Her P.I. Protector
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Jennifer Morey
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Chapter 1
The rain had cleared out overnight, leaving the April morning damp and cool. Water dripped off trees and trickled through the stable downspouts. Birds chirped and sunlight painted the horizon a stunning orange and pink. Skylar Chelsey’s cowgirl boots crunched over the soggy gravel lane that led to the stable and other outbuildings.
Skylar opened the double door and found Shawn Bellarmine, her deputy ranch manager, talking with one of the grooms. Marko Darcey had just finished saddling Sir Bogie, her roan gelding. Her father had hired Shawn before Skylar had taken over the overall management of the ranch. He was experienced and reliable, but hadn’t been happy when he’d essentially been demoted when Skylar took over.
“I’ll get to the other horses now that I’m finished here,” Marko said.
Shawn saw Skylar and stopped whatever he was about to say to the groom.
Had he tried to get Marko to drop what he was doing to obey him?
“Good morning,” she said to both of them.
Marko smiled with genuine respect and Shawn just mumbled, “Mornin’.”
“Thank you,” she said to the groom, taking Bogie’s reins. Then she turned to Shawn. “Is everything all right?”
“Just fine, ma’am.”
The groom went to a nearby stall and got busy feeding the animals.
“I’m going to check the cattle in the south pasture and then ride the fence.” She climbed onto the roan.
“I’ve got an errand to run and then I’ll be back. You hear from your brother?” Shawn asked.
He rarely engaged in conversation with her, so, halting Bogie, she turned to look back at him. “No. Should I have?”
“Ran into him last night at your parents’. He looked worn and well into a few glasses of spirits. I asked the housekeeper if he was all right and she said his wife kicked him out of the house—she heard him talking to your father. Apparently, Ambrosia wants everything and then some. She’s going to clean him out.” Shawn emitted a single laugh, clearly enjoying the news.
Skylar’s brother deserved what he got, after marrying a woman like Ambrosia. Everyone other than Corbin had seen that she’d only been interested in his money.
“Corbin was surprised?” she asked.
“I’d say he was more upset than surprised. He must have loved her.”
“Thought he loved her,” Skylar corrected, not feeling very sorry for Corbin. It was high time he wised up when it came to women and started choosing much more carefully. She’d talk to him later. Maybe. Corbin liked to turn those kinds of topics back around onto her, pointing out her failures when it came to men. He never admitted that she’d learned from her mistakes and he had yet to. She’d had some doozies, though. She could never recognize men who wanted her for her money and nothing more until she had invested too much of her heart, for one.
She guided Bogie out of the stable and rode toward the pasture. It was just a little bit out of the way to the River Rock Ranch—also known as the “Triple R”—property perimeter.
She loved these rides; the early Texas morning, the quiet, other than the happily chirping birds, the sight of livestock beginning their day, and bonding with Bogie. He was an intelligent horse that, she swore, understood everything she said. He definitely knew her moods and sometimes took advantage of that, like when she was tired. He’d bolt into a run if he felt the urge. When she was feeling low, he always comforted her by nudging her with his soft, velvety nose and nickering gently. His golden-brown eyes were windows into a mighty soul.
Skylar thought about her brother’s forthcoming divorce. Skylar took the position that rushing into a union wasn’t smart. Corbin argued that being with someone was better than being without. Skylar didn’t mind being alone.
After seeing the cattle were fine, she headed for the river that ran through the Chelsey property and meandered into the adjacent land. About twenty minutes later, she reached it. Her neighbors, Weston and Charlotte McKann, ran a horse boarding and training operation on the adjacent ranch, and they pretty much kept to themselves. The only times Skylar had spoken with Wes had been over fence issues and roaming livestock.
Movement ahead attracted her attention. She saw a person working in a group of trees just on the other side of the fence. It appeared to be a man. He was a fair distance away, but Skylar could tell he was digging. Something lying on the ground beside him—an elongated black plastic bag or tarp rolled up, with something inside—made her pull Bogie to a stop. The man saw her and stopped shoveling.
Skylar felt a prickle of foreboding on her neck. She couldn’t explain the cause of the sensation. She had no way of knowing what he was doing, or why he was digging in such an odd location—far from any buildings or people.
Was that Wes? He wore a cowboy hat and seemed about the right height and build, but she couldn’t be sure. She nudged Bogie forward. As soon as she did, the man dropped his shovel and walked toward a gray car. Reaching inside, he came out with a pistol.
Alarmed, Skylar wheeled Bogie and then kicked him into a full run. Bogie charged in the direction of the River Rock stable.
“Hea! Hea!” she shouted. Bogie extended his stride farther. Skylar heard the gun go off and waited in pure terror for a bullet to rip through her. Nothing. Bogie was blowing hard and Skylar could feel his muscles strain at their limits as though he sensed the danger.
As they neared the trees that lined the river, the man fired at her again. This time Skylar saw the bullet strike the ground beside Bogie’s hooves. The gelding whinnied in fear and surged even faster.
They reached the trees. Skylar didn’t have to guide Bogie; he maneuvered between trunks with smooth and graceful power.
Skylar dared to look behind them. She could no longer see the man but didn’t take any chances that he might try to chase her. Urging Bogie to charge over a hill, Skylar spotted the River Rock outbuildings and a surge of guarded relief flooded her. She wasn’t in the clear yet. Or, at least, she couldn’t be sure just yet. With Bogie galloping at breakneck speed, she just might make it. Turning her head to look behind her, she still saw no sign of the shooter. Facing forward, she gently slowed the gelding.
“It’s okay now, Bogie.” She stroked his now steaming neck to reassure him.
The big roan slowed as they neared the stable. A few ranch hands working in the corral and between outbuildings stopped to watch.
Bogie jarred to a stop at the stable gate, breathing heavily and sporting a gleam of sweat.
“Are you all right?” Marko asked, leaving the yearling he’d been working with in the training pen and running toward her.
“Call the sheriff! Someone just shot at me.” She dismounted and reached up to pet Bogie’s head. Eyes still wide and nostrils flared, he looked her way and calmed some. “It’s okay, Bogie.”
The groom pulled out his mobile phone and made the call.
Skylar let her forehead fall against the horse’s neck, her own heart beginning to ease its frantic pace. “Thank you, Bogie.” If not for him, she would have been shot and likely killed. If that man was willing to shoot at her, he must have been up to something terrible, something he meant to hide. And if he thought she could expose him, would he keep coming after her? Surely he wouldn’t chase her all the way here and risk being seen. Still, she’d be looking over her shoulder until the man was caught.
Hearing a pickup, she moved back and saw that her brother Cal had just arrived. He had flown out with his new wife, Jaslene, for a family visit—something he had been doing more often now. Jaslene stepped out of the passenger seat, along with someone else from the back of the king cab that Skylar didn’t recognize.
“Working the horses extra today?” Cal quipped as he got out and stepped around the truck. He must have noticed her expression and sobered. “What happened?”
Her heart still slammed in her chest. “Someone shot at me when I went on a fence-check ride.” She gathered Bogie’s reins to hand him over to Marko.
Cal searched around as Jaslene came to stand next him. The stranger stood to his left.
“Shot at you? Why?” Cal demanded as Jaslene said at the same time, “Oh my gosh, are you okay?”
“I saw him digging just on the other side of our fence. There was something rolled up in black plastic on the ground,” she said. “It looked like a body.”
Cal turned to look at the stranger beside him. “I’d say we should search the property, but the gunman is probably long gone by now.”
“If it’s a body, he’ll have to load it back into his car,” Skylar said. “He left it there when he chased me.” He also hadn’t chased her long. “He probably has a ten-minute head start, fifteen by the time we get there in a vehicle.”
“That’s enough time for him to get away,” Cal said.
“The sheriff should be on his way by now,” Skylar said, looking at the groom, who nodded.
The stranger looked at her. Despite what she’d just been through, she couldn’t help but return his studying glance. He was a tall glass of sweet tea, with thick, dark, sandy-blond hair and Caribbean-blue eyes. Fit and muscular, he wore dark slacks with a blue-and-white print dress shirt and a black tie. He was clean-cut and citified, not the type that normally caught her eye. But there was something about him that kept her attention. Maybe it was his direct way of looking back at her. Or his unreadability. Probably both, along with the way he moved, unhurried and with a slight sway of his masculine shoulders.
“Julien LaCroix.” The handsome man held out his hand to her. “Are you all right?”
He almost made everything all right just by looking at him, she thought to herself. “Yes.”
“This is an old friend from my time as a Texas Ranger,” Cal said, nodding at Julien. “He’s a coworker of mine now.”
“And you never told me about him?” Skylar turned to her brother, who worked as a P.I. at Dark Alley Investigations.
Cal had drifted away from the family for a while; she supposed his meeting and marrying Jaslene had had a lot to do with that. Cal had helped her solve her friend’s murder and, during the course of the investigation, they had fallen in love.
The sheriff’s Jeep appeared on the property and came to a stop near them. Skylar felt a wave of relief, just the sight of law enforcement giving her a sense of safety.
“I’ll take care of Bogie,” Marko said.
“He needs extra care after what we just went through,” she said, handing him the reins.
“I love taking care of this one.” The groom petted Bogie’s muscular neck and led him off toward the stable.
The sheriff, a big man with a big girth, took lumbering strides as he walked toward them.
“I’m Sheriff McKenzie. Someone called in a shooting?” he said.
Skylar explained in as much detail as she could what had happened.
“I’ll take a drive out there to see what I can find. Can you tell me where?”
“I can show you,” Skylar said.
“We’ll go with you.” Cal motioned to Julien. “I’ll drive.”
“If we see anything like that gunman still out there, stay back,” the sheriff warned, pulling down his cowboy hat.
Jaslene followed Cal and Julien to the truck. “Don’t even try to get me to stay here.” She got into the front passenger seat and Skylar hopped in beside Julien in the back of the cab.
“Where to?” Cal asked.
Skylar told him and the sheriff followed behind. They rode down the long driveway leading from the ranch buildings to the two-lane highway. After passing the driveway to Skylar’s house—which was also on the ranch property—she told Julien to take a right onto a dirt road that followed the River Rock Ranch fence. A few minutes later, she told Cal to stop when they reached the spot where she’d seen the gunman. But now the car and the rolled black plastic were both gone. That came as no surprise to her. Of course he would try to cover his tracks.
Alighting from the truck, Skylar walked toward the area where she had seen the bag or tarp. Spotting the disturbed ground ahead, she stopped and pointed. The man must have refilled the hole he had been digging.
“Stay back. I’m going to call in crime scene investigators.” The sheriff started to tape off the area around the disturbed soil.
Skylar rubbed her arms. Knowing a body wouldn’t be found, if that’s what the man had intended to bury, she couldn’t help but wonder. What would the sheriff find?
Julien waited in Cal’s parents’ spacious and bright kitchen. Cal had told him Jaslene was in her first trimester of pregnancy and had gone up to take a nap. He couldn’t stop looking at Skylar. He’d tried to keep his gawking to a minimum, but he found her so attractive that he feared she had already noticed. He knew Cal had—he’d glanced over during one of Julien’s “spells” and done something of a double-take.
It wasn’t often a woman captured Julien’s attention this way. Skylar appealed to everything he liked physically in a woman. Her long, thick black hair was up in a low ponytail and she had taken off her Stetson hat. In a flannel shirt, jeans and cowgirl boots, she may as well have been a in low-cut evening gown with all her curves. And those eyes... Damn. He could stare into their dark blue depths for an hour and still not get tired of doing so.
But he never mixed work with romance and he was ultra choosy about the women he did see. None of them ever lasted very long. He knew what he wanted in a woman and in a family. He would not get that part of his life wrong. He’d come close in the past. Never again... Not even if Skyler was one of the most alluring women he’d ever met—and in need of his help.
“What are you working on?” Cal asked. “Besides my sister?”
Cal would tease him in front of her. He noticed Skylar look at him.
Cal worked in a satellite office in Chesterville, West Virginia, and they hadn’t had time to catch up on their work lives. Cal and Jaslene had just arrived in Texas for a visit with Cal’s family today. Cal had invited Julien to join him and his wife. They picked him up after landing at the airport. Julien had joined them to save time. Cal couldn’t stay long.
“A missing person case. A fourteen-year-old boy didn’t come home from school three days ago. No leads. His grandmother hired DAI because she feels the police aren’t doing enough.”
“Maybe he ditched class and something happened,” Cal said.
“That’s what I thought. His parents said it wouldn’t be the first time he’d ditched. He’s a troubled teen, been arrested for robbery, and was suspended from school last year.”
“What’s his family like?” Skylar asked.
Julien welcomed the excuse to look into her beautiful eyes again. “Not very stable. The mother doesn’t work and the stepfather works when he isn’t fired from job to job. His grandmother said his stepfather drinks a lot of beer. She’s tried to get her grandson to live with her, but the parents refused.”
“That’s so sad,” she said. “Why hasn’t the state taken the boy away from them?”
“No evidence of abuse or neglect.”
A housekeeper had let someone in the front door. Julien turned with Cal and Skylar to see the sheriff approach. He and his team had been gone for about four hours. The sheriff took out a cell phone and showed them a photo of a simple trash bag sitting beside a hole in the ground—where Skylar had seen the man digging.
“Garbage? That’s not what I saw,” Skylar said.
“It’s what was buried there,” the sheriff said.
“I saw something wrapped in an elongated piece of black plastic, or a tarp, not a trash bag,” Skylar insisted, sounding upset.
Julien reached over and put his hand on her shoulder, an impulse that made him too aware of how much he wanted to protect her. And how attracted to her he was.
“We searched for other evidence and found none. No casings, no blood, no murder weapon of any kind.”
Sheriff McKenzie’s tone implied he didn’t believe Skylar.
“Someone shot at me!” she insisted.
“I didn’t find any proof of that. We looked.”
Skylar folded her arms in offense.
“He could have picked up the casings and buried the trash bag to cover his tracks,” Julien said.
“That may be, but without proof, there’s not a whole lot I can do at this point.” The sheriff turned back to Skylar. “I’m not saying no one shot at you, miss.”
He was just saying he couldn’t do anything. But Julien could.
“Thanks for checking,” Julien said. He glanced at Cal, who nodded.
The sheriff headed for the door.
“Wait a minute.” Skylar followed him. “So that’s it? Someone shoots at me and because there is no evidence, case closed? Are you serious?”
Julien came to stand before her. “I’ll take it from here, Skylar.” She sure was a feisty one.
She stared at him as though uncomprehending. He could hear her thinking, How the heck can he take it from here?
“Sorry I couldn’t do more.” The sheriff touched the brim of his hat in farewell, but gave Skylar a dubious look before he turned.
Cal walked into the entryway.
Julien watched Skylar pivot from the departing sheriff and look at her brother expectantly. She must know he was a good detective, he thought, and was waiting for him to tell her what he was going to do.
“We’ll find the shooter,” Julien said, bringing Skylar’s head toward him.
“We will, Skylar,” Cal reassured her. “Nobody messes with my little sister and gets away with it.”
“I thought you had to get back to West Virginia,” Skylar said.
“Yes, a case just came through. We need to fly back tonight.”
She seemed disappointed but apparently understood. “All right.” Next, she slid a tentative glance to Julien.
“You’ll be in good hands with Julien. He wouldn’t be working for DAI if he wasn’t one of the best,” Cal told her. “And I’d give the case to someone else if I didn’t have the utmost confidence in him.”
Nothing like a little pressure.
After a moment, Skylar shook her head and, with a sigh, wiped a few strands of hair off her forehead. “All right. I’m going to go check on Bogie and then go home for the rest of the day.”
It was well into the afternoon now. Skylar hugged her brother.
“I’ll be in touch,” Cal said as she withdrew.
Skylar turned to Julien and, after her eyes roamed his face, she extended her hand.
He took it for a semi shake. Not too tight, not too soft. His defenses went up over the way she looked at him. Take it nice and slow, he told himself. No time for romance until he solved her mystery.
“I wish we could have met under difference circumstances,” he said.
She smiled slightly. “Yes, but I have to say I am glad we did meet.”
He handed her his card, which had his office and mobile numbers.
Skylar took it. “Hang on.” She hurried from the room, returning seconds later with her own business card that she must keep in her father’s office. Or maybe she used it on occasion to run the ranch.
“Thanks. Call me if you notice anything odd.”
“I will.” With that she turned and headed for the front entrance. Julien enjoyed looking at how her jeans snugly fit her butt and the way each cheek rose and fell with her strides.
When he could no longer see her, he turned to Cal. His friend had noticed the observation and looked amused.
“I should warn you that she’s stubborn and loud.”
“Okay.” Stubborn was all right as long as it wasn’t malicious.
“She’s accustomed to running everything on her own,” Cal continued.
“Okay.” Might be a good complement to the hours he worked.
“She was raised by my dad. I didn’t listen to his preaching as much as she did.”
Julien had to pause at that one. “She doesn’t seem greedy. Is she?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘greedy,’ but the bottom line is important to her.”
That didn’t sound too harmful. Besides, he didn’t even know her yet. He only knew she was a knockout and he was very attracted to that. He’d take his time getting to know her.
“No man has ever lasted with her,” Cal went on.
“Does she have any redeeming qualities in your mind?” Julien had to ask.
Cal chuckled. “Everything I said except her thirst for a high bottom line.” He paused, as though thinking. “That and her love of nature and animals. And she does stand up to Dad. He doesn’t dare tell her how to run the ranch anymore. He works too much to do it himself and Dad can’t boss her around like he could his other ranch managers.”
Julien felt a spark of excitement over the prospect of engaging a woman like that. A love of nature and animals spoke of a softer side. He liked independent women, too. Independence meant she’d be more likely to tolerate a man with a career like his, where the hours ran long and unpredictable.
With his thoughts rambling way too far into the future, Julien checked himself. He’d help her stay safe from the gunman and try to uncover what she’d seen him doing first. Anything personal had to wait. His usual resolve on that point wavered, though. He felt doubt and began to worry he might not be able to resist his attraction to Skylar.
