving?”

  His level gaze was haunted, shadowed with pain, fatigue and abundant worry. And something else she’d never seen in his eyes before. Was it regret?

  “With the vandalism solved, I assumed you’d be moving on. The police can take over now, rooting out the blackmailer.”

  The notion of leaving the ranch hurt more than it should, and it took her a moment to form her reply.

  “On the contrary, I intend to stay and lend my assistance in finding the blackmailer. Although...I guess that it’s really your dad’s decision when my job is done.”

  Her phone pinged with an incoming text. Josh.

  On our way! Starving!

  “However,” she added, willing her voice not to crack, “I will probably go home for Christmas, get out of your family’s way for the wedding.” She heard voices from the back of the house. The rest of the family making their way in for dinner.

  As much as she’d grown to admire and care for the McCalls over the past weeks, as much as she wished she might have a future as a member of the ranching family, she was an outsider. Her chest squeezed. Suddenly she had no appetite. Pushing her plate aside, she gathered her gloves and headed for the back door. “Well, enjoy your dinner. I think I’m going to head to bed early and read.”

  As she left through the back door, she glanced back at Zane. He met her eyes for a few seconds, and she’d swear there was a question in his gaze. Hope filled her like a balloon. He seemed about to speak but...instead inhaled deeply, firmed his mouth and jerked a dismissive nod. Deflated and shivering in the icy December air, she trudged toward the guesthouse.

  Once she’d had a hot shower, she plugged her phone into her laptop at the breakfast table to charge and headed to bed, weary to the bone. But for all her bodily fatigue, her mind wouldn’t rest.

  She replayed Roy’s confession, the guilt in his expression and tears of shame. She saw the shock, pain and anger that crossed each of the McCall’s faces as they learned the news. Brady’s torment over his divided loyalties. Knowing how easily Zane could have been killed in the truck accident. And most off all, his reticence around her. The melancholy, conflicted shadows in his eyes when he’d looked at her over the past few days.

  Even after everything they’d been through together, he remained distant, quiet, guarded around her. Knowing her deception was at the heart of why she’d lost Zane’s trust was an open wound she didn’t think would heal anytime soon. Zane was not like the men she knew in Boulder. Not like any man she’d met before. He was scrupulous to a fault, and when she’d chipped past his protective wall, she’d known a man whose heart was as good, as loving, as true as any she’d ever known. More so. He was fiercely loyal, protective and smart as a whip. And oh, Lordy, could the man kiss! He had a raw sex appeal and chemistry with her that—

  She determinedly shoved aside thoughts of her physical attraction to him, the intimate moments they’d shared. She’d never get to sleep if she roused the tingling, heated flush of desire that memories of his hands on her evoked.

  Punching her pillow, she rolled over and blanked her mind...for all of a minute. And then the circle of thoughts began again. Finally, about two hours later, she managed a light sleep.

  But a creaking noise, as if someone was walking across the hardwood floor in the living room, woke Erin soon after she’d drifted off. She sat up in her bed and listened, straining her ears for another sound while her heart beat an anxious rhythm. Was it Zane coming to talk? She remembered his angry declaration that as the owner of the guesthouse he would come and go from it as he pleased.

  A scraping sound, as if the chair at the kitchen table had been moved, was followed by thumps and bumps, cracking noises. Paper tearing. Was Zane snooping through her research again? But why, since Roy had confessed to the vandalism...?

  Heart racing, she rolled toward the bedside stand in search of her phone. Remembering belatedly she’d left the phone plugged into her laptop to charge, she bit her bottom lip, debating her options.

  She tossed back the covers and started down the hall to confront Zane. About the time the hardwood floor squeaked under her feet, her sleep-and-fatigue-fogged mind considered another option.

  What if the late-night visitor wasn’t Zane? She’d locked all the doors to the guesthouse, but was it possible that—

  A strong arm seized her around the throat, and a gun was jabbed under her chin.

  And Erin loosed a scream.

  Chapter 17

  Zane scuffed his boot against the frozen ground in frustration. He hadn’t been able to sleep, despite the painkillers. But his sore ribs and head weren’t what had kept him awake. He’d been groping through the dense forest of his emotions, trying to understand the hows and whys of the tumult inside him. The hurt in Erin’s face as she’d left the kitchen that evening, like that of a scolded puppy, twisted in his gut. He knew deep down she was sorry for her lies and deceit. He wanted to truly forgive her, to give her a second chance—give them a second chance—but something held him back. What? And why?

  He mentally recounted the special moments they’d shared, the way she lifted his spirits, challenged him, inspired him. And she’d changed him—for the better. So if she was good for him, made him happy, had all the qualities he wanted in a lover and friend, why did the thought of her rattle him so deeply?

  When he sighed, his breath formed a frosty white cloud that wafted like a ghost in the moonlight. He always came out to the corral to think, even at night, even in the dead of winter. The quiet appealed to him. The vast open sky lulled him. The proximity to the horses gave him a sense of rootedness. The night, the sky, the animals were soothing in their predictability, their steadfastness. They didn’t change, and Zane had never liked change. Change brought with it an uncertainty that unsettled him.

  He gritted his teeth as the familiar roil in his gut started when he thought of the recent upheaval in his life. He was losing any control he ever had over—

  He paused, his thoughts snagging on the word control. Josh always countered Zane’s criticism of his recklessness with accusations that Zane was a control freak. He’d shrugged off the term. Sure, he liked order and predictability. So what? But what if his need for control was more deeply rooted? A tickle started at the base of his neck. What if—?

  A muffled woman’s scream pierced the night, jerking him from his thoughts.

  Zane’s pulse spiked as he whirled around. Where had it come from? His gaze flew first to the guesthouse. Erin was alone, unprotected if she—

  A shadow moved past the dimly lit front window of the guesthouse, and Zane ran across the ranch yard, heedless of the jostling to his ribs. He skidded to a stop near the front step, reining in his impulse to burst through the door. He had no idea what or who he’d find. He needed to use caution.

  He’d left his phone in the house on his nightstand. He debated for the briefest instant taking the time to retrieve his cell phone and call the sheriff. But a crash inside the guesthouse, another muffled cry, resolved the issue. Erin needed him—now.

  He tested the front door, and though the knob didn’t twist, indicating it was locked, the door swung open. A chill slithered through him. By the glow of Erin’s laptop, he spotted a man near the table where Erin had worked. He had his arms around Erin, and she was struggling to get free.

  With a slap of his hand, he flipped on the light. “Let her go!”

  * * *

  Erin gasped, and the man holding her jerked taut as the overhead light flooded the room.

  Zane filled the front door, his face dark with the v
ehemence of an avenging angel. Her relief at seeing him shattered in the next moment as her captor swung his weapon toward Zane.

  “Gun!” she shouted.

  Zane dove behind the couch.

  “Stop!” Erin pleaded with the man. “Don’t hurt him! I’ll give you what you want. Just...don’t shoot anyone. Please!”

  The weapon shifted back to her.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” the man growled.

  From behind the couch, she heard Zane moving. Groaning. Her gut knotted. “Zane?”

  “Put the gun down, Hugh!” Zane shouted. “We can resolve this without anyone getting hurt.”

  Hugh?

  “You know him?” Erin asked, and the gun jabbed harder into her neck.

  “Shut up! Both of you!”

  “Yeah, I know him,” Zane said, rising from behind the sofa with his hands in the air. “His name is Hugh Carver. He’s Gill’s father.”

  Erin scrambled back through her memory for what she’d learned about Gill Carver’s father. “You—” she turned her head and angled her eyes to see her captor’s face “—were a rancher. Before...”

  Hugh curled his lip in disdain, and he waved the gun in Zane’s direction. “Before this punk and his family took advantage of my bad luck and profited from my family’s misery? Yeah.”

  Zane shook his head. “That’s not how it happened. You were bankrupt before my father ever bought anything at the auctions. We had nothing to do with your losses.”

  Erin searched for something close at hand she could use as a weapon to defend herself, to help Zane if the situation spiraled further out of control. Papers, her dirty coffee mug, a pen.

  “Didn’t stop your father from licking his chops and tearing into my carcass before my body was even cold,” Hugh said.

  Erin’s gut turned at her captor’s morbid analogy, but she used the man’s distraction to inch her fingers toward the pen on the table.

  Zane took a step forward, hands still up. “Look, Hugh, put the gun down and we’ll talk.”

  “Talk?” the man scoffed. “It is way too late for talking.”

  “Then what do you want? Why are you here?”

  “I had to come. Had to get rid of the evidence.” Hugh heaved a sigh, and his chest vibrated as he growled, “Summers blew it.”

  “Roy?” Zane asked.

  “Of course, Roy. I had no way to know how much the drunk idiot told the cops.” Gill’s father shifted his weight, and his grip around her waist tightened. “I knew this one—” he jabbed the muzzle harder against her throat “—had been snooping around, asking questions. I told Roy to get rid of her, destroy her notes, but he refused. So I had no choice. I had to come myself. Get rid of anything, and anyone, who could implicate me.”

  Erin’s breath froze in her chest. If she’d any question about the man’s intentions before, he’d erased those doubts. He wanted to silence her. Permanently.

  She watched the color leach from Zane’s face as he drew the same conclusion. “Hugh, don’t be rash.”

  “I have no choice. I will not go to prison because Roy Summers screwed up!”

  “Roy didn’t sell you out.” Erin said, her voice breaking. “He confessed to what he did, but didn’t tell anyone who put him up to it!”

  Hugh grew quiet, still. “You’re lying.”

  Zane shook his head slowly. “He was worried that you’d hurt his family. He wanted to protect them. He never said a word about who was blackmailing him.”

  Which meant Hugh had blown his own cover by panicking. Erin knew the moment the older man realized that truth, because his grip on her sagged briefly. And she took advantage of that instant of distraction.

  With her hand fisted around the pen, she jabbed it into the old man’s leg as hard as she could. When he screamed and grabbed for his injured thigh, she allowed her body to go limp, crumple to the floor. While he roared curses at her, she rolled away and scrambled to her feet, ready to feint or dodge as needed.

  Zane was at her side in an instant, shoving his body in front of hers as a shield.

  “Damn you, bitch!” Hugh raised a ferocious glare as he aimed the gun at them and fired.

  Zane jerked her to the floor, and she heard the thud as the bullet lodged itself in the hardwood, inches from her ear. They scuttled behind the couch for protection, and Zane rose to a crouch to peer over the back at Gill’s father.

  “Hugh, stop! Think about what you’re doing! By now my family has heard the gunshot, her screams, and they’ve called the police.”

  Erin closed her eyes and said a quick prayer that Zane’s claim was true.

  “If you shoot us, you’ll only add to your troubles. Think of your family. Don’t—”

  “My family?” he shouted. “Now you care about my family? What about ten years ago when you and your father were driving me out of business and buying up my land and equipment like vultures?”

  Erin estimated the distance to the door. Could she crawl to it and escape, get help without getting shot? Did she dare leave Zane here with Hugh, a man clearly not thinking rationally and full of rage toward the McCalls? Her heart drummed a frantic tattoo.

  Maybe if Zane distracted Hugh, she could ease quietly from the other end of the sofa, work her way behind the gunman and reach her phone. Text the other McCalls. Call 9-1-1.

  “Think about what you are doing, Hugh,” Zane said, his voice remarkably calm and reasonable.

  “I’m done thinking and waiting,” Hugh grumbled. He shoved her laptop on the floor and fired at it. “It’s time for justice. Time for my revenge.”

  She touched Zane on the arm, drawing his attention. Keep him talking, she mouthed. Distracted.

  He frowned in query, then seemed to understand her intention, because he shook his head, mouthing, No!

  She nodded and made hand signals of her plan to retrieve her phone.

  His mouth firmed, and his eyes flashed with vehemence. No! he mouthed again and pointed to the floor. Stay here!

  I can do this, she mouthed back.

  More bumps and crashes drew their attention back to Hugh, who had knocked over a chair and was throwing files into the fireplace, reigniting her banked coals.

  She didn’t wait for any other reply. Easing to the opposite end of the sofa, she rose in a squat. She peeked toward the spot on the floor where her mangled laptop lay with her phone still tethered by a short cable. And crept toward it.

  * * *

  Zane grabbed for Erin as she moved from behind the couch. Missed. Panic flared in his chest as she slipped away, out from the protection of the sofa. What the hell was she doing? Why wouldn’t she listen to him? If she’d just do as he’d told her and—

  A jolt of reality chilled him to the bone. He had no control over Erin. No control over this standoff. Things could go very wrong, very quickly, and he’d be at the mercy of other people’s choices, of fate, of luck—whether good or bad. But he still controlled his own actions, and he’d do whatever it took to rein in this situation and direct the outcome.

  He drew a ragged breath as he hurried back to the other end of the couch to find something to distract Hugh.

  “Hugh,” he said, allowing himself to be seen as he peered around the couch, not only snagging the old rancher’s attention but stealing a glimpse of Erin’s progress. In a squat, she was silently duck-waddling in her bare feet toward the laptop.

  Hugh glanced toward him, firing a wild shot over his head.

  Zane ducked back down, his pulse thundering. Damn it, he’d get himself shot, die if he had to, if only he could be sure Erin would be all right.

  “I had Roy under my thumb until that nosy bitch from out of town came poking around. She ruined everything! But I won’t let her and Roy destroy me!”

  “No,” Zane answered, rising slightly to survey the situation again. “You’r
e doing that by yourself. Your bad decisions are what brought you here and caught you in this snare. You are the only one to blame, Hugh.”

  Music filled the air suddenly, cheerful and incongruous to the tension of the standoff. Erin’s ring tone.

  Hugh swung around, startled by the sound. And spotted Erin, who’d frozen about a yard short of her phone.

  Zane’s heart stuck in his throat. No!

  When Erin lunged for her phone, Hugh raised the handgun.

  And Zane surged from his crouch, took two running steps and tackled Hugh.

  * * *

  The gun fired as Hugh and Zane grappled for control of the weapon.

  Erin gasped and flattened herself on the floor, hoping to make herself a smaller target for stray bullets. She angled her head to monitor the struggle between Zane and her intruder. Zane had a grip on the man’s gun hand and was slamming it on the ground, trying to force Hugh to lose his grip on the weapon.

  Another shot fired, and Erin rolled back toward the sofa, weighing her options as fast as her stunned brain could process the rapidly changing situation. Get the gun. Help Zane. That much was obvious but...

  And then Hugh’s hold on the gun faltered, and the revolver skittered across the hardwood floor. Erin pounced, snatching up the weapon and aiming it at the two men who were still grappling, throwing punches, battling for the upper hand. She stood there for a second or two, shaking and trying to steady her aim. But she couldn’t shoot Hugh without risking hitting Zane.

  Her phone was still ringing, and with the gun now in her control, she hazarded a glance at the caller ID. Piper.

  She thumbed the answer icon and immediately heard Piper’s voice. “Erin? Erin, are you there? We heard gunfire! Are you all right?”

  “Call the cops! We need help!” With that, she tossed the phone aside without even disconnecting the call.

  In the next instant, the door burst open, and after a quick glance around the door frame, sizing up the situation, Josh and Michael charged into the room.