Cowboy to the Rescue (4 page)

“You must be an early riser,” she commented.

“It's a rancher's necessity,” he told her. “If he plans to get things done.”

She smiled wanly. “And I'm going to assume that you're a man who gets things done.”

Was she making fun of him? It didn't matter. She was a city girl. She didn't know about his sort of life. Or him.

“When I try,” he drawled. He pointed to the paper she'd been reading. “Is that something about my father's case?”

She nodded. “It is. But it's nothing from your father's personal things. I've not started going through them yet. Before I drove down from San Antonio, I gathered some general information about the company he worked for—Coastal Oil. It's a huge conglomerate now. They've expanded several times during the past few years.”

The button just above her breasts had been left undone, and if he angled his head just right, Lex could see a tiny silver cross dangling in the shadowed cleavage. Strangely, the sight was both erotic and prim. Like a good girl hiding a naughty tattoo.

“I don't know of any oil company nowadays that isn't making a killing. Yet that wasn't quite true eleven years ago. Coastal Oil was close to going bankrupt.”

Her expression thoughtful, she said, “The economy ebbs and flows on cyclical tides. Could be that was simply a downtime for raw crude. Or perhaps the problem was poor management.”

“Yeah. Or corrupt management,” Lex replied.

Her brows arched. “Why would you make a remark like that? Do you know for a fact that someone was stealing from the company?”

“Not at all. I was just speculating. Nowadays white-collar crime seems to be rampant.”

The curiosity that had been marking her face swiftly disappeared. “That's true.”

Feeling restless now, Lex walked over to a window that looked out upon the ranch yard. At the moment, he could see Gabe, the Sandbur's horse trainer, down at the horse pen, riding a red roan filly. The animal was trying to get her head low enough to buck, but the man was doing his best to change her mind. His brother-in-law was a genius with horses. And women, too, apparently. He'd certainly made Lex's sister Mercedes happy.

Lex glanced over his shoulder at Christina. She'd removed the glasses from her face and was eyeing him with easy anticipation. Just to look at her, Lex found it hard to imagine her working on a police force, putting herself in dangerous situations.

“What makes you do what you do?” he asked.

“My brother. When he disappeared, the police were useless—or so it seemed. I truly believed that I could do better. Later, after I finally learned how things really worked on the police force, I could see that finding a missing person wasn't as simple as I'd first imagined.” She leaned forward and folded her hands together on the desk top. “Working with the Rangers was more than great—it was the chance of a lifetime to garner the experience I needed.”

“Why didn't you stay there?”

One slender shoulder lifted and fell. “Because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life sitting behind a desk.”

Lex gestured toward her. “Looks like you're still sitting behind one.”

She appeared faintly amused as she rose to her feet and walked over to a wall lined with book-filled shelves. Lex hoped she stayed there. If she drew near him, he'd be able to smell her rose-scented perfume. He'd want to look at places he shouldn't and touch even more. He'd find it damned hard to remain a gentleman.

“But you see, I can get up whenever I want,” she pointed out. “I don't have a superior telling me what to do or how to go about doing it. If I need to bend the rules a bit, I can take that risk, because I'm the only one who might get hurt.”

Where was all her confidence coming from? Lex wondered. Or was it more like determination? The question lingered in his mind as his gaze wandered discreetly down her slender curves. Most of the women he'd dated were attractive, but none of them were nearly as interesting as Christina. He realized there were many things he'd like to ask her, but they were all so personal, he decided he'd better keep the questions to himself. At least, for a while.

“You obviously like being your own boss,” he stated.

She glanced at him and smiled, and Lex felt a spurt of desire as he watched her pink lips spread against very white teeth. She was like a field of spring wildflowers. A man couldn't ignore all that vibrant color.

“Don't you?” she countered.

Her assumption made him chuckle. “If you think I'm the boss around here, you're mistaken. Matt Sanchez, my cousin, is the general manager, but even he doesn't consider himself the head cheese of the Sandbur. No one does. We're family, and we work as a unit—makes us stronger that way.”

His words sent an odd little pain through Christina's chest. To be a part of a family, and to have that family whole and strongly webbed together with love, was all that she'd ever wanted. But her parents had never known or learned how to love themselves, much less each other or their children, as deeply as they should have. They'd split apart when she and Joel had been young teenagers. Then to add to that messy wound, Joel had gone missing, ripping away what little family she'd had left.

To hide her dark, unsettled thoughts, she quickly pretended an interest in the books in front of her. “Anything whole is always stronger than something divided.” She darted a glance at him. “You're a lucky man, Lex Saddler.”

He didn't say anything to that, and though her head was turned away from him, she could feel his thoughtful silence, his warm gaze traveling over her.

“So where do you plan to start this morning on Dad's case?”

Bracing herself, she turned to face him. “Right now I have copies of the police and coroner's reports, so-called witness depositions and general information about the company Paul worked for. Your mother has given me pertinent data as to where Paul grew up, how they met and a general idea of their marriage, especially around the time that he died. For the next couple of days, I'm going to delve into all that.”

“So what do you need from me? I mean this morning.”

No doubt he was itching to get outside, and she couldn't blame the man. From the few open spaces between the live oak limbs shading the window, sunshine was streaming through the panes of glass, slanting golden stripes across the hardwood floor. Out on the lawn, dew glistened on the thick Saint Augustine grass while mockingbirds squawked angrily at a pair of fox squirrels. It was a lovely morning. One that needed to be taken advantage of.

She looked at Lex speculatively. He was a man who needed to be doing. Sitting and talking about the past would only make him tense again.

Smiling tentatively, she walked toward him. “I'd like for you to take me on a horseback ride.”

L
ike an idiot, Lex felt his jaw drop as he stared at the lovely woman in front of him. He'd been expecting a taped question-and-answer session or, at the very least, to help her go over stacks of his father's personal papers.

“Riding? For pleasure?”

She laughed softly. “Why, yes. That's the only sort of riding I've ever done. Don't you ever ride across the hills just for the sake of riding?”

He stroked a thumb and forefinger against his chin. “Not since I was about ten years old. After that, I got on a horse to go someplace or to herd cattle. And as for hills, the only kind we have around here are fire-ant hills.”

Dimples appeared in both her cheeks, and Lex felt the middle of his chest go soft and gooey. What was the matter with him? he wondered. A woman's simple smile had never affected him this way.

“Well, perhaps this morning you could pretend you're herding cattle, and we could talk a bit about your father's case along the way? It's a shame to waste the sunshine, and I'd enjoy seeing some of the ranch.”

She was making spending time with her easy, Lex thought, way too easy.

“Then you've got a date.” He glanced at her strapped sandals. “Do you own a pair of boots? Not the kind you wear down a fashion runway, either. The cowboy kind that will hold your feet in the stirrups?”

“I do. Give me five minutes to change. Where shall I meet you?” she asked.

“In the kitchen. Cook will give us some cookies and a thermos of coffee to take.”

“I thought you didn't know how to ride for fun,” she reminded him.

Feeling unexpectedly happy, he laughed. “I'm a quick learner.”

Ten minutes later, the two of them were out the door and walking toward an enormous white wooden barn. At the nearest end, and along one side, wooden corrals separated groups of horses, some of which were munching alfalfa hay from portable mangers.

Inside the barn, Lex saddled a gentle mare named Hannah for Christina and, for himself, a paint gelding called Leo that he most often used as a working mount.

While he readied the horses, Christina used the time to look around the inside of the cavernous barn. Besides the outside horses, there were at least thirty stalled inside the structure, and though she was far from an expert on horse flesh, she recognized without being told that some of the animals were worth a small fortune. Their stalls were pristine, and their coats, manes and tails groomed to perfection.

A number of wranglers and stable boys were already hard at work, and she could easily see why the Sandbur was one of the largest and wealthiest ranches in the state of Texas. But whether that wealth had played into Paul Saddler's death was yet to be seen.

“We'll take them outside and mount up there,” Lex told her. “Can you lead Hannah?”

“Sure. I'm not a complete greenhorn around horses.” He handed Hannah's reins to her, and as they headed toward the open barn door, the gray mare fell into obedient step behind her. “One of my best childhood friends owns horses and keeps them stabled at the edge of the city. We've ridden together since we were small girls,” she told him. “Only lately, I've gotten out of practice. She has to fly back and forth to California to care for her ailing mother.”

He glanced over at her. “That must be stressful. What about your mother? Does she live in San Antonio?”

Christina caught herself before she grimaced. Frowning at the mention of her mother wouldn't make a good impression. Especially to someone like Lex, who obviously adored his mother. But he could hardly know the sort of life that Retha Logan had lived. He couldn't know that in her fifty-one years of life, she'd already gone through six husbands and was now working on her seventh.

“No, she lives in Dallas.”

“You see her often?”

“Not too often. She stays busy, and so do I.”

“What about your father?”

His questions were simple and something to be expected. Even so, they made her feel very uncomfortable. Especially when she was the one who usually did the asking, not the answering.

“He still lives in San Antonio,” she conceded. “You see, my parents divorced when my brother and I were teenagers. So it's been a long time since we were all together as a family.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Thankfully, they'd reached the open yard in front of the horse barn, and Christina halted her forward motion. “Can we mount up now?”

“I'm ready,” he agreed, allowing Leo's reins to dangle to the ground and turning toward her. “Let me help you.”

“Won't your horse run off?” she asked, with dismay.

“No. He understands what I want him to do.”

“Smart horse.”

He chuckled. “That's the only kind we raise here on the Sandbur.”

Christina stood to one side as he slipped the bridle reins over Hannah's head.

“Put your foot in the stirrup, and I'll give you a boost,” he said.

His boost turned out to be a hand on her rump, pushing her upward, but when she landed in the seat of the saddle with hardly any effort at all on her part, she couldn't be cross with him.

As he swung himself onto the back of the paint, she said, “I suppose that's a technique you use to help everyone into the saddle.”

He laughed under his breath, and Christina realized she'd never heard a more sexy sound.

“Well, just the women. None of the men around here need help getting into the saddle.”

Women.
No doubt he had girlfriends in the plural, she thought. He had that rakish, devil-may-care attitude that drew women like bears to a beehive. She ought to know. Mike had been a charmer deluxe, the smoothest-talking man she'd ever run across. Still, that shouldn't have been any excuse for her to go on believing his gaff for four long years. Once she'd finally smartened up and left, she'd vowed to never believe anything a smooth-talking man said without some sort of action to back it up.

Lex nudged his horse forward, and Christina quickly drew the mare abreast of Leo. As they moved away from the barn, he pointed in a westerly direction.

“The river is that way, and that's where my sisters love to ride,” he said. “But the trail is rough. We'll go north today and travel the road that leads to the vet's house. Maybe later, after I see how well you can ride, we'll go to the river one day.”

Christina had only suggested getting out this morning because she'd believed it would be a way of getting Lex to relax and talk more freely about his father. She'd not been thinking about future days or spending any more casual time with this man. But now that they were riding along, their stirrups brushing, the wind at their back and a crooked, contagious grin on Lex's face, she could very easily imagine doing all this again. It was a dangerous thought…especially since it seemed so tempting.

“I promise not to hurt Hannah or myself,” she assured him.

Forty minutes later, they reached a small stream with a low wooden bridge. On the other side of the little creek was a small house shaded by oaks, a barn and a network of cattle pens. Before they crossed the bridge, Lex suggested they stop for a break. After dismounting, he tethered their horses to a nearby willow tree and pulled the thermos of coffee and plastic-wrapped cookies from his saddle bags.

“Is that the vet's house?” Christina asked as they took seats on the side of the bridge.

“Yeah, Jubal and his family live there. He's our resident veterinarian. I don't think any of them are home at the moment, but I'm sure you'll get a chance to meet them all later. Angie has a teaching degree, but for now she's staying home to take care of their daughter, Melanie, and baby son, Daniel.”

Another real family, Christina thought wistfully. The Sandbur seemed to be full of them, reminding her just how unsuccessful she'd been in finding a man to love her and give her children.

“Sounds like a nice family.”

“They are,” he agreed, then handed her the bag of cookies. “Here. I'd better warn you that you can't eat only one. They're too good.”

After a breakfast of eggs and biscuits, she wasn't the least bit hungry, but after one bite of pecans and chocolate chips, she couldn't resist eating a whole cookie and wistfully eyeing those that remained.

He took a short drink from the thermos cup, then passed it to her. For some reason, drinking after the man felt very intimate. As Christina sipped the hot liquid, she felt her cheeks grow unaccustomedly warm.

“So your father was a rancher, too,” she commented after a few moments of easy silence had passed.

He picked up a tiny piece of gravel and tossed it into the shallow water. “For most of his early life—before he went to work in the oil business. And even after that, he helped here on the ranch as much as time allowed. Even to this day, I don't know half as much about cattle as he did. He was a very intelligent man.”

There was love and pride in his voice, and Christina wondered how it would feel, to know her father had lived an admirable life. She was very proud that Delbert Logan was now staying sober, holding down a good job and taking care of himself, instead of expecting someone to take care of him. Still, she couldn't help but envy the relationship Lex had clearly had with his father.

“That's what I keep hearing.” She smiled at him. “It's obvious that you were very close to him. Did he spend much time with all his children?”

“As much as possible. My sisters were very close to our father, too. But whenever he was home on the ranch, he and I were practically inseparable.”

“So you were living here on the ranch at the time of his death?”

He nodded grimly. “I hadn't been out of college long and had moved back home from Texas A&M. God, I'm just thankful he got to see me graduate.”

No doubt, Paul Saddler would be proud of his son if he could see him now, Christina thought. Lex appeared to be a man who loved his family deeply and was dedicated to doing his part to keep their ranch successful.

“So what made your father decide to go into the oil business, anyway?”

Lex shrugged. “I'm not exactly sure. I was still in grade school when that happened. I think it was a time when cattle prices had sunk to the bottom of the barrel, and Dad decided he'd be more help to the ranch if he brought in outside money. You see, he'd graduated college with a chemical engineering degree and had always planned to work for one of the chemical plants located on the coast. But then he met my mother, and after they married, he decided that ranching would make him just as happy.”

“Hmm. So he went to work at Coastal Oil out of necessity?” she asked.

Lex nodded. “But I think after he'd been with the company awhile, the money and the benefits became too good to leave. Plus, he was getting something out of his degree. And then there was always the thought of a nice retirement check, which gave him more incentive to stay.”

She handed the thermos cup back to him. “Did you personally know the three friends Paul worked with? The ones who were with him the day of his accident?”

He poured more coffee into the metal cup. “Yes. They seemed to be okay guys, I suppose. Mom has always loved to throw parties for a variety of reasons, and these guys would always attend—until Dad died. After that, they never came back to the ranch. Guess they thought it might bring up bad memories for Mom or something. I thought it was a bit odd, myself.” He looked thoughtfully over at her. “Have you read through their testimonies?”

She nodded. “Yes, but I'm not putting too much stock in them. Most eyewitnesses are very unreliable. They don't accurately recall what happened, even though they swear they're sure about what they saw. And the ones that seem to remember every tiny detail are usually lying.”

“Oh. Do you think Dad's friends accurately described what happened that day?”

“I don't yet know enough about them or the case to form an opinion.” She gave him an encouraging smile. “Can you tell me more about them?”

His expression thoughtful, he gazed out at the open range dotted with gray Brahman cattle. “They were Dad's work buddies, not necessarily friends of mine. But I recall a little about them. Red Winters was a big, burly guy. A bit obnoxious, always telling crude jokes. He thought he knew more than everybody, including my dad. Which was a joke. Red got his job because of who he knew, not what he knew. Harve Dirksen was sort of the ladies' man type. Tall, dark, good-looking, and he knew it. About a year before Dad died, he was going through a messy divorce. I guess Mrs. Dirksen had gotten tired of his cheating. But in spite of their personal problems, they were always devoted friends to Dad. If he needed their help for any reason, they'd be there for him.”

“What about the third man, Lawrence Carter?”

“The epitome of a nerd. Physically weak. Smart at his job, but socially backwards. He'd always been big in playing the stock market and had a degree in business along with being a chemist. Like I said, he was smart, but Red always bullied him around. I remember Mom mentioning that Lawrence had a sickly son, but I don't know what came of that. You might ask her about it. But I'm pretty sure his wife left him, too, sometime after Dad died. But his luck turned around eventually. All three men came into a small fortune about a year after Dad died.”