Lingerie and Lariats (Rough & Ready#7) (13 page)

Thursday, the day before Renee was scheduled to take a flight to Philadelphia, she and Dan went to his bedroom to make love. She was snuggled into the crook of his arm, their naked bodies warm and slick with perspiration, when he looked at his clock.

“Sorry, honey.” He kissed her forehead. “I need to get going to the town hall meeting.” He eased his arm from behind her and slid out of bed. He grabbed his Wrangler jeans off the chair beside the French doors.

She turned onto her side and propped her head up on her palm. “How late will you be?”

“With the drive to and from Nogales and the time the meeting will take it will be at least three hours,” he said as he pulled on his jeans then slid his belt through the loops. He made sure his holster was secure. “Unfortunately there’s a full slate tonight.” He shoved his arms through the sleeves of the shirt he’d picked up off the chair and buttoned it up. Then he stuffed his wallet into his back pocket and his keys into his front. His badge was on his belt and he slid his gun into its holster and his cell phone into a smaller holster. He pulled an over shirt on and left it unbuttoned so that his weapon was covered.

She scooted out of bed, grabbed her nightie, pulled it over her head, and watched him as he tugged on socks and his boots. “I’ll wait up for you.”

He leaned down and gave her a quick kiss. “Get in bed by eight and get some rest. You have an early flight in the morning.”

“I can sleep on the plane,” she said, but knew he was right. There wasn’t anything she could do other than go ahead and pack and putter around a bit. She had to get up at four
AM
and she needed some sleep. If she was in bed by eight o’clock she’d get a good eight hours sleep.

He headed out of the room and she followed him down the stairs. When they reached the front door, he caught her by her shoulders and gave her another quick kiss. “Promise me you’ll get to bed soon.”

“I promise I’ll be in bed by eight.” She nodded and he took his hat off the rack then headed out the front door. She stepped onto the porch as she watched him go to his work SUV. It was twilight and would soon be dark. In a few moments he was driving down the road as she watched his vehicle disappear.

As he drove away a queer feeling settled in her belly. She felt as if something was desperately wrong. She held her palm to her abdomen as she turned and headed back into the house.

She couldn’t shake the feeling as she headed back upstairs. She went ahead and packed the few things she was taking with her. She still had most of her clothes in her home in Philadelphia.

With a smile she set the red panties aside that she’d worn the night he’d lassoed her. She planned to buy a whole new wardrobe of lingerie once she was in Philadelphia.

It didn’t take long to pack, so she straightened up the room and bathroom until it was time to slip into bed and turn off the light. It was still early. She stared up at the ceiling, thinking about Dan. She was going to miss him while she was gone. She missed him now and she hadn’t even left yet.

In spite of not being used to going to bed so early, she soon drifted off into a deep sleep.

Renee woke to an incessant pounding in her head. She hadn’t had a headache this bad in ages. She held her hand to her forehead and squinted as she looked at the bedside clock. She’d only been asleep for an hour. It was nine and Dan wouldn’t get home for another hour yet.

She slid out of bed and went into the master bathroom, straight for the medicine cabinet. The nightlight illuminated the bathroom so she could see fairly well. Thank goodness because light would have made her headache worse. No bottles of painkillers were in the cabinet.

With a grimace she tried to remember where she had seen some. In the guestroom’s bathroom down the hall, or downstairs in one of the cabinets.

She padded down the hall to the guestroom, glad moonlight was coming through the window at the end of the hallway so that she didn’t have to turn on a light. She made her way through the room to the bathroom and was glad it had a nightlight, too. A bottle of aspirin was on the top shelf. After she took a couple of tablets out of the bottle she swallowed them and chased them down with a palm full of water from the tap. She leaned against the sink for a moment and closed her eyes. Her head was killing her.

Just as she reached the door to the guestroom she heard the creak of the front door slowly opening. A prickling sensation flowed over her body, then she took a deep breath. It had to be Dan and he was just being quiet so that he wouldn’t wake her. She wondered why he didn’t turn on a downstairs light.

Something drew her to the bedroom window and she peeked through the curtains. Dan’s SUV wasn’t there. Only the truck was parked in front of the house.

Her heart beat faster. Someone was here and it wasn’t Dan.

Faintly she heard a step squeak, telling her that someone was halfway up the stairs. She heard a quiet whisper.

Her whole body started to shake and her skin prickled. Where was her cell phone? Downstairs where she’d left her purse.

With blood pounding through her veins, her gaze darted around the room. Where could she hide?

The step near the top of the stairs creaked.

She didn’t have time to do anything but dive under the bed. She peered through the space between the floor and the bedframe and saw a pair of shoes pause in the doorway. They were black running shoes, not cowboy boots like Dan wore. She saw the swoosh symbol that represented the brand of shoe.

A cry rose up inside her but she held it back, biting her lower lip. She tried not to breathe. Dust bunnies were scattered under the bed and the dust threatened to cause her to sneeze.

Her lungs burned from holding her breath and her chest ached with fear. She let her breath out in a slow, steady exhale then drew in a fresh gulp of air before clapping her hand over her mouth.

Could it be Jerry?

The shoes walked close enough that she could have reached out and touched them. The shoes looked like the feet were bigger than Jerry’s so it couldn’t be him. Could it?

“I checked the room across the hall,” came a muffled whisper from the doorway. “Looks like it’s the master bedroom. No one is there.”

Renee’s eyes widened as she looked toward the doorway and saw another pair of shoes. She’d been so concerned about the first man that she hadn’t heard the second person come up the stairs.

“Fuck,” the first man said beneath his breath.

Could that have been Jerry? She couldn’t tell.

“We need to search the house in case the woman is here,” the second man said. The prickling sensation on Renee’s arms increased. They were looking for her? “The woman could be hiding,” the second man continued. “She could have heard us coming up those fucking squeaky stairs.”

“Don’t count on it, Luis,” the first man said. His voice was so low and muffled she still couldn’t tell if it was Jerry.

The name that he’d said, though—Luis. The man from the diner?

“Look for her,” Luis said. “I bet the woman is here.”

The other man grunted as she saw Luis’s shoes walk out of the room.

Renee’s whole body was frozen as she kept completely still and prayed the man in the room wouldn’t look under the bed. His shoes moved out of sight and then she heard the closet doors opening and closing, then his shoes squeaking on tile as he searched the bathroom next.

She still had one hand over her mouth. If Dan came home now he could be walking into a trap. How could she let him know? If only she had her phone.

If she could get outside somehow, she could run down the road and hide in the bushes and flag him down. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all she had.

But how would she get out of the house?

The wraparound porch. There was a deck outside of the master bedroom and stairs that led down to the porch below. All she needed was a chance to get to it.

The first man walked out of the room and she let out her breath. “Let’s check downstairs,” Luis said, his voice still low.

The stairs squeaked as two sets of shoes headed down.

When she was certain they were downstairs, she scrambled out from under the bed. Her nightie had hiked up to her waist but it slid back over her hips as she quietly went to the guestroom door.

Heart pounding, she peered out but couldn’t see anything. The moon had disappeared behind clouds and everything was dark and shadowy. She moved across the hall and into the master bedroom. Slowly, she made her way to the French doors. She looked through the single-paned glass with desperation.

A key always hung from a nail beside the door. She moved her hand up the doorframe, trying to feel what she couldn’t see. Her fingers brushed the key and she reached for it but she knocked the key off and it tumbled to the floor.

The clatter of the key against the wood floor sounded loud in the still night and she prayed the men hadn’t heard it hit. Her hands shook as she knelt to search for the key with her hands.

As she hurried to find the key, her shoulder hit the straight back chair beside the door. She went completely still as the chair made a scraping sound.

“What the hell was that?” came one of the men’s voices from downstairs. “Check it out.”

Frantic, she stood and for one moment her thoughts whirled as she tried to figure out what to do. She fixed on the chair and she picked it up. With all her strength she swung the chair at the door’s glass pane.

The window shattered with a loud crash. She dropped the chair and plunged through the opening, a shard scraping her skin and then glass biting into her bare feet as she went through onto the deck.

“It’s her,” Luis shouted.

He was right behind her.

Her entire body felt as if ice had been thrown over her. She grasped the handrail and in the darkness hurried down the stairs.

“Come back here, bitch.” Luis’s shoes pounded down the stairs behind her. When she reached the lower deck she ran down the stairs and bolted for the barn, praying she wouldn’t trip over something in the darkness.

She heard a second set of shoes coming down the stairs.

“This way,” Luis shouted.

Small rocks poked in her feet that were burning due to cuts from the broken glass. She ignored the pain and ran. She wore only a black satin nightie that came to her upper thighs with spaghetti straps.

Instead of going into the barn, she slipped into the darkness between the barn and the shed beside the corral.

“Where is she?” Luis said.

“She’s got to be close.” The other man was farther away and she couldn’t recognize the voice, muffled the way it was.

She pressed herself farther into the shadows. Her breathing was harsh and fast and the pounding headache she’d had throbbed even more.

“Check the barn,” Luis said.

From her place in the shadows she saw the man step around the barn just as the moon came out from behind the clouds. He was wearing a ski mask that covered his mouth. Something glinted in the moonlight and she realized it was the barrel of a gun. The sight of it brought another chill to her skin.

She crouched near the shed beside the corral, thoughts racing through her mind. She needed her phone. Needed to call Dan and warn him. But how?

Could she make a run for it to get her cell phone? Would they shoot her if they saw her? Regardless, she needed to get back into the house without being seen.

She watched the man ease around the barn in the moonlight and was thankful she was wearing black and that the moon wasn’t lighting up her spot by the shed.

The man continued around the back of the barn. If Luis was in the barn, and the man was behind it, then she had a chance.

Silently, she slipped out of the shadows and ran for the house. Her eyes watered as pain shot through her bare feet as rocks and dirt ground into the cuts. But she kept running, doing her best to ignore the pain.

Just as she reached the house, she heard Luis’s shout. “She’s heading back to the house.”

She ran around the corner of the house, up the steps, and through the front door. Where did she leave her purse? Then she remembered that she’d left it on the end table in the living room. She grabbed it as she ran by and bolted upstairs again.

“I’ll watch the back and you take the front,” Luis yelled.

Her stomach dropped as she reached the top of the stairs. Instead of going to the master bedroom she ran for the guestroom. She stuffed her hand into her purse, grabbed her cell phone and brought it out.

Her hands shook as she went into the guest room. Shoes pounded up the stairs. She opened the phone but the display didn’t light up.

The phone was dead.

Dan dragged his hand down his face as he drove home. It had been a hell of a night. As volatile as some of these town hall meetings were, it could be almost as bad as taking down a criminal. Almost.

He turned off the highway and onto the short dirt road that led to his ranch. Just as he pulled off of the highway, he caught the glimpse of metal reflecting his headlights. It came from bushes to the left.

With a frown, Dan slowed and parked his SUV. He climbed out, grabbed his flashlight, and headed toward the place where he’d seen the glint of metal.

A car was parked behind the bushes. What was a car doing out here? He approached the car and peered in the windows with his flashlight but saw nothing of real interest. Fast food wrappers were on the floor and two cups were in the drink holders. He went around to the back of the car and noted the license plate number.

He returned to the SUV, climbed in, and grabbed the radio. He called in the plates in and was told the car was registered to a Luis Duarte.

That was the name of one of the men believed to have met with Jerry Nelson at the café the day Renee had escaped from Nelson.

And Duarte was the man whom Nelson had tried to recruit for a hit or some other kind of revenge.

Cold washed through Dan. If it was the same Duarte, Nelson might be here.

He requested backup—the closest deputy was thirty minutes away. Dan attached the radio to his belt, turned it off, and started down the road on foot at a run until he was close enough that he could be seen from the front if anyone was looking. Fortunately there were bushes for cover when the moonlight shone through a break in the clouds to make it the rest of the way. It made for slow going because he had to move from bush to bush.

The road wasn’t long but it felt like it went on forever before he reached the ranch’s main gate. From this point on if he came around the front, there was no cover between here and the house. His best bet would to come up from behind.

The ground was soft from the recent rains as he made his way to the back where the outbuildings and corrals were, then ducked between the strands of barbed wire fence. The gap in the clouds closed just as he got through, giving him the cover of darkness he needed to run to the barn. When he reached the barn, he studied the house. All of the lights were out.

Moonlight peered through the clouds again and he caught sight of the light glittering on glass. A pang shot through his gut when he realized that the glass pane of the French door leading from the master bedroom to the deck was shattered. Something had happened. Was Renee hurt?

He’d kill Nelson if the bastard touched her.

Dan was just about to run for the house when Renee’s scream tore through the night.

His system went into overdrive, adrenaline pumping through him. He ran toward the house and reached its shadows.

Renee screamed again and Dan grasped his Glock in a two-handed grip as he eased around to the front door.

He went up his front steps two at a time and heard a crash followed by a cry from Renee. Dan was finding it hard to keep a cool head. The front door was open and he moved through it, sweeping the area with his weapon.

A man’s muffled voice came from upstairs.

“Stay away from me,” Renee shouted.

“Kill her before the sheriff gets home,” came a voice with a Hispanic accent.

A chill traveled through Dan as he moved toward the stairs and started up them.

“Shut up, Luis,” came another man’s voice. It was muffled and it sounded like he was trying to disguise his voice.

Luis Duarte.
Dan thought. Just like he’d suspected.

“Kill her,” Luis said with urgency. “He’ll be home any time.”

Dan skipped the step that squeaked at the middle of the staircase and continued up. He heard a slap followed by Renee’s cry.

Even more fury burned through him as he neared the door of the bedroom. A man stood just outside the doorway, his back to the hallway as he peered in the guestroom.

Dan moved up behind the man and pressed the Glock’s barrel to the man’s head. The man went still.

“Say a word and I’ll blow a hole through your head,” Dan said quietly. “Slowly lower your weapon.”

The man obeyed and as soon as his arm was at his side, the barrel pointed down, Dan disarmed him and tucked the weapon into the back of his jeans.

“Where’s your gun, Luis?” came the muffled, disguised voice from inside the room, followed by,
“Fuck.”

It was clear Luis had just given some kind of sign.

Two shots rang out and Luis crumpled. Dan pushed him aside just in time to see a man in black plunge through the bedroom’s windowpane with a huge crash.

“Stop,” Dan shouted as he raced into the room. In one glance he saw that Renee was unconscious on the floor, her wrists bound, blood pouring down her face from a head wound.

His heart leapt into his throat as he knelt beside her, pain stabbing his gut. Had the man shot her?

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Luis was down and not coming up behind him. The man was lying on his back, his eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

Dan checked Renee’s pulse. Her heartbeat was strong and from the rise and fall of her chest, her breathing appeared regular. He examined her head wound—it looked like a bullet had grazed her, slicing through skin on her forehead and blood continued to pour down her face. Was she shot anywhere else?

He pulled out his cell phone and hit the number to call it in, including an APB on the car that would likely be gone by the time anyone arrived.

Dan took Renee into his arms and swallowed as he laid her on the bed and started checking her over. Her upper arm had a deep gash across it, like she’d been cut with glass and there were small cuts in the soles of her feet. He couldn’t find anywhere else she might be hurt.

Her eyes fluttered open and his heart beat faster. “Where are you hurt?” he said as he unbound her wrists.

“My head.” Her throat worked as she brought her now free hand up to the wound on her forehead. She moved her hand away and she looked in shock at the blood coating her palm.

“It’s a head wound but it looks superficial,” Dan said. “It will bleed a lot at first. Are you injured anywhere else?”

“Just my feet.” She stared at the blood. “I stepped on glass.”

He scooped her up in her arms, wanting to get her away from the body. “We’ll go downstairs where I have a first aid kit.”

“Okay.” She looked up at him, her face pale.

He carried her downstairs and laid her on the leather couch and covered her with a quilted throw. “You stay here, understand?”

She nodded then winced. He went into the kitchen and grabbed the well-stocked first aid kit. He returned to Renee’s side and cleaned her head wound and bandaged it. Like he’d thought, it had just grazed her. Thank God.

He put a bandage over the cut on her arm then was cleaning the glass from the soles of her feet when he heard the sirens.

It was another twenty minutes before a deputy’s car pulled up. One thing about rural areas was the fact that response times could be lengthy. Other emergency vehicles would follow anytime now. Deputy Gatling came up the stairs and Dan met him at the front door.

“Was the car still in the bushes at the turnoff onto my road?” Dan asked the deputy.

Gatling shook his head. “Nothing there. But we’ve got that APB out on it.”

Dan gritted his teeth. “Wait for the ambulance.”

The deputy gave a nod and headed out the front door.

“I’m fine.” Renee smiled up at him and grasped his hand to her chest. “Don’t worry about me.”

He squeezed her hand. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Yes.” She explained everything that had occurred since the men had shown up.

“Do you think the other man was Nelson?” Dan asked.

“My gut tells me it was.” She frowned. “But his voice was muffled and it was like he was speaking deeper, trying to change his voice. He also wore a ski mask with no mouth.”

“Can you remember anything else?” Dan asked.

“He had black running shoes and big feet.” Her brow wrinkled in concentration. “That’s one thing that does make me a little unsure because Jerry has small feet. He also wears hiking boots, not running shoes.” She mentioned the symbol indicating the brand of shoes he was wearing.

“Anything else?” Dan asked. “A tattoo or birthmark that you could see?

She shook her head. “Not that I could tell. He left the lights off so I couldn’t see the color of his eyes in the moonlight.”

“Did they say want they wanted?” Dan asked.

“To kill me.” A shudder went through her. “Luis wanted the other man to hurry and kill me before you got home, but the man seemed intent on taking his time. I think he planned on torturing me.”

If he were a betting man, he’d bet that it had been Nelson. The fact that they’d come after her to kill her and that he’d made it so personal told Dan that this was definitely no random act of violence.

Renee started to shiver and he could tell she was going into shock. He wrapped the quilted throw more firmly around her, also covering the soles of her feet that were now free of glass.

More sirens came closer and Dan went to the window. Looked like another deputy’s cruiser and an ambulance.

It wasn’t long before paramedics were attending to Renee. When they asked her to go to the hospital, she refused despite Dan trying to convince her that she needed a professional to look at her head wound and the deep cut on her arm.

“They took great care of me.” She gestured to the paramedics. “I’m fine.”

A combination of fear for Renee, and relief that she was going to be all right, rolled through him in waves.

But right now what he felt was mostly anger. It burned his skin and rose up inside him in a fury so great he’d have to fight to control it. If Nelson was behind this, which Dan was certain the bastard was, then Nelson was as good as dead.