Lies That Bind (8 page)

“Damn straight.”

He knelt at her feet and tugged her sneakers off, kneaded her toes before he peeled her socks away.

Emotion clawed for freedom. Her body automatically tensed with the internal battle for control, a battle she had no hope of winning. Tears burst free, pouring in torrents down her face. Sobs overcame the words. She couldn’t see him through the tears, but he hadn’t moved. Tessa hated people seeing her like this, hated when her emotions were rough and raw, an entity all their own. Hated feeling vulnerable. Hated the ache that squeezed her heart.

Rex wrapped his arms around her. She clung to him, let him strip her down to her underwear, always keeping one hand on her, tethering her to this world…
his
world. Before she realized it, he had her under the covers, with him spooned around her.

“It’s okay,” he said.

No, it wasn’t. It hadn’t been okay for a long time. Tessa had little hope it would ever be right again. It was never going to work. She was never going to stay here, and they were never going to leave. In a couple of days, she’d be gone, and back in her safe, lonely little world, where her heart wouldn’t succumb to the sight, scent, and feel of a cowboy wrapped around her. And God, Rex was heaven.

In a few days. But for now…

Tessa dried her tears and blew her nose on the tissue Rex passed her way. She could tell him to leave, and he probably would. That it would serve no purpose to stay on this path. That they would only wind up hurting each other again. Instead, she cuddled into him, closed her eyes, drank her fill of his scent, and fell asleep.

Chapter Six

Curiosity made Tyler look toward the ranch. Perched on a small rise overlooking the place, he had a good view. Not a perfect view, but a damned good view of Rex and Tessa intertwined against the fence. It shot a thrill to the tips of his fingers, toes, and his rock-hard cock. He could feel every thrust Rex made into her, feel her pussy clenched in ecstasy. He’d nearly come with them.

Then Rex carried her toward the ranch house. Minutes later, he’d seen them heading over to Rex’s place. Tyler swore his erection doubled in size just thinking about what was going on behind closed doors. It felt like boulders squeezed in the suddenly too-tight confines of his jeans. He longed to be with them, splayed out for her pleasure while Rex rode her from behind.

He cupped his package and tried to find a comfortable position. There wasn’t one. He rubbed against the length to quell the ache. A surge burned through his cock. He shifted in the saddle and shoved his palm lower to cup his balls, squeeze them into submission. Too late he remembered his companion.

“We could always dismount and duck into the bushes,” Nate said. “Although, privacy’s never been a big issue with me.”

Tyler pulled his hand away. Heat crawled over his face. For the first time, he resented Nate’s appearance in their lives.

“So who are you to Tessa?” he asked.

“A friend,” Nate answered without pause.

“A friend with benefits.” Not something that set well with him.

“Sometimes.”

Nope, he didn’t like the answer at all, but obviously, there wasn’t that tight of a bond between her and Nate if she was off with Rex now. Although some attractions couldn’t be denied, no matter how much time had passed or how many harsh words had parted them in the first place.

“It’s a port-in-the-storm relationship. Friends lending each other a helping hand.”

The leather saddle creaked as Nate shifted position, probably to find that elusive comfortable spot Tyler sought. He was observant. Tyler would give him that—reading Tyler’s train of thought.

“Good to know.” Very good to know.

Tyler loved the way she’d seemed to settle into Rex’s arms when he’d picked her up. She was theirs. Always had been, always would be. Uncertainty crawled under his skin. Something else pumped his erection now. That primal urge coded into all males. The one that reared its head at the most inopportune times. The urge to hunt, to fight, to mate. Come or die. The bushes were looking mighty sweet.

“Let’s move on. I don’t want to let the day sneak away from us. Derek was found over here.” Tyler reined his horse in that direction, though it wasn’t hard to find with backhoe tracks gouging the surface. What was a muddy mess yesterday was now mounds of hard dirt clods.

He and Nate topped the rise and saw the wide, open clearing. So far Rosie’s grave was undisturbed, and there wasn’t a sign of Tito or any of his people. For someone so hot to get evidence, Tito sure hadn’t put much effort into doing so.
As usual.

“Hold up.” Nate pulled his mount to a stop. “I want to get a feel for the place.”

Tyler didn’t have a problem with that. You couldn’t investigate if you didn’t know the lay of the land. Tyler knew the place like the back of his hand. Or thought he did. Watching Nate’s slow sweep over everything around them made Tyler rethink. He put himself in Nate’s place, trying to see it all from a new perspective.

Javelina had torn up a good quarter of the two-acre clearing. Well-trod trails led off toward the tree line in different directions. Rustlers’ visitors were kept away from this area because of the threat of pigs. It’d be prime hunting territory had he, Derek, and Rex gone that route. Doing so would help keep the inn full in the winter months. They’d still been debating their options when Derek died.

“What do people use to hunt javelina?” Nate braced one hand on the saddle horn, his gaze locked forward.

“Compound bow.”

“Like the one you have?”

“Yes.” Tyler never went anywhere without his compound bow. Though he did carry a rifle and handgun, just in case. A pig was a pig. Fair game, good eating, and a dangerous nuisance. If it threatened him, Tyler could kill it. If someone wanted to report him for doing so out of season, Tyler could argue he wasn’t hunting, he was protecting. Besides, it was their ranch. They could do whatever the fuck they wanted.

Wrong… It’s Tessa ranch.

The thought stirred his angst.

“Sorry,” he told Nate. “I didn’t think to arm you.”

“Oh…I’m armed.” A half grin lifted one corner of Nate’s mouth. “Any problems with poachers?”

“Not that we’re aware of, or that we’d care too much. We just want the javelina gone. We’re looking into hunting leases.”

“So anyone out here poaching would have had compound bow, not a firearm. They wouldn’t want to risk being caught.”

He said it more to himself than to Tyler, but Tyler didn’t have a problem connecting the dots. “Could have been an arrow to the head, not a bullet that killed Derek,” he said.

Nate nodded. “Someone panicked, cleaned up. Pigs destroyed the evidence. Doesn’t explain the dead horse.”

“Her forelegs were broke. Derek wouldn’t have let her suffer.” He squinted against the sun and readjusted his hat. “Maybe she fell, and he stood to put her out of her misery only to put himself in the line of someone else’s fire.” It was as good a theory as anything else.

“For a person so intent on gathering evidence, I don’t see hide nor hair of your sheriff. You suppose it’s that closing-ranks thing you mentioned?”

“Accident or murder, there’s still something to hide. Tito has his own agenda most of the time. I’ve yet to figure out what that is. Although the election coming up next year might have something to do with it. He hobnobbed and glad-handed everyone at last week’s barbecue. Some of our locals are harder sells than others, despite the close-knit community. Newcomers have a lot to do with that. Old-timers don’t much like it. So far no one’s stepped forward to run against him. If that happens, Tito will have a battle on his hands to keep his position. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Everyone was at this barbecue?” Nate asked.

“Not everyone, but a very nice crowd, people coming and going. Or coming and staying, especially the old-timers. They’ve been a hard sell, but we’re slowly winning them over.”

“Let me guess… They still consider you newcomers.”

Tyler laughed. “Yeah, and Rex and I’ve been here ten years. We called the event the First Annual Dog Days of Summer BBQ. The aviary was packed. Took days for the crew to clean up.”

Nate glanced down the rise from the direction they’d just come. Tyler looked too. The buildings shimmered under the heat waves.

“Sounds like fun.”

“We hope everyone enjoyed it. We charged a small admission but made it worth their money with good food, entertainment, fun games, and competitions. It was successful enough we’re doing it again next year.”

“So everyone in town got an ample opportunity to study the ranch’s layout.”

When put like that… “True. But then the ranch house has been here for generations. No secrets here. Most people have been here before at some time or another. From what I understand, Mike and Mary Ford used to be big on entertaining.” Tyler flicked his mount’s reins. “Let’s move. See what we can find. Between the storm, the pigs, and the backhoe, I’d say the crime scene is pretty fucked-up. We’ll do a perimeter check to see what we can find.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Nate nudged his heels into the horse’s sides, Tyler signaled his horse, and they moved into the scene.

The ground was a mess of gouges and ruts. Dirt clods made it hard going. Now that he had some distance from the shock of Derek’s death, Tyler could analyze things a little better. Yes, it looked like pigs had found their way to Derek’s body. But the bigger question was why Derek would have been in the middle of the field rather than hugging the trees and lying in wait to sight the javelina.

“Looks like he was taking a shortcut.” Nate pointed to a trail bisecting the clearing.

“That goes to an old line shack. No one’s used that in years.”

“Could he have been heading there? Or coming back from it?”

“At dawn? Not likely.”

“And you know Derek headed out at dawn?”

No, they didn’t
know
anything. They were working on assumptions. “Nope. Sure don’t.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to check it out. Since he was presumably shot, that’d mean someone might have been with him. Or he surprised someone.”

Tyler chewed on that for a bit. The ranch hands were accounted for. They’d be the only ones with any reason to use the shack, and even then only if they were caught out in bad weather. But no one was out. If Derek surprised a pig poacher…

“Let’s split up,” Tyler said. “Each of us can ride the perimeter inside the tree line to see what we can find. Someone hunting javelina would have taken cover in the trees. We’ll meet up where the trail leads through the trees and on to the shack.”

“You thinking a hunter shot Derek by mistake and covered it up?”

“I’d rather think of this as an accident than murder.” Tyler could forgive someone being afraid enough to cover up an accidental death.

Nate’s frown deepened. “Then why was he in the middle of the clearing?”

“How the hell should I know?” Tyler barked out the words, angry and frustrated…confused. “Until an hour ago, we thought this was an accident. Now we’re trying to piece together evidence because the sheriff’s too lazy and inept to give a shit.”

Nate’s eyes didn’t judge. If anything, he seemed to be saying he understood how Tyler felt.

“I know what it’s like to feel helpless. Let’s see what we can find. Meet you at the trailhead.” Nate tugged his horse around and headed for the trees.

Tyler moved in the opposite direction. The sun beat down on his back. Sweat trickled along his spine and wicked into his jeans. He’d gone out with everything except water. A greenhorn mistake. Tree shadows offered relief, but because of the angle of the sun, he had to go deeper into the woods to get the full effect. He tried to sight Nate, to no avail. Sun glare and distance conspired against him.

“Come on, Trickster.” He heeled his horse forward, keeping watch for signs of an intruder while he made a slow pass along the trees. Nothing except animal tracks and scat.

Tyler reached the trailhead in what felt like minutes, well before Nate. That made him second-guess how thoroughly he’d looked. He debated retracing his steps for about ten minutes before he thought he should look for Nate instead. Maybe they could check each other’s work, find something the other didn’t. He frowned and glanced again at the sun, judging the time rather than pulling out his cell phone to check. Nate should have been here by now. Maybe Nate had discovered evidence. They should have exchanged cell phone numbers.

God, he wasn’t thinking clearly at all, hadn’t been since they’d found Derek. Then Tessa’s arrival had scattered what remained of his brain cells. Tyler’s mind wandered again with the surge below his belt. That head was definitely thinking. A horse nickered. His responded. Nate’s mount stepped through the trees riderless.

Shit.

“Nate!” The trees swallowed his shout. “Nate!”

Fuck, no response.

Tyler snagged Annabelle’s reins and edged forward, calling Nate every few steps. A gunshot rang out, then another. Just ahead. Tyler hunkered down low, tied the second horse’s reins to his saddle horn, then drew his Colt and continued on, backtracking hoof prints.

Five hundred yards away, he spotted boot scuffs in the dirt. He eased from the saddle, ground tied Trickster, and crept from tree to tree until the scuff marks ended.

“Nate,” he whispered.

Labored breathing reached him. He ducked around the tree and found the barrel of a .32 pointed at his face. Instinct yanked his Colt up, facing off Nate’s shaky, blood-soaked hand.

That was when he saw the wound in Nate’s shoulder and the equally bloody arrow clutched in his other hand. “What the fuck!”

He holstered his weapon and dropped to his knees beside Nate.

“What the fuck does it look like?” Nate dropped his arm. “Someone fucking shot an arrow at me.” He tried to hold up the arrow clutched in his grip but failed. Sucking in a gasp through clenched teeth, he tried to push himself more upright on the tree. “I thought I heard a noise in the trees.”

“You shoot?”

Nate hesitated too long. “When I heard you call me. Between the shock of being hit and the horse running off, I couldn’t tell if the person ran off or not.”