Her Texas Ranger
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Stella Bagwell
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LOVE ON THE RANGE With nerves of steel and a physique to match, Seth Ketchum took his job as a Texas Ranger very seriously. When he returned to his family ranch to investigate a murder, he was all business — until he encountered Corinna Dawson, the beauty who had mesmerized him since high school. Determined to discover true love, Corinna instead found herself a single mother with her heart in tatters. Once Seth unexpectedly reentered her life, everything changed — except for the old insecurities that had kept them apart for two decades. But it might be time for them to jump into the saddle of true love….
Chapter One
“One riot, one Ranger. Isn’t that the reputation you Rangers have down in Texas?”
The question prompted Seth Ketchum to cast a wry glance at his younger brother, Ross, who was standing just to the right of his chair.
Seth had almost forgotten what it was like to be back on the T Bar K with his family. Two years had passed since he’d seen his brother and sister. The time had slipped up on him and now as they crowded around him in the living room of the ranch house, he realized just how much he’d missed his siblings.
“That’s what the saying is—one riot, one Ranger,” Seth responded to his brother’s comment. “But I’m not a superhero, Ross.”
Ross reached down and slapped his brother proudly on the back. “That’s right, Seth. You’re better than a superhero. You don’t have to waste time racing into a telephone booth to change out of your boots and hat.”
A few feet away, from her seat on a leather chester-field couch, their sister, Victoria, groaned. “Ross, this mess isn’t funny. I don’t know how you can joke at a time like this.”
Ross chuckled as he continued to squeeze Seth’s shoulder. “Who’s joking?” Ross retorted. “Company D down in San Antonio would fall apart without Seth.”
The two men were dressed similarly in boots and jeans and long-sleeved cotton shirts. As far as resembling each other, Seth was a fraction shorter and more solidly built than his six-foot brother. Where Ross’s hair was nearly black, Seth’s was a dozen shades of brown, ranging from light to dark. But the most striking difference in the men was in their demeanor. Ross was normally all grins and teasing laughter whereas Seth had always been a quiet, serious man.
“Ross, your confidence in me is a little exaggerated,” Seth countered. “At least my captain would say so.”
Grinning, Ross waved away his older brother’s modest remark.
“You’re already a sergeant. Before long you’ll be a captain.”
Seth grimaced. Ross was still, in many ways, just like their late father, Tucker. He’d believed all Ketchums were meant to go straight to the top of the ladder.
“I don’t want to be a captain,” Seth said while gazing absently at the glass of iced tea he was holding. “I like the position I’m in just fine.”
“Seth, you—”
“Ross, will you let it rest?” Victoria interrupted. “Seth isn’t telling you how to run the ranch. And he’s only been home a few minutes! Why don’t you let him catch his breath?”
Seth glanced gratefully at Victoria. She was not only a beautiful woman, she was also a damn good doctor and as far as he was concerned, she’d always been the most levelheaded of the four Ketchum siblings. After all these years of her being single, he found it hard to believe that she and Jess Hastings had mended their differences and were now married and expecting a child. Yet that wasn’t nearly the shock he’d received when he’d heard that his playboy brother had tied the knot with Isabella Corrales, a beautiful lawyer from the Jicarilla Apache reservation.
But romance and weddings hadn’t been the only things taking place on the T Bar K. Jess, his new brother-in-law and undersheriff of San Juan County, had been shot and nearly killed. Thankfully, that case had been solved and the ranch hand that had committed the crime was now serving time behind bars. However, there was still the mystery of the murdered foreman, Noah Rider, to unravel and everyone in the family was now looking to Seth, expecting him to work a miracle in a case that, frankly, had been cold from the very beginning.
Ross moved away from Seth and took a seat on the arm of his wife’s chair. “I just want to brag a little on my brother, sis,” he said to Victoria. “I’m not trying to tell him how to do his job. Hell, that’s the reason we called him. He knows how to investigate a murder case. We don’t. That is, except for Jess. But he’s already said the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department is welcoming all the help they can get.”
Seth said, “Well, like I told you both on the phone, New Mexico isn’t exactly my jurisdiction, unless we have a Texas crime that overflows into this state.”
“It appears that you have,” Victoria spoke up. “Noah Rider lived in Hereford, Texas, at the time he was murdered. Looks to me like a Texas Ranger has every right to investigate the death of a citizen of Texas.”
A faint grin lifted the corner of Seth’s lips. “Depending on where that death occurred,” he told his sister.
“We don’t know where the death occurred,” Isabella pointed out.
Ross smiled proudly at his wife. “Good point, honey. I think I’ll keep you around, after all.”
Bemused, Seth watched his brother lift the back of Isabella’s hand to his lips. He’d never seen Ross acting so smitten and it came as a shock that his brother was really and truly in love with someone other than himself.
“Seth, you don’t really have to have jurisdiction around here to do a little snooping on your own, do you?” Victoria asked, her face wrinkled with concern. “I mean, you don’t have to work in conjunction with Jess’s office, do you?”
Seth smiled briefly at his sister. One of the reasons he’d dropped everything back in Texas and hurried out here to the T Bar K was to help ease Victoria’s mind. From what Ross had told him, Victoria had been extremely upset from the very onset of this whole murder thing and she’d continued to worry about what it might do to the family, and the ranch, if the killer wasn’t caught and brought to justice. All the anxiety couldn’t be good for the baby she was carrying. And more than anything, Seth wanted to see his sister deliver a healthy child.
“Don’t worry, Victoria. I can snoop in a way that won’t step on anyone’s toes. I just won’t have immediate access to Ranger computer data. But if I need something searched, I have a friend back in Texas who’ll do it for me.”
“A female friend?” Ross asked impishly.
Seth didn’t bother to glance at his brother. After all these years, he was used to Ross’s teasing. And now that Seth was thirty-nine, nearing forty, and still single, he expected to hear more from his newly married brother.
“No. A fellow Ranger.”
“Seth, you’re just no fun at all.”
“I didn’t come up here for fun, little brother.”
Instead of taking offense, Ross chuckled. “Okay, you don’t have any fun back in Texas and you don’t plan on having any while you’re here at home. So what are you planning to do?”
The question brought Seth’s head around and he looked at his brother squarely. “I plan to track down Noah’s killer.”
The next morning Seth was up early. After eating a big breakfast with his brother, he walked out to the front porch and there he stayed, long after Ross headed on down to the barn to start his day’s work.
He’d nearly forgotten how dry it was up here in northern New Mexico. It was such a switch from humid San Antonio that his eyes burned and the inside of his nose felt as if it was going to crack.
But it was beautiful here on the ranch. He could never deny that, he thought as he watched the sun burst over the crest of eastern mountains. It was wild and rugged land that was as harsh as the climate could be. He’d left the ranch nearly eighteen years ago when he’d been only twenty-one.
At the time, Tucker had thrown a walleyed fit. Which had been no surprise to anyone in the family, especially not Seth. His father had been a hard man with his own ideas about how to live life and how he wanted his sons and daughter to live it. The last thing Tucker had wanted was for Seth to pursue a career in law enforcement. Particularly, a Texas Ranger, which would force him to leave the state. But Seth had defied his father and followed his dream. He’d become a member of an elite group of lawmen, a feat that very few men accomplish in a whole lifetime. And he’d done it all on his own, without the help of Tucker Ketchum. A fact that left him full of pride, but always a little sad, too.
“So here you are.”
At the sound of Marina’s voice, Seth turned to see the heavyset cook step from the doorway and onto the wooden planked porch. The Mexican woman had worked for the Ketchum family for forty or more years and was considered more of a family member than an employee. Ross kept her wrapped around his little finger, but she always seemed overjoyed to see Seth, whenever he did make a rare trip up here to the ranch.
“Did you need me for something, Marina?”
She grinned at him as though just looking at him made her happy and he felt a pang of guilt for not keeping in closer touch with his family.
“I just make a fresh pot of coffee,” she said. “You like some?”
Nearly an hour had passed since Seth had eaten breakfast. He supposed he could use a little more caffeine and it would give him an opportunity to throw a few questions at Marina.
He followed the old cook through the large, rambling house, to the back where the kitchen was located. The room was warm, the breakfast mess already cleaned away from the long pine table, but the smell of fried bacon still lingered in the air, mixing with the scent of freshly brewed coffee. From atop the refrigerator, a small radio was playing country music and reporting tidbits of local news.
Aside from a few updated appliances, the room was the same as it had been when he’d been a child. Except that his mother wasn’t hovering behind his chair, ruffling his hair and reminding him to eat his oats.
His parents had been dead for some years now, along with his brother, Hugh. His brother had been the first to go—six years ago, he’d been gored to death by one of the ranch’s bulls. A year later, his mother had passed away from the lingering complications of a stroke, then a little more than a year ago, his father had died from heart failure. A big part of his family was gone now.
Shoving away the bittersweet memories, he caught Marina’s attention and patted the seat kitty-corner to his left. “Pour yourself a cup, too, Marina, and come sit here beside me.”
Marina eyed him with curious black eyes as she lifted the tail of her white apron and wiped her hands.
“I don’t need to sit. I got work to do.”
“You’re going to sit. This place won’t fall apart if you rest for a few minutes.”
Mumbling under her breath, she poured the coffee, then carried the two mugs over to the table.
“What’s the matter?” he asked as she eased down in the chair. “Don’t you want to visit with me?”
She pushed one of the coffee mugs toward him. “You don’t want to visit. You want to ask me questions. About the murder.”
A low chuckle rumbled up from his chest. “How do you know that? I haven’t said anything yet.”
She frowned. “I see the look on your face. I know you, Seth Ketchum. You might as well pin that badge of yours on your chest.”
He touched his hand to the left of his chest just above his shirt pocket. It wasn’t very often that he went without his Ranger badge. But he was basically on vacation now and as he’d told Victoria, he didn’t want to step on any toes up here in New Mexico.
“I’m not going to ask you about the murder, Marina. You couldn’t know anything about it anyway.”
Her frown deepened as though she wasn’t sure if he’d just insulted her. “Well then—what we gonna talk about? You?”
Seth chuckled again. “No. You already know all there is to know about me.” He lifted the mug to his lips, took a careful sip and lowered it back to the tabletop. “How’s your memory, Marina?”
She grinned and relaxed against the back of the wooden chair. “I remember you got a little brown birth-mark on your hip.”
“You don’t have to go that far back,” he said dryly. “Just back to the time when Noah Rider was foreman here on the T Bar K.”
“I can do that. What you want to know about him?”
Seth shook his head. “Not him. I want you to try to remember anyone and everyone that Dad had feuds with back at that time.”
“Oh, Lord,” she groaned. “Looks like we’re gonna be here a while.”
Later that afternoon, Seth stared at the list he and Marina had compiled. He wasn’t sure why he felt that his father was somehow connected to the murder. It wasn’t that he thought Tucker capable of killing anyone, even in the heat of one of his rages. And anyway, Tucker was dead, he couldn’t have killed Noah. But Tucker and Noah had been close. The foreman had always backed Tucker in anything and everything. The two of them together might have angered someone so badly they’d sworn revenge. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Especially since no one had attempted to kill Tucker. But then as far as Seth was concerned, homicide never made any sense.
Fifteen names were on the list. Yet there was only one that generated much of his interest. Rube Dawson. From what Ross had told him at lunch, Rube was still a neighbor. And as far as Ross was concerned, the old man was the last person to be involved in Noah’s death. But it was far too early for Seth to exclude anyone from the list. Especially when he remembered very well that Tucker and Rube had once had a big squabble over the ownership of a racehorse.
Stuffing the list in his pocket, he went out to the kitchen and told Marina he’d be gone for a while. Outside, he climbed in his black pickup truck and headed off the T Bar K. When he reached the point where the ranch road branched with the main county road, he turned to the right in the direction of Rube Dawson’s place.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled onto a red dirt road, rumbled across a cattle guard, then drove a quarter mile through foothills dotted with green juniper and piñon pine.
When the Dawson homestead finally came into view, Seth was taken aback. Even though it had been many years since he’d visited the place with his father, he’d not imagined it would look like this. True, the Dawsons had always been on the poor side, but the present state of the place went beyond the lack of money. The small, stucco house was badly in need of paint and shingles. The barns and outbuildings were also in sad neglect with sagging roofs, missing boards and flaking paint. Fences were leaning and in some spots completely resting on the ground.
Apparently Rube wasn’t lifting a finger around here, Seth thought with disgust as he parked his truck next to a dark, older-model sedan and an even older Dodge pickup truck with rusted fenders.
The moment he stepped to the ground, he was met by a white dog that appeared to be part border collie. The wag of his tail assured Seth the dog was friendly and he paused on the path to the house long enough to bend and greet the animal.
“Don’t worry, mister, Cotton won’t bite.”
Seth glanced up to see a young boy somewhere between ten and twelve years old standing on the small front porch. Blue jeans and a baggy T-shirt covered his painfully thin body. Thick blond hair tickled his eyebrows and he swiped at it with an impatient hand as he carefully watched Seth’s every move.
Leaving the dog, Seth walked over to the porch, noticing all the while that there was no yard to speak of around the house, just a few clumps of sage and hard-packed red earth.
“Hello,” he said to the boy. “Does Rube Dawson still live here?”
The boy nodded as his blue eyes narrowed with wary speculation. “Sure does. He’s my grandpa. I call him Pa.”
The news jolted Seth. Rube only had one child and that was Corrina. This was Corrina’s child! But that shouldn’t surprise him, he quickly rationalized. Years had passed since he’d left San Juan County. More than enough time for her to marry and have a son of this age.
“Do you think I might talk to him?” Seth asked.
The boy swiped once again at the corn-colored hair pestering his eyes. He needed a haircut, Seth decided, and a few good meals to put some meat on his bones.
“What’cha wanta talk to him about?”
“Matt! That isn’t any way to greet a visitor!”
Seth recognized the female voice even before she stepped from behind the screen door and onto the porch. It was Corrina. And for a moment he couldn’t speak or think of one sensible thing to say. After all these years he’d never expected to see her again and now that she was standing before him, he was suddenly flooded with memories of more innocent, simpler times.
“Hello, Seth,” she said in a low, warm voice.
Vivid blue eyes stared back at him and he got the impression that she was just as surprised to see him as he’d been to find her here on this broken-down ranch.
Stepping up on the porch, he offered her his hand. “Hello, Corrina. How are you?”
He could sense her hesitation, then finally she reached up and slipped her hand into his. The contact was brief, but long enough to feel her work-roughed palm.
Her eyes darted down and away from him as her fingers reached up to the tangle of chestnut curls brushing her shoulders. “I’m…fine, Seth. Just fine.”
She looked back at him and Seth watched with bemusement as faint pink color swept across her cheeks. If finding him on the doorstep was embarrassing to her, he couldn’t imagine why. He’d not seen her in twenty years and even then the two of them had been little more than acquaintances who’d sometimes talked with each other at school. There was no way she could have ever known that he’d had a crush on her. Because he’d not told anyone about it. Especially not her.
Seth smiled, hoping to ease the tension he could see in her slender body. “That’s good. I’m…surprised to see you here.”
She let out a nervous little laugh, glanced at the boy, then back to Seth again. “Probably not as surprised as I am to see you.” She rubbed her palms down the front of her jeans. “Uh—what are you doing here?”
He cleared his throat as he felt Corrina’s son watching him closely. “I wanted to talk to Rube. I thought he might be able to give me some…help.”
“Help?” Corrina repeated blankly.
She was just as pretty as he remembered, Seth thought. Maybe even prettier now that the years had matured her into a woman. Her skin was milky white, making her blue eyes even more vibrant. The riot of curls teasing her shoulders was thick and unruly, their color consisting of myriad shades varying from cinnamon to ginger. A few errant strands clung to her high cheekbone and he watched her brush them away with the same impatient gesture as her son’s.
“Yeah,” he answered. “I guess you’ve heard about all the trouble over at the T Bar K?”
She nodded and he found himself looking at her lips—full and soft, their mauve color dark against her white teeth. Did she have a husband? he wondered. There was no ring on her hand. But that didn’t mean some man hadn’t put his brand on her in another way. Matt was proof of that.
“Yes,” she answered. “It’s pretty much been the talk of the county. I’m sorry, Seth. I’m sure the whole thing has been hard on your family.”
Matt came to stand beside his mother. “How can Pa help you?”
Corrina put her arm around her son’s slender shoulders. “Seth, this is my son, Matthew. We don’t have much company out here, so you’ll have to forgive his manners.”
We don’t have much company. Did she and Matthew live here? he wondered.
Seth momentarily pushed the question out of his mind and offered his hand to the sullen child. “Hello, Matthew. I’m Seth Ketchum.”
Matthew was clearly pleased to be greeted as an adult rather than a child, but there was still a suspicious look in his eyes as he shook hands with Seth.
“Are you one of those rich Ketchums that live next to us?”
“Next to us” meant at least ten miles away as the crow flied, but Rube Dawson’s property did butt up to a portion of the T Bar K. And out here in New Mexico it was the same as West Texas—land was usually measured in sections.
“Matt!” Corrina scolded. “It’s not polite to ask someone about their finances!”
Seth merely chuckled. “Well, I’m not all that rich and part of my family lives next to you,” he told Matthew. “But I don’t. I live down in Texas. In San Antonio, where the Alamo is.”
“Oh,” Matthew mumbled, then a flicker of interest passed over his face. “Do you know Aaron?”
Seth nodded. “He’s my nephew. Are you two friends?”
Matthew nodded. “Yeah. We ride the same school bus together. He’s younger than me, but he’s pretty cool.”
“Mr. Ketchum is a Texas Ranger,” Corrina said to her son.
Matt’s blue eyes suddenly widened with disbelief. “You mean, like the one on TV?”
“That’s right,” Corrina replied. “Except that Seth is the real thing.”
Matthew’s mouth fell open as he stared openly at Seth. “You’re not wearing a badge or gun.”
Seth grinned. He didn’t know why, but something about the boy touched him. Maybe it was the vulnerable look in his eyes or the way he sidled close to his mom as though he couldn’t trust the outside world.
“That’s because I’m here as a neighbor,” Seth explained.
Corrina gestured toward the screen door leading into the house. “Dad’s inside, if you’d like to talk to him,” she invited.
“If he’s busy I can come back some other time,” Seth offered.
She cast him an odd look. “Dad’s never busy. He—uh—he’s retired now.”
Without waiting for him to reply, she opened the door and stood to one side to allow him entry. Seth slipped past her and into a dimly lit living room packed with mismatched pieces of older furniture. The house wasn’t air-conditioned, but there was a water-cooled fan blowing through vents in the ceiling. The moist breeze was enough to make the room temperature tolerable.
“Dad’s sitting out on the back porch,” Corrina stated as she ushered him down a short hallway and into a small kitchen with worn linoleum and white metal cabinets.
Along the back wall of the room, Corrina pushed open another screen door and motioned for Seth to follow her.
“Wake up, Dad,” she said in a raised voice. “Someone is here to see you.”
Rube Dawson was sitting in a metal lawn chair at one end of the screened-in cubicle. His face was red, his eyes bloodshot. Graying brown hair lay in limp hanks against his head and edged down over his ears. A blue plaid shirt was stretched taut over his rounded belly.
Seth didn’t need to see the empty beer bottles sitting on the floor next to his chair to tell him that Rube was a continual drinker.
“Hello, Mr. Dawson. Remember me?”
The older man twisted his head around and squinted long and hard at Seth. “Yeah, I think I do. You’re a Ketchum. Seth, isn’t it?”
Seth nodded while deciding Rube apparently hadn’t ruined all his brain cells with alcohol. “That’s right. I’m Seth. Ross’s older brother.”
Nodding, Rube reached a hand toward Seth and the two men shook hands.
“Sit down, son,” Rube invited warmly, “and tell me what this visit is about.”
Seth took a seat in a webbed lawn chair to Rube’s right. From the corner of his eye he could see Corrina lingering in the doorway, almost as if she was afraid to leave her father alone with him.
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Seth? Or some iced tea?” she offered.
He looked at her. “Tea would be nice. Thanks.”
She disappeared from the doorway and Seth turned his attention to Tucker’s old friend.
With slow, easy movements, he settled back in the chair and crossed his boots at the ankles. “I thought you might be able to help me, Rube. I’m up here trying to help my family find out who killed Noah Rider.”
Rube grimaced and swiped a thick hand through his hair. “That was a hell of a thing. I couldn’t believe it when I heard about it. Noah hadn’t been around here for years. Who would have wanted to kill him?”
Seth studied him closely. “I don’t suppose you’d kept in contact with him?”
Rube shook his head. “Nah. It’s been about twenty-two, twenty-three years since he left here. After he left here I think I ran into him a couple of times after that. And that was by accident over at Le Mesa Park.”
“What was he doing back then?”
“Training racehorses for some rancher down in Texas. Don’t know where. That’s been too many years ago for me to remember.”
Since the remains of Noah had been discovered on the T Bar K, the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department had sent Chief Deputy Daniel Redwing to Hereford, Texas, to search Noah’s last known residence. Redwing hadn’t found much for them to go on. The man had apparently been living a simple, modest life. From what the deputy had gathered from the man’s neighbors, Noah had lived alone and rarely had visitors. At the time of his death, he’d been employed at a local feedlot. Physically demanding work for a man in his sixties.
Which could only mean that Noah hadn’t possessed a nest egg for his older years. He’d been forced to work to supplement his monthly social security check, Seth mentally concluded.
“Well, at the time he was killed he was working full-time at a feedlot. His employer told a San Juan County deputy he never missed work and was surprised when Noah had told him he wanted a day off to drive up here to New Mexico.”
“Hmm. So, old Noah was working,” Rube said thoughtfully. “That doesn’t surprise me. He was always a damn sight more ambitious than me.”
That was quite an understatement, Seth decided as he focused his gaze on the back view of the Dawson place. Like the front, there was no yard, just red packed earth dotted with rocks and a few clumps of scraggy sage. Beyond, some twenty yards away, a network of broken-down corrals joined one end of the barn. Except for one black horse, the pens were empty. From the looks of things, Seth figured they’d been empty for several years.
“So you’re retired now,” Seth commented.
Rube leaned forward and rubbed a hand over both knees. “Yeah. I had to give up ranchin’. Just got too old and stiff to sit a saddle. And I couldn’t afford to hire help. Sold off all my cattle and the horses, too.”
Footsteps sounded just behind Seth and he glanced over his shoulder to see Corrina walking onto the porch carrying a tray with two glasses of iced tea.
As she approached him, her gaze met his briefly then fell swiftly to the tray in her hands.
“I hope you like it sweet,” she said quietly. “I already had it made.”
She bent toward him, and as he picked up one of the glasses, he caught the faint scent of flowers on her hair. The sweet fragrance reminded Seth how very long it had been since he’d took any sort of notice of a woman. “I’m sure it will be fine. Thank you, Corrina.”
“I’ll bet I don’t have to tell you that Corrina is the light of my life,” Rube said to Seth as his daughter handed him the other glass. “I don’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t come to live with me. She takes care of me just like that sister of yours took care of Tucker before he died.”
Seth’s gaze settled on Corrina’s face. Her smooth features were unmoving, giving him little or no hint to what she was thinking about her father’s comments.
“I’m sure you must really appreciate your daughter,” Seth replied.
Rube tilted the tea glass to his lips. After several swallows, he said, “Like I said, Corrina is the light of my life. I couldn’t make it without her.”
Totally ignoring her father’s possessive praise, Corrina quietly walked off the porch. Inside the small kitchen, she walked to the double sink and, balancing her hands on the ledge of the counter, she bent her head and closed her eyes.
Seth Ketchum! Dear Lord, what was a sergeant in the Texas Rangers doing here?
“Mom, is something wrong?”
Matthew’s voice jolted her. With a guilty start, she quickly turned to him, while carefully hiding her shaking hands behind her back. She couldn’t let her son, or anyone, for that matter, know what seeing Seth Ketchum had done to her.
“No, Matt. Nothing is wrong,” she lied. “Nothing at all.”
