Defending the Rancher's Daughter
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Carla Cassidy
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17
Chapter 1
Kate Sampson pulled the pickup out into the center of the wide expanse of pasture. In the distance storm clouds gathered, hanging low and black and occasionally rumbling thunder.
The weather forecast was for the potential of severe storms and as she walked from the truck to check a stock water tank, the oppressive unsettled atmosphere pressed thick against her chest.
Or was it grief she felt? It had only been two weeks since her father’s death. Two weeks of the worst kind of sorrow she’d ever felt and two weeks of insidious suspicions.
She shoved thoughts of her father aside, needing to get finished and to get inside the house before the storm vented its fury.
Beneath the clouds not too far away the large herd of cattle lowed and stomped hooves with unsettled restlessness as if sensing the approaching storm.
She had three more stock tanks she hoped to check before the storm hit. It was merely a routine maintenance task she could have asked one of the ranch hands to do, but she’d wanted to do it herself.
She’d needed something to pass the long hours of the late afternoon, something to keep her mind away from the grief and the questions that ripped at her heart in those quiet moments of solitude and inactivity.
A flash of lightning ripped through the black clouds, followed by a roar of thunder. She decided checking the other stock tanks would have to wait. She didn’t want to be out in an open pasture with an electrical storm overhead.
She checked the tank, saw the windmill spinning and that the water level was where it was supposed to be, then turned to head back to where she’d parked her pickup a distance away.
At that moment a loud noise seemed to come from the back side of the pasture near the cattle. Kate froze, trying to identify the odd, sharp noise. Not thunder, then what?
Within seconds the ground began to tremble beneath her feet and a dust cloud formed over the bawling cattle.
As she stared in horror, she saw the herd break into a run, frightened cows bumping shoulders, slamming hooves against the ground in a stampede of beasts. And they were running directly at her.
She shot a frantic glance at her pickup, which suddenly seemed too far away. Still, she took off running toward it, knowing it was the only thing that would keep her from being crushed beneath the onslaught of frightened animals.
The ground seemed to have stolen the thunder from the sky as Kate ran. Her heart crashed into her ribs as the herd came closer…closer.
She was just about to the truck when the first animal careened into her with a force that sent her airborne. She crashed down on one foot then crumbled as her ankle screamed in pain.
Panic clawed up her throat as she saw the rest of the livestock bearing down on her, close enough that she could see the frantic roll of their eyes.
She tried to scramble to her feet, but her ankle couldn’t hold her and she fell to the ground once again. Dust choked her and she smelled the sweat of the cattle, heard the snorts of distress as they approached like a locomotion at full steam.
Trampled. Within seconds she was going to be trampled to death. Frantically she looked at the truck and realized her only hope.
As fast as she could, she rolled across the ground. She’d just slid beneath the truck as the first of the herd thundered by.
The hooves against the dry earth kicked up a dust storm and Kate squeezed her eyes tightly closed as she heard bodies crash into the sides of the vehicle, heard the bawling of calves being trampled.
As the last of the livestock went by, she could hear the sounds of fence breaking and the frantic cries of cowboys trying to corral the crazed herd.
She remained beneath the truck, coughing dust and trying to ignore the painful throb of her ankle as the sounds faded in the distance. Her heart pounded almost painfully as she realized how close she had come to a terrible death.
Hooves approached and as the horse was reined in next to the truck, a pair of faded boots hit the ground. She recognized the snakeskin as belonging to Sonny Williams, the ranch manager.
He leaned down and peered beneath the truck. “Ms. Sampson, are you all right?” his deep, familiar voice asked urgently.
She took a deep breath and released it slowly, the panicked fear ebbing away. “Yes, I’m okay.” She scooted out from beneath the truck and pulled herself up to a sitting position.
The wooden fencing at the far end of the property was gone, as was most of the herd. A calf lay dead and nearby another calf limped slowly, bawling like a frightened baby.
Kate wanted to bawl, as well. If she’d been alone, she’d curl up and cry, but instead she swallowed against her tears, unwilling to show any sign of weakness in front of Sonny.
She’d had enough problems with the ranch hands since her father’s death. The last thing she wanted them to see was any sign of weakness on her part.
“I got the men out rounding up the herd and once we get them all back, we’ll get the fence mended,” he said, then held out a hand to help her up.
She reached out to grab the middle-aged man’s hand and pull herself up, but instantly nearly crumbled as she tried to put weight on her left foot.
“You need to go have that looked at,” Sonny said, his gaze on the ankle that had already swollen up to twice its normal size. “I’ll drive you in to the hospital.”
“No, it’s okay. I can drive myself,” she replied, leaning heavily against the driver’s door. At least it was her left foot and the truck was an automatic. “I need you here to take care of this mess.” Her sentence was punctuated by a loud clap of thunder.
He looked toward the fence and shook his head. “Guess it was the storm that spooked them?”
“Who knows?”
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive yourself to the emergency room?” His weathered features worked into a deep frown.
“I’ll be fine. Just take care of things here. When I get home you can give me a full damage report.” She slid into the truck.
“I’ll open the gate for you,” he said.
She nodded and started the engine as Sonny remounted his horse. She followed him to the gate and, when he opened it, she drove through.
The pain in her ankle worried her. She couldn’t afford to be down, didn’t have time for a broken bone. Not only did she have questions about her father’s riding accident two weeks ago, and suddenly finding herself running the ranch, but now she had some disturbing questions about what had just happened to her.
For the past two weeks she’d entertained dark thoughts, suspicions that had kept sleep at bay and a gun next to her bed.
She’d told herself she was overreacting, that grief did terrible things to people and she was just desperately trying to make sense of her father’s untimely death.
She’d tried to convince herself that the overwhelming job of suddenly running the ranch was skewing her thinking. But such rational thoughts did nothing to dispel the darkness that had claimed her soul.
Maybe it was time to speak her suspicions out loud to somebody. But who? Sheriff Jim Ramsey was good at arresting drunk and disorderly cowboys on a Saturday night, but she wasn’t sure she trusted his investigative skills in working a murder case.
Besides, she’d tried to talk to him soon after her dad’s death and he’d dismissed her concerns with a pat on her head and a sympathetic sigh.
Funny, when she thought about who she trusted most to talk to, it was also the man she detested more than anyone else in the world.
Zack West.
Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel as she thought of the cowboy who had been the source of her first passionate fantasies and for years the bane of her very existence.
Zack worked for his family business, Wild West Protective Services. Zack’s father had begun the business years ago and it now was a multimillion dollar enterprise offering bodyguard services to people all around the world. Zack, along with his four brothers and sister, worked the business.
It had been years since she’d seen him; he spent most of his time away from Cotter Creek and on location. She’d heard through the grapevine that he was back in town. As soon as she got to the hospital, she’d give him a call. As much as she hated it, she needed him.
The throb of her ankle brought back the memory of the strange sound she’d heard just before the cattle had stampeded.
The loud noise had had nothing to do with natural phenomena. Now that she had a moment to consider it, she thought the sound had been like that of a bull horn.
Yes, it was time to talk to Zack.
She needed to tell him that she suspected her father’s deadly fall from a horse hadn’t been an accident. She believed somebody had murdered Gray Sampson.
She also needed to tell him that somebody had started a stampede that could have killed her. She gripped the steering wheel with suddenly sweaty hands as she thought of that mass of frightened cattle racing toward her.
If she hadn’t been so quick on her feet, if she’d paused another single second before racing for the truck, she wouldn’t be driving herself to the hospital right now. She’d be dead.
It was at that very moment that she realized somebody had just tried to kill her.
Zack West heard her before he saw her.
“If it’s not broken then tell Dr. Greenspan to get in here and wrap it so I can get out of here.” Her familiar voice, filled with agitation, drifted out the open door of Exam Room Four. “I’ve got lost cattle wandering around the countryside and broken fencing. I don’t have time to waste hours in here.”
Zack hesitated just outside the door, summoning the strength to face the spoiled, willful girl who had never hidden her dislike of him.
Why had she called him? The only way he’d know what she wanted was to go into the exam room and to speak to her. He met a nurse hurrying out, a harried expression on her face.
He entered the room and hoped his face didn’t radiate his shock at the sight of her. When he’d gotten the call from her stating that she was in the emergency room and needed to talk to him, it had been sheer curiosity that had prompted him to respond. He’d been curious to see her and interested to find out why she was at the hospital.
She was staring out the window, unaware of his presence. He took that moment to reconcile the woman he saw to the wild teenager of nearly five years before.
The last time he’d seen her she’d been a gangly seventeen-year-old with a bad haircut and mascara-smeared eyes.
There was nothing gangly about the woman in front of him. Her feminine curves were evident despite the blue flowered hospital gown she wore. The hair he remembered as an uneven burnt-copper mess now hung below her shoulders.
One of his hands unconsciously rose to his cheek, where the last time they’d been together she’d ripped sharp fingernails down his skin at the same time she’d kicked him in the shin so hard he’d thought he’d be crippled for the rest of his life.
“Katie.”
Her head whirled around and he saw that her eyes were still the same intense blue that he remembered, minus the raccoon rings of mascara.
There was a long moment of awkward silence and he wondered if she, too, was remembering the debacle of their last meeting.
Her gaze swept him from head to toe, reminding him that he hadn’t shaved this morning and was about a month overdue for a haircut. The fact that he even thought about his own physical appearance irritated him.
“I’m here, so what do you want?” he asked brusquely.
“Zack. Please close the door.” Her voice gave nothing away of her emotions.
He shut the door, then turned back to face her, a heavy tension in the air between them.
“Please, have a seat.” She gestured to the chair next to the examining table where she sat.
“I’m fine.” He jammed his hands into his pockets. He didn’t want to sit. He didn’t intend to stay. “What happened?” He pointed to her ankle, which was swollen and turning ten shades of purple.
“Somebody tried to kill me.”
He raised a dark eyebrow. It was the kind of dramatic statement she’d often made as a girl. “How? By squeezing your ankle to death?”
The baleful look she leveled at him would have sent lesser men running for the hills. Zack merely stood his ground, waiting for her to explain.
She broke the gaze first, looking down at her hands clenched tightly in her lap. “I was out in the pasture checking a stock tank and somebody caused my herd to stampede. If I hadn’t managed to roll underneath my truck, I would have been killed.”
Despite the fact that he didn’t want anything to do with her, she’d certainly grabbed his attention. He swept his cowboy hat from his head and sat in the chair. “What do you mean, somebody caused your herd to stampede?”
As he listened to her explain what had happened, he tried to figure out why she had called him. She’d certainly made it clear years ago that she didn’t like him, had resented his relationship with her father.
She’d been a brat, trying to undermine him, competing with him for her father’s attention and generally making his life miserable when they’d been younger. So why on earth had she called him?
“Are you sure it wasn’t the storm that spooked the cattle?” he asked. “There was a lot of thunder and lightning, enough to spook a herd.”
“The storm had them restless, I’ll admit to that.” She shoved a strand of her long, shiny hair behind her ear. “But I heard something like an air horn blow and that’s what spooked them into the stampede. Somebody did this on purpose and the only reason for them to have done this was in hopes that I’d be trampled to death.”
At that moment the door opened and the doctor entered. “X-rays are back. No break, just sprained. We’ll get that ankle wrapped up and get you out of here.”
Zack headed for the door, but paused as she called his name. “Would you wait for me? I still need to talk to you.”
He hesitated.
“Zack…please.”
It was the first time he’d ever heard that word from her lips and it seemed to be pulled from someplace deep inside her. “I’ll be in the waiting room,” he said grudgingly, and left the exam room.
For the past month Zack had felt as if the world had gone mad. A woman he’d come to respect and love had been murdered, his eldest brother Tanner had gotten married, Gray Sampson had died and now Katie had said please.
He threw himself into one of the cheap orange plastic chairs in the waiting room, unsurprised to find himself alone. The Cotter Creek Memorial Hospital was small and most folk knew that if an injury was serious, the best place to go was to one of the bigger hospitals in Oklahoma City, a two-hour drive away.
He twisted the rim of his hat between his fingers, his thoughts on the woman he’d just left. Katie Sampson, all grown up. She had turned twenty-three years old a month ago and was as pretty as any woman he’d ever seen—not that he cared.
He was just surprised that the wild-haired, skinned-knee brat had become a lovely young woman. Lovely to look at, he reminded himself, but still Katie Sampson.
As he waited, he thought about what little information Katie had given him. He dismissed the idea that somebody had intentionally spooked the herd in an effort to kill her. She’d always been given to melodrama and although unusual, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of reality for a storm to cause a herd to stampede.
A loud boom of thunder crashed overhead, but still no rain peppered the glass. Looking toward the windows, he wondered why he’d agreed to wait around, what else she could possibly want to tell him.
She entered the waiting room on crutches, her ankle cloaked in a bright purple wrap. Once again he was struck by the physical changes that had occurred since last time he’d seen her.
Her scrawny neck was now a graceful, slender column. Her grass-stained jeans clung to curvy hips and long, lean legs. That palpable tension again filled the air and he watched as she walked over to the window and stared out.
For a long moment she said nothing and he merely watched her, waiting for her to explain what she wanted, why she needed to talk to him.
“You didn’t even come to his funeral.” Her voice was low, but vibrated with a rich bitterness. She turned to face him, her pretty features twisted into an angry mask. “He loved you like a son, but you couldn’t even show up to pay your last respects.”
Grief ripped through him as he thought of her father. Gray Sampson had been far more than a neighbor to Zack. The older man had been like a second father to him. During Zack’s turbulent teenage years, Gray had been the voice of wisdom and unconditional love.
But he wasn’t about to explain himself to her. “You call me down here to talk about what I should or shouldn’t have done in the last two weeks or is there something else on your mind?”
Some of the anger left her face and for just a moment a raw vulnerability shone from her eyes and her shoulders sagged as if she carried the weight of the world on them. Zack preferred her anger, it was familiar.
“I want to hire you. Whether you believe it or not, somebody tried to get me killed this afternoon.”
He frowned. “Haven’t you heard? I’m not working for the family business anymore. I’m not for hire. Call Dalton, he’s in charge of the business while Tanner is on his honeymoon. He’ll assign somebody to you if that’s what you want.”
Zack’s father had semiretired a year before and Zack’s eldest brother, Tanner, had taken over the reins of running the company. However, Tanner had gotten married a week before and was now on his honeymoon, leaving Dalton, Zack’s second eldest brother in charge of the business.
Zack had worked as a bodyguard for the past ten years, since his twenty-first birthday, but a month ago he’d quit the family business when his last assignment had gone bad.
“I don’t want anyone else. I want you.” Whatever touch of vulnerability he’d thought he’d seen earlier in her was gone. Her eyes were steely, reminding him of when she’d been a young girl and had wanted her own way.
“I just told you, I’m not for hire anymore.”
To his surprise, she leaned toward him and placed a hand on his arm. “You’re the only person I really trust in this town and it’s not just about what happened to me this afternoon.”
Her blue eyes suddenly radiated an emotion he’d never seen in them before. Fear. Her fingers tightened on his arm. “Zack, I think somebody murdered my father.”
