HER COWBOY HERO

After crossing a mob lawyer, Olivia Dillon knows she has to run for her life. But on the way to her great-aunt’s remote Arizona ranch, she’s forced off the road. The message is clear. She can run, she can hide…but she’ll never be safe again. So with Elijah Morales—the rancher next door—by her side, she’s determined to face the danger head-on. The former Army Ranger and natural-born protector promises to end the attacks against her. Even if helping her puts him directly in harm’s way. Staying means risking his life, but can Olivia leave to confront her enemies—and the future—without Elijah?

Things had just gotten a whole lot more dangerous.

Two shooting incidents, a wounded shoulder. She should get a customer loyalty card at the doc’s.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She did neither. She turned to Elijah. “If it’ll make my aunt safer, I’ll take your advice and go to your ranch.”

“It’ll make things safer for you, too.”

“You don’t know that. Nobody knows what’s happening.” She heard the shakiness in her voice.

How long was this going to go on? She was sick of being afraid. Tired of seeing other people get hurt. Angry enough to fight back. But she didn’t know how. And she didn’t know where to strike.

“It’s going to be all right,” he told her.

All right? The scrapes on her hand and face from getting thrown down on the asphalt stung. Her head pounded. She was so tired she could barely move. She couldn’t stop trembling.

Fear and helplessness gnawed at her. This was never going to end. Not until the shooter got what he wanted.

JENNA NIGHT comes from a family of Southern-born natural storytellers. Her parents were avid readers and the house was always filled with books. No wonder she grew up wanting to tell her own stories. She’s lived on both coasts, but currently resides in the Inland Northwest where she’s astonished by the occasional glimpse of a moose, a herd of elk or a soaring eagle.

Last Stand

Ranch

Jenna Night

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you:

not as the world giveth, give I unto you.

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

—John 14:27

To my mom, Esther. Thanks for the faith!

Acknowledgments

Thank you editor Elizabeth Mazer for selecting me to be on your team in the Love Inspired Suspense Killer Voices contest. Your encouragement and stellar editing skills are much appreciated. Yay, Team Elizabeth!

Thank you agent Sarah E. Younger for your guidance and for making the pathway to publication clearer. Yay, Team Sarah!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

Acknowledgments

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

ONE

Olivia Dillon gripped the steering wheel of her sedan tighter and pressed the accelerator a little harder. She didn’t want to drive recklessly, but Las Vegas, Nevada, and the threat to her life were only two hundred and fifty miles behind her.

She’d left the busy interstate twenty minutes ago, turning onto a quieter county highway that snaked gradually upward through scrubby Arizona high desert. To her right and left, shadowy rust-colored mesas towered like thunderheads in the distance. Straight ahead, the crumbly strip of asphalt angled sharply upward.

When summoning the courage to leave Vegas, she’d promised herself she would be at her great-aunt’s ranch in Painted Rock, Arizona, before dark. That wasn’t going to happen. Jamming the last few items from the apartment she’d just vacated into her rented storage space had taken longer than expected. Now the sun barely clung above the horizon to the west and she still had several more miles to go.

“It will be okay,” she told herself for probably the hundredth time today. Not that she believed it.

She continued on, covering another twenty miles and gaining close to a thousand feet in elevation. The sun dropped off the edge of the world and the surrounding purple dusk took on a darker tinge.

She arrived at the edge of the tree line marking the start of rich northern Arizona forest, so she must be on the right track. A few more miles and the highway would intersect with the turnoff for Painted Rock, the only town for miles.

A flicker of light in the rearview mirror drew her attention to a set of car headlights in the gray distance behind her. It was the first car she’d seen since leaving the interstate.

She turned her gaze back to the road in front of her.

A few minutes later, a flicker of light in the mirror caught her eye again. She was startled to see the car had covered half the distance between them. That wasn’t possible. Not unless the driver was going over a hundred miles an hour.

Well, she’d just get out of the way. The guy was probably drunk. She scanned the side of the road up ahead, looking for a place to pull over. But she’d just entered the forest and there was nowhere she could go. No breakdown lane. No service roads.

Nervous, fluttery fear shifted anxiously in her chest. What if the driver didn’t see her? What if he glanced at a text message just as he came upon her? Her life could be over in an instant. Here, in the middle of nowhere instead of in Las Vegas. How ironic that would be.

She glanced in the mirror to see how close the car was now.

Bright white high-beam headlights suddenly flashed on just inches behind her rear window. She jumped in surprise. The fluttery fear in her chest was now a frantic, clawing animal.

It had to be a truck or an SUV behind her. The headlights were high enough to bore through her back window and blind her to the road ahead. Terrified she’d careen off the road, she tapped her brakes. The vehicle behind her smacked her bumper hard and her head snapped back against her headrest. Then the vehicle backed off.

Eerie, constantly shifting shadows danced through the inside of her sedan before her car interior suddenly lit up again. Another hard smack to her bumper jolted her. The light suddenly shifted to the side. Now what?

The tormenting vehicle passed her and shot off toward the darkness ahead only to stop suddenly, the taillights glaring at her like a pair of angry red eyes. The truck made a quick U-turn and headed back toward her.

This wasn’t some random jerk who was drunk or high. This was someone deliberately out to hurt her. It had to be Ted Kurtz. The man who had promised to kill her. She let go a sound that was halfway between hysterical laughter and a terrified sob.

Just three weeks ago he’d warned her that her life wasn’t worth much.

“It will be okay,” she whispered, tired of the whole thing, drained by weeks of fear and exhausted by the sheer will it had taken to leave the safety of her apartment and take this trip.

The headlights grew nearer, and then suddenly they were right in front of her, in her lane and bearing down fast. Blinded again by the bright light, she didn’t know what to do.

At the last second before impact, Olivia wrenched her steering wheel hard to the right. For the span of a couple of heartbeats she felt an odd, peaceful silence. Then her car was spinning sideways, careening over thick grass, scraping its undercarriage over chunks of rock, snapping the branches off pine trees and tossing up dirt in an arc all around her.

When she finally came to a stop, she continued to clutch the steering wheel for a long time. She was still alive. Thank You, Lord. Thank You. Thank You. The words tumbled over and over in her mind. Not a prayer, exactly, but the closest she’d come to one in a while.

The dirt she’d stirred up slowly settled. She was facing the direction she’d just come from. Her engine had cut off, but both her headlights were still working.

She sat for a moment in the stillness, frozen in place. Images of what could have happened, what might still happen, flashed through her mind. Jagged, twisted metal. An explosion flaring into a fireball in the night sky. Herself just, well, gone.

The sound of her own shallow, uneven breaths brought her back to the moment. All too familiar with how controlling fear could be, she forced herself to move her arms a little and turn her head. Her muscles felt watery. The heavy, thudding pulse in the pit of her stomach made it hard to take a deep breath. But she forced herself to do it.

Her foot was jammed against the brake pedal. She lifted it and flexed it. Sore, but not sprained.

She looked around, able to see for a few car lengths directly in front of her but for only a foot or two to each side and behind.

Her attacker could still be out there. Ted Kurtz or maybe some crackhead thug he’d hired to kill her. She needed to get out of here before he came back.

With shaking hands she turned the key. The engine groaned but wouldn’t restart.

She checked her phone. No service.

The heavy pulse in the center of her gut thumped harder. And faster.

What options did she have? Get out of her car and hike down the road until she picked up a phone signal? That didn’t sound very appealing.

Or she could stay in her car and wait for help. A sitting duck. An easy target for someone wanting to come back and finish the job.

Hiking down the road was starting to sound like the better option. She could run if she saw someone coming or hide in the woods. Not an ideal situation, but it beat cowering in her car.

She’d been so shocked and terrified on that sidewalk back in Las Vegas, when Kurtz suddenly appeared at her side, smiling snidely while promising to catch her alone and kill her someday. Too stunned to collect herself in time to call out for help from the people passing by. After he walked away she could only take a few fumbling steps around the corner before her knees buckled and she’d slid to the concrete. Helpless. All she’d done was whimper.

Afterward, she’d promised herself she would never let fear do that to her again.

Now she summoned up what little bit of stubborn courage she had left and tucked her phone into her front pocket. She grabbed her wallet from her purse and shoved it in her back pocket. Then she set a couple unopened cans of soda in the center of her jacket and twisted it. Not the best weapon in the world, but better than nothing.

She shoved hard against the dented, protesting door, climbed out and crouched down low, pressing against the side of the car and balancing on the balls of her feet. Just in case. If that had been Kurtz driving, he could be watching her every movement right now. He was a crack shot. He’d mentioned that in his testimony in court.

Stop stalling.

A deep breath, and then... She heard something. The sound of an engine. In the distance, lights flickered between the trees. But something didn’t look right. They weren’t car headlights.

A motorcycle appeared at the turn in the highway. Then another, and another. In the illumination spilling from their headlights she could see the riders wore leather vests with some sort of patches. Colors, she’d heard them called. Gangs wore them.

A biker gang? Seriously? Someone drove by when she desperately needed help and it was these guys? She stayed crouched down low.

The first rider roared past her. A dozen more filed by after him. Should she ask them for help?

The decision was made for her. The rider in the front slowed, made a U-turn across the highway, and then headed back. He rode up closer to her and stopped. Then he put his hand down to the side and made a backing motion. The other riders came to a stop a few yards away. He killed his engine.

Now what? There was no point in hiding, so she stood. Her calf muscles registered a cramped, painful protest.

He pulled off his helmet and rested it on his thigh. “Need some help?” He stayed seated on his chopper. His hair was dark and short, almost a military cut. His eyes were hidden in the shadows cast by the other riders’ headlights.

He didn’t smile, but his tone was friendly enough. The fact that he wasn’t trying to charm her made him seem somewhat more trustworthy.

At this point, what did she have to lose? “I had a little trouble,” she said.

He nodded. “I can see that.”

“And I can’t get reception on my phone.”

He kicked out the kickstand on his motorcycle and stood up. Medium height. Medium build. Not a huge guy, but there was something imposing about the way he moved, nevertheless. He swung a leg over his bike and started toward her, his heavy boots crunching atop the loose gravel on the road. She was already pressed up against her car or she would have backed up. He finally stopped a couple of paces away from her, reached a leather-gloved hand into his pocket and pulled out a small satellite phone. He glanced at the screen. “Here, my phone’s working.”

She hesitated to close the gap between them. But if he meant her harm, why would he go through such an elaborate act? She reached for the phone, her trembling hand betraying her fear. “Thanks.” The wallpaper on the screen was a black oval with a silver sword in the middle. Beneath it were the words Vanquish the Darkness. Olivia had no idea what that meant. She wasn’t about to ask.

* * *

The woman was in trouble and Elijah could tell it went well beyond her battered car. He’d spotted her crouched by the car, eyes wide with fear, looking like a cornered coyote ready to bolt.

Elijah continually scanned his surroundings, paid attention to small details and saw a lot of things other people never noticed. “Head on a swivel” was the term they’d used over in the sandbox. The practice of looking everywhere, all the time, was a skill he’d first learned in Iraq and later used in Afghanistan. A habit that had kept him alive, and one he didn’t plan to ever lose.

The woman watched him warily while she looked up a contact on her own phone and then punched the numbers into his. He didn’t mean her harm, but she didn’t know that. He’d left his phone on speaker and she didn’t change the setting, so a few seconds later he was surprised to hear a familiar voice say, “Elijah, honey, is that you?”

The woman stared at him, eyes widened. Her jaw dropped slightly. “Aunt Claudia?” she finally said into the phone. “Is that you?”

There was a pause, and then, “Olivia?”

“Yes!”

Elijah could practically see relief cascading over Olivia as her shoulders relaxed.

Olivia. So this was the grandniece Claudia Sweeney had been telling everyone in town about for the past two weeks. The first blood relative to come visit the eighty-year-old woman in as long as Elijah could remember. Of course she was bringing trouble with her. She hadn’t seen fit to visit her great-aunt in the past, which meant she was probably here now because she wanted something.

He watched her shift her weight back and forth, nervously glancing up and down the highway. She was trying to outrun some kind of trouble, which meant she was bringing it to the doorstep of a woman who’d always treated Elijah like family. If her problems caused harm to Claudia, she was going to find herself moving on a lot sooner than she thought.

“Are you already here in town?” Claudia asked.

“Not yet,” Olivia answered. “I’m still on the highway.” She glanced back toward her car. “I’ve had some trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” Concern was evident in the way Claudia carefully spoke each word. “And why are you calling on Elijah Morales’s phone?”

Olivia turned back to face Elijah and moved the phone slightly away from her face. “Is your name Elijah Morales?”

He nodded once.

“Do you know my great-aunt Claudia?”

“Claudia Sweeney? Yes.”

She knit her brows together. “How do you know her?”

“We’re neighbors. And we go to church together.”

She stared at him, and then turned her gaze to his buddies before finally turning back to him.

“Do all of you guys go to church with my aunt?” She strung out the words, hesitating between each one, as if they didn’t quite make sense when she put them together.

Elijah felt one corner of his mouth twitch slightly upward with the hint of a half smile. Yes, he was well aware that they didn’t look like your typical church group. For himself, he certainly wasn’t pretty as a picture. The scars on his face were small, but people noticed them. Some of his fellow riders looked a little rough, too. He chose his friends based on their character and gave no thought to how they looked to anyone else. But how do you explain that in a few quick seconds to a woman who looks as if she’s on the verge of panic?

You don’t.

He glanced at her car jammed up against a sapling that had nearly snapped in half, and then he looked back at her. “It’s a crazy world.”

She actually laughed. Only once, but it seemed to help calm her. Eventually he would press her a little harder for details on what had happened. Right now he just wanted to help her hold it together, assist her with her car and get her someplace safe.

“Olivia!” Through the phone, Claudia was trying to get her attention.

“I’m here,” Olivia mumbled, sounding dazed.

“Why don’t you hand the phone back to Elijah? Let me talk to him and find out where you are so I can figure out what we need to do.”

“Okay.” Olivia held out the phone to Elijah. “She wants to talk to you.”

“I’ll have your niece on her way as soon as I can,” Elijah said into the phone.

“Would you take me off speaker?”

“Sure.” He hit the button. “You’re off speaker.”

“Is she really all right?” Claudia asked.

Elijah wondered that himself as he started walking around her car to take a closer look. The glow from a dozen motorcycle headlights gave him a pretty decent view. There were the expected scrapes and scratches along the sides of the car that probably came from the rocks and trees once she’d gone off road. But there were dents on the back bumper, too.

“She seems all right,” he said into the phone. “Her car’s wrecked, though. One of us needs to hang up and call Ricky so he can fire up his tow truck and get her car.”

“I’ll do that right now,” Claudia said.

After they disconnected, he walked down the highway looking for the spot where Olivia’s car had left the road.

He found it. It looked as if Olivia had turned off the road deliberately. If there were skid marks showing she’d tried to brake, it was too dark to see them.

“A tow truck will be here soon,” he said when he got back to her. “Want to tell me what happened?”

“I ran off the road.” She turned away, suddenly very interested in looking everywhere but at him.

She was hiding something.

Elijah would have to find out what that was. Claudia Sweeney might be Olivia’s blood relative, but she’d been Elijah’s neighbor for his entire life. He was not about to let anything happen to her. Painted Rock was full of people he cared about. If trouble was coming to his town, he wanted to know about it.

TWO

As soon as Olivia’s car was loaded onto the flatbed of the tow truck and Olivia was safely stowed in the cab with Ricky, Elijah’s fellow riders headed for their homes while Elijah rode ahead to Claudia’s house to wait for Olivia’s arrival. He wasn’t leaving until he knew exactly what was going on.

“It’s a shame Olivia had car trouble on top of everything else,” Claudia said quietly.

“Yes, ma’am,” Elijah agreed. He didn’t know what “everything else” was, but he would find out.

He was sitting on his motorcycle in front of Claudia’s house, a frontier Victorian with pink, yellow and lavender gingerbread. Claudia stood near the bottom of the wooden steps leading to the wraparound porch. At just over six feet tall, Claudia’s regal bearing hadn’t been stooped by the advancing years. But it had turned her formerly auburn hair to silver. She wore it tied in a loose bun, like usual, but in honor of her niece’s visit, she’d dressed up in a long denim skirt and a red flowery blouse. Two of her dogs, Jasper and Feldspar, sat by her feet while the third, Opal, nosed around a flower bed.

“So you and the guys were just out riding and happened to come across Olivia?” Claudia asked.

“We were coming back from a home visit. We dropped off a gift card to the grocery store, then rode around and gunned the engines a few times for the kids. I took the oldest kid for a short ride, we handed out a few toys and then we left. We were on our way back when I saw her.”

The tow truck with Olivia’s car finally turned into the circular drive. Elijah got off his bike and walked over to stand beside his adopted “aunt.” She clenched her blue-veined hands with impatient excitement while waiting for Olivia to climb out of Ricky’s tow truck. Elijah hadn’t breathed a word of his wariness about her grandniece to her. She’d been so anxious for this moment, he didn’t want to spoil it. Not unless he had to.

The tow truck squeaked to a stop and Olivia opened her cab door. Elijah strode over and offered up a hand to help her out.

“I can manage,” she said tightly, so he stepped back.

Ricky hopped out of the driver’s side of the truck and started to pull Olivia’s luggage from the compartment behind the cab.

Elijah grabbed a couple of bags. If that annoyed Olivia, too bad.

Olivia grabbed a duffel bag and frowned at him. “Thanks for your help, but I can take care of things from here.”

She thought she could dismiss him? That was cute.

He walked beside her across the drive and caught her biting her bottom lip when she saw an Oso County Sheriff’s Department patrol car pull in.

Ricky had called for a deputy while they were still out on the highway. Olivia had stepped away to talk to the lawman when he arrived, so Elijah hadn’t been able to hear their conversation. Deputy Bedford was newly assigned to Painted Rock. He’d been pretty closemouthed after talking to Olivia, walking around with a flashlight and looking at her car and at the surface of the road.

Since it was impossible to see very far down the winding road in the darkness, even using the spotlight on his patrol car, Bedford had wanted to drive down the highway and look for skid marks or debris. He’d told them he’d meet them at Claudia’s house to wrap up the incident.

Elijah and Olivia reached the bottom of the porch steps and set down their bags.

“You made it!” Claudia cried out in delight, wrapping her arms around her niece and rocking her slightly from side to side.

“Finally.” Olivia’s voice was muffled as she obediently stayed wrapped in her great-aunt’s enthusiastic embrace.

Elijah couldn’t see any resemblance between them. Claudia, with her big bones and impressive height, towered over Olivia, who was average height, but scrawny looking.

Ricky yelled out “good-bye” as he jumped back in his truck and headed for his garage with Olivia’s car.

Deputy Bedford got out of his patrol car carrying a clipboard.

“Good evening, Mrs. Sweeney.” He nodded at Claudia as he walked up. Claudia and Olivia were still at the bottom of the porch steps, each with an arm wrapped around the other. Elijah noticed Claudia tightening her hold on her niece as the deputy came closer.

“I saw some fresh skid marks on the road that came from wider tires than yours, just as you described,” Bedford said. Olivia nodded.

“Any chance there’s a bigger story you want to tell me?” Bedford added.

“What do you mean?”

Bedford looked at her for a moment. “Someone taps your bumper twice, passes you, then comes back and forces you off the highway. That doesn’t sound like an accident. That sounds personal. Who would do that? And why?”

Those were the questions Elijah wanted to ask.

“Someone threatened to kill me back in Las Vegas,” Olivia said. “Maybe the guy who drove me off the road tonight was him. Maybe not.” She glanced at Claudia, her eyebrows raised in an unspoken plea for understanding. “I’d hoped I’d get away from him here, but now it looks like I’ll have to move on.”

So that was why Olivia had come to Painted Rock. She was running for her life. And potentially putting Claudia in harm’s way.

Deputy Bedford cocked his head slightly to one side. “Who was the man who threatened your life?”

“His name is Ted Kurtz. He’s an attorney in Las Vegas.”

“The man you testified against? I ran your name through the computer. As soon as I saw the pictures, I recognized you from the news stories on TV.”

Olivia had been on TV? Las Vegas was less than three hundred miles away. If anything made the news there, it usually made the news in Painted Rock. But Elijah didn’t have much time for TV. “What happened?” he asked.

Olivia glared at him. Then she turned back to the deputy and lifted her chin, as if daring him to take his best shot. She was tough. Elijah had to give her that. She might have looked terrified crouching by her car out on the highway, but she’d looked determined then, too.

“I worked at a safe house for battered women in Las Vegas,” Olivia said, her voice flat and emotionless. “We had a woman stay with us on three different occasions over the course of about six months. Eventually she told us her name, Marion Kurtz, and that her husband was Ted Kurtz. He’s a big-shot defense attorney with links to organized crime.”

Her gaze shifted to something just beyond Elijah’s shoulder. Sorrow filled her eyes and the defiant line of her lips slackened. Elijah knew from experience what was happening. She was looking into the past.

“We tried to get Marion into counseling, get her out of danger, get her to file a police report and press charges. She’d show some interest, but then she wouldn’t follow through.” Olivia’s voice began to waver a little. “Finally, Marion came in with a black eye, a broken nose and a split lip. She said she was ready to press charges and leave her husband.”

Elijah dreaded hearing where her story might go.

“But she didn’t leave him and she never filed a police report. She decided to give him one more chance after he promised he would change. A week later Marion ended up in the hospital ICU, unconscious for two days.” Olivia’s voice caught, and she stopped talking for a few seconds to clear her throat. “When she regained consciousness, she claimed it had been a random attack. But later, she told me her husband had done it. She wouldn’t repeat that to the police, though, because Ted told her she wouldn’t survive if she did. He’d defended people in court who owed him favors. People who could make her disappear.”

Claudia reached over to brush the hair from Olivia’s face. “Honey, given the situation, no one can blame you for what you did.”

Olivia looked up at her. “If it hadn’t been for you...” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. “I knew his alibi was a complete lie,” she continued. “I wanted to make any potential jurors question it, so when I testified before the grand jury, so they could determine whether the case would go to trial, I claimed I saw him at a time and place when I actually didn’t.”

“Oh, honey.” Claudia shook her head.

“I saw Marion in the hospital. I saw what he did to her. I was angry and I wanted to do something to make sure he wouldn’t be able to hurt her again.” Olivia shoved her hands in her pockets. “I regretted the lie almost as soon as I told it. A few days later I retracted my statement.”

She turned to Elijah. “Without enough evidence to move forward with the trial, the charges against Kurtz were dropped. Charges were filed against me, but they were eventually dropped, too. Marion had permanent hearing loss and some other physical issues, but she did file for divorce. Things looked like they were blowing over.

“Then three weeks ago Kurtz came up to me while I was walking down a sidewalk. I didn’t see him coming—he was just suddenly there beside me. He told me he was going to kill me. Things hadn’t blown over for him. Old rumors about him had taken on a new life. Stories that he was violent, that his hair-trigger temper made him unhinged. That he’d hurt people before.

“The law firm where he works has to maintain a thin veneer of respectability and they were angry with him for marring that. His future there is in question, even now. He told me that getting rid of me would send a message to the women he’s hurt in the past about the consequences of standing up to him.” Her voice was hard with bitterness now, and shimmering tears were forming in the corners of her eyes.

“That’s why you’re here?” Elijah asked. “To get away from him?”

Olivia nodded. “Aunt Claudia saw me on TV during the worst of it and called me. She invited me to come for a visit, but I could barely bring myself to leave my apartment.” She impatiently rubbed her eyes, smearing away the tears that lingered there. “I lost my job after I told the truth. I was hoping to start a new life here.”

Silence followed. Finally, Bedford spoke. “Are you sure you’ve told me the truth about what happened on the road?”

“I’m not making it up.”

“You do realize Ted Kurtz probably bills his clients in the neighborhood of a thousand bucks an hour? Can you really imagine him taking the time to personally trail you all the way from Las Vegas to Painted Rock just to bump your car a few times and drive you off the road?”

“I never said I was sure it was him. Maybe he hired someone.”

“What’s your theory?” Elijah asked Bedford. He wasn’t thrilled that Olivia had brought trouble to Claudia’s house, but it sounded as if she did have a good reason to fear for her life. Now Bedford wanted to dismiss everything she’d said, leaving her alone and vulnerable, just because she’d made a bad decision in the past?

Bedford held up a hand. “I don’t have a theory. I want to help.” He glanced at Claudia. “Right now I’m just collecting the facts. Trying to figure out what to believe. And Miss Dillon has a track record of not telling the truth.”

He was interrupted by a radio transmission and stepped away to respond through his collar mic. “Dispatch says a couple of calls have come in about someone driving erratically on the highway,” he said when he came back. “But given your history, I can’t ask Las Vegas PD to go to Ted Kurtz’s home to see if he’s there based solely on your word. Are you sure you can’t tell me anything about the driver or the vehicle?”

“It was a dark-colored truck. His lights were even with my back window. I don’t have any more details. I couldn’t see very well.”

“There’s not much I can do with that.” Bedford took a business card from his clipboard and jotted a number on the back. “Here’s your incident report number. You’ll be able to access the report by eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Olivia took the card.

“Good night,” Bedford said, and he left.

* * *

“I can stay here tonight if you’d like,” Elijah said to Claudia.

After Deputy Bedford drove off, they’d walked into the house. Olivia watched Elijah wrap an arm around Claudia’s shoulder as they stood in her kitchen. It was an easy gesture that made Olivia give herself a swift mental kick. She was the one who should have that relaxed, familiar relationship with her great-aunt. She should have visited Claudia years ago. She shouldn’t have waited until she had no other options.

“That’s okay, honey.” Claudia patted Elijah on the arm. “We’ve got the dogs, and they’re the best alarm I could have. Plus, Denise and Raymond are in the cottage out back.” She turned to Olivia. “They’re the couple I hired to help me run the place. Here, let me text them and tell them you’re here so you can meet them.” She picked up a phone and started tapping the screen. “Don’t worry,” she said, glancing up at Elijah. “We’ll be fine.”

“It wouldn’t be any trouble to stay,” Elijah said. “You know I’d like nothing more than to hang around here and take care of my favorite aunt.”

“Laying it on a little thick, aren’t you?” Olivia groused. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but where did he get off calling Claudia “aunt”?

Elijah grinned at Olivia and hugged Claudia tighter.

Seriously? That’s how it was going to be? After everything she’d been through tonight, he was going to needle her? He still looked tough, but now that they were inside and in better light, she could see a hint of mischief in his dark eyes. It was already getting on her nerves.

“I think we’ll be okay.” Olivia glanced at the windows she would lock and the shades she would pull before going to bed. She would go through the whole house, checking and double-checking that everything was secure. It was part of the ritual that helped her sleep at night.

“I don’t mind staying.” Elijah’s bantering tone was gone in an instant. The mischievous glint in his eyes was replaced with a look like cold black ice. “I’d love to be here if he decides to stop by.”

Olivia’s attention was drawn to the sound of a woman’s voice just before she heard a door open. It was followed by the sound of footsteps.

“That’ll be Denise and Raymond,” Claudia said, leading the way into the kitchen.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt your dinner,” Claudia called out to a woman with glossy, chocolate-colored hair, who stood holding a small basket heaped with corn-bread muffins. A man with shoulder-length, sun-streaked brown hair stood beside her.

“Oh, no.” The woman, who looked as if she might be a decade older than Olivia, smiled broadly. “Raymond and I finished eating a while ago. I baked a full dozen muffins when I made our supper and thought you and your guest might like a few of them.”

“Thank you.” Claudia took the basket and set it on the counter. “I’d like you to meet my great-niece, Olivia.”

“I’m glad to finally meet you,” Denise said. “It’s so nice of you to come for a visit.”

Olivia exchanged glances with Claudia. Apparently her aunt hadn’t felt the need to explain the real motivation for her trip to Painted Rock. “Nice to be here,” Olivia mumbled.

“Heard you had some trouble on the road,” the man standing beside Denise commented.

Olivia wasn’t sure what to say in response. It wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have with another stranger.

“Raymond keeps things up and running around here,” Claudia interjected.

“I’m looking forward to seeing the ranch in the morning,” Olivia said.

Claudia wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I’ll bet right now you just want to take a nice hot bath, crawl into bed and get some rest.”

It was exactly what she wanted.

“Time for us to go,” Denise said to Raymond. She glanced at Olivia. “We just wanted to pop in and welcome you. We’ll see you in the morning.”

“You hungry?” Claudia asked after they left.

“Starved.”

“Denise made fried chicken for supper, but we put it in the fridge after you called from the side of the highway to tell me you’d run into trouble. Shall we have a cold supper and turn in?”

Olivia nodded.

“You go on home,” Claudia said to Elijah. “I’ll keep my phone turned on and by my side all night.”

Olivia frowned at Elijah, hoping he would leave. She wouldn’t be able to relax with him around. Not with those muscular arms under that black T-shirt distracting her. Plus the fact that just about every time she looked at him, he was already looking at her. The dream of finally being able to let down her guard, even if just for a short while, was what fueled her determination to leave Las Vegas and make the drive here.

“I live close by,” Elijah said to her after a long pause. “My family’s ranch borders Aunt Claudia’s property. I can get here fast if I need to.”

Olivia nodded. Good to know.

“All right, I’ll head on home.” He turned to Claudia. “Call me if you hear anything. And make sure you lock your doors.”

“Of course.”

Elijah headed out of the kitchen, across the dining area and toward the front door. The women walked with him.

He paused as he passed through the front room and glanced toward something on a bookshelf. Olivia followed his glaze and saw a framed photograph of an older gentleman with a long rectangular face, thick white hair and gigantic sideburns. He looked familiar. Olivia walked toward the picture.

“My Hugh,” Claudia said quietly, stepping up behind Olivia.

“Of course.” Aunt Claudia and Uncle Hugh had made a trip to Phoenix for a visit when Olivia was fourteen. She remembered now that Hugh was about a foot shorter than Claudia. She’d said hello to them and then scampered off to the mall with her friends. Hugh had died a few years later of a sudden massive heart attack.

“What’s this?” Olivia asked, pointing to something brittle and crumbling in the lower right corner of the frame, underneath the glass.

Claudia laughed softly. “Hugh picked that daisy and gave it to me the morning he passed away. Of course it came from a flower bed that I tended.” Claudia touched the glass. “He was something, all right.”

Elijah hesitated instead of continuing out the door. Olivia was afraid he’d change his mind and stay. “It was good to meet you,” he finally said to Olivia. “Sorry about the circumstances.”

She nodded, willing him to go. He might be Claudia’s protector, but he wasn’t hers.

The second he was out the door she snapped the dead bolt into place. The porch light was already on. In the gap between the curtains and the window frame she could see light reflecting off his motorcycle as he climbed on and cranked up the engine.

Let the knight in chrome armor go rescue somebody else. Olivia Dillon was on her own. Especially now that she knew leaving Las Vegas hadn’t made her any safer. She’d thought she could restart her life with a clean slate in Painted Rock, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen. And there was no way she would put her great-aunt in danger.

She needed a new plan. Maybe Ricky the mechanic would give her a few bucks for her car. She could buy a bus ticket to a bigger city. Get lost in the crowd and stay in a shelter until she could find a job. She needed to run farther. And the sooner she left, the better.

THREE

Elijah’s mom taught him to be respectful of the wishes of a woman, so when a woman asked him to do something, he always listened. But that didn’t mean he always did what she asked.

The morning after finding Olivia by the side of the highway, he steered his dirt bike toward the back of Claudia’s house. Just after sunrise most mornings, he could find Claudia there feeding her chickens, looking over her property and greeting the morning sun. He found her right where he expected, dressed in jeans and an orange-checked shirt and wearing an old pair of Hugh’s battered blue suede house slippers.

Olivia stood next to her, slump-shouldered, looking like a withered blade of golden grass. When he drove up she glared at him through bloodshot eyes. Probably the result of a sleepless night. And yeah, he’d gotten the message—she wished he would stay away. Too bad. Sorry, Mom.

“Morning, honey,” Claudia called out as he killed the engine. At least somebody was glad to see him.

“Good morning.” He got off the bike.

Claudia walked over to him, one of her chubby little beagles by her feet. “Have you eaten breakfast? Denise made a pineapple bread pudding.”

“Yes, ma’am, I already ate.”

He turned to Olivia, who’d sullenly followed her aunt. “How are you this morning?” He reached down to scratch Jasper behind his ears. “Did you get any sleep?”

“A little.”

A brittle spirit showed through in the pinched, angry expression on her face. Elijah knew that feeling well. He’d come home from Iraq and later Afghanistan fighting his own version of it.

It was likely she wanted to shove everyone away. It was a good thing she had Claudia, who was good at soothing hurts. Elijah’s talent lay more in the realm of poking at whatever hurt until the person realized they wanted to lay down the hurt more than they wanted to coddle it. They appreciated his help in the long run. In the short run, not so much.

“Ricky told me it would take him at least a couple weeks to fix your car. I thought you might have gotten a ride to the bus station and moved on by now.”

“It would probably be safer for your aunt if I did.”

Boy, that “aunt” thing really bothered her. Too bad. Half the town referred to Claudia as “Aunt Claudia.”

Claudia waved her hands. “That’s enough of that talk about moving on.” She turned to Olivia. “You’re staying.”

Elijah watched Olivia look down, then look off into the distance. She took a deep breath and her eyes filled with worry. Afraid to stay and afraid to go, most likely.

He turned his attention to Claudia. “I just stopped by to let you know I’ll be working on that section of fence damaged in that last storm.” He glanced at Olivia. “It’s right at the boundary between Claudia’s property and ours, not too far away.”

She shrugged as if it meant nothing to her.

Then he made a point of pulling the pistol out of the waistband at the small of his back, and replacing it, as if he’d just wanted to make the fit more comfortable. Olivia kept her gaze on the gun the whole time. When she looked at him, it was with just a little bit less hostility.

Good. He wanted her to know at least one person took her fears of being stalked by Ted Kurtz seriously. Even if that person happened to be a guy she didn’t much like.

“Before you got here, I was asking Olivia where she’d go if she didn’t stay here with us,” Claudia said.

“Good question.” Elijah nodded. “Where would you go and how would you know when you were safe?”

“Wow.” Olivia looked him up and down. “You really know how to make a girl feel better.”

“Running off in a blind panic could make things a whole lot worse for you.”

She hugged her arms over her chest. Elijah could see goose bumps on the surface of her skin even though she was standing in the sun.

“I’m so glad to have you here,” Claudia said, reaching out to squeeze her niece’s hand.

Oh, yeah, that. Sometimes Elijah forgot to say the warm fuzzy words. A fair amount of the time he couldn’t say them because he didn’t really believe them. But in this case he knew they were true. Claudia had been very excited about the visit.

“I’m glad to be here.”

In the bright sunlight, Elijah could see the purple half circles under her eyes. Probably been missing out on sleep for a while. She was pale for a woman who lived in Vegas. And her clothes hung loosely on her. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she needed all the help she could get.

“Your house is beautiful,” Olivia said to Claudia, scanning the yard. Elijah watched her gaze settle on the junipers planted at the corners of the small guest cottage fifty feet away, current home of Raymond and Denise Bauer. Then she looked toward the numerous wooden sheds on the property, their interiors darkened and impossible to see into.

“You looking for Kurtz?” Elijah asked.

She snapped her attention back to Claudia, ignoring his question. “Painted Rock is such a pretty, peaceful town. It’s everything I’d hoped for. I don’t want to stay and ruin it for you.”

“If you leave, you’ll break an old lady’s heart.”

Olivia let go a laugh. “Please don’t try to guilt me into staying.”

“I will if it works. And don’t forget about the job interview I lined up for you at the senior center. Are you going to throw away that opportunity after all the effort I put into getting it for you?”

“You’re merciless.” Olivia had already returned to scanning her surroundings. She looked toward Claudia’s corrals and stables, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

“There’s nobody out here,” Claudia said, following her gaze.

For a moment, there was only the peaceful sound of the breeze rustling through the trees and chickens clucking as they moseyed around the yard.

“I’ve got too many dogs for anybody to sneak up on us,” Claudia added.

“I don’t know how much help Jasper, Feldspar and Opal would be as watchdogs,” Elijah said.

Claudia shot him a quelling look. Unfortunately, it looked as if today was his day to annoy Claudia as well as Olivia. Claudia obviously wanted to wrap her niece in comfort and reassurance. Elijah didn’t think that was a good idea. Not now. Not if it made her ignore the fact that she was still in danger.

Now that he knew more about the danger she was facing, he wasn’t so anxious for her to leave town. He still didn’t want Claudia at risk—but Olivia didn’t deserve to be constantly on the run, either. Not when her only crime was crossing the line to try to help someone who’d been hurt.

“If you stay here,” he added, “you’ll have quite a few people looking out for you. If you take off running, you’ll be alone. And it could be a very short run.”

Olivia’s eyes glistened. Claudia sniffed loudly and brought her hand to her mouth.

Oh, yeah, Elijah had quite the way with the ladies.

“I don’t want to go,” Olivia blurted out. “But I don’t want to stay, either. Not if Ted Kurtz has tracked me here. And yet I’m so tired of hiding. It feels like I’ve been hiding forever.”

“Right here, right this minute, we’re fine.” Claudia frowned at Elijah while she pulled a tissue out of her pocket and handed it to Olivia. “Sometimes we just have to focus on that.”

Olivia drew in a deep breath and wiped her eyes and nose with the tissue.

Both women were upset and on edge. Elijah’s work here was done. It was a shame doing the right thing didn’t always make people feel good. But it might keep them alive.

“I’ve got to get to work on that fence,” Elijah said to Claudia. “Call me if you have any trouble. Call 911, but have someone call me, too. I’ll be closer. I’ll get here faster.”

“Okay.” Claudia nodded.

Elijah climbed on his bike, cranked up the engine and headed back toward the Morales ranch. Mission accomplished. He’d found out what he’d wanted to know, he’d told the ladies what he’d wanted them to know and Olivia hadn’t killed him with a look.

* * *

“I’ve got eleven hundred acres, most of it heading due east from here.” Claudia pointed toward the far reaches of her ranch. “It joins up with federal parkland so there aren’t any public roads for a long ways. Ted Kurtz couldn’t sneak up on us from back here even if he was in the neighborhood.”

Olivia gazed at the grassy land closest to the house, with stables, corrals and fenced pasture fanning out in every direction. The land to the north was rocky, forested foothills heading up into the mountains.

“Raymond will be out here doing his maintenance work and looking after what few animals I’ve got left.” Claudia sighed softly. “This place used to be a lot busier, but after Hugh passed away I sold off most of the herd and started leasing out my grazing land.”

“It’s gorgeous.” Olivia wondered why her parents never came to visit. How come her dad, Claudia’s nephew, never brought her out here?

“Getting outside always raises my spirits.” Claudia lifted her chin. “I’ve kept a few horses. Do you ride? I could saddle one up for you.”

“I never learned how to ride.” Until recently, Olivia didn’t even realize she had a relative who owned horses.

“Well, now you’ll have to stay around so you can learn.”

In the quiet, they heard the rumble of Elijah’s motorcycle growing fainter. “So, Elijah likes to get into other people’s business?”

Claudia laughed. “He’s been that way since he was a kid. He’s always on the lookout for trouble, always wanting to take care of things. He was an army ranger. I think he must have been pretty good at it, too. But he said he missed his family’s ranch after a few years and he came back home.”

“I can see why he’d miss it. I wouldn’t mind living in a place like this.” Even though she couldn’t help picking out potential spots where Ted Kurtz or some thug he’d hired might be hiding. She was being irrational; she knew it. Jumping at shadows wouldn’t do her any good. Elijah was right, much as she hated to admit it. She had to make smart choices, be logical. But she also had to stop letting fear control her life. She had to stop letting Ted Kurtz control her life.

“Fresh air and sunshine will do you a world of good.” Claudia leaned over to pull a weed from the flower bed. “I’m expecting a call—I’ve got to get back inside.” She tossed the weed aside and wiped her hands on her jeans. “You’re welcome to come back in the house with me or stay out here. Your choice.”

Claudia was right. It really was her choice.

“You know what? I’m tired of being afraid.” What kind of life did you have if you were afraid to go for a walk in the sun? “I think I will stay out here and meander around a little bit. Maybe I’ll find Raymond and see if he can use some help.”

“He’s working in the stable this morning. He can always use a hand.”

Claudia went back into the house and Olivia headed across the yard toward the stable, where she could hear Raymond working as she drew closer. On the way, she passed a large shed with the door propped open. She slowed down, hesitated to pass, but saw only some trucks and farm equipment inside. No Ted Kurtz waiting to jump out and get her.

What a drama queen she’d become.

Raymond had turned a couple of horses out in a corral while he lugged feed from the back of a truck into a storage building.

“Hello,” Olivia called out.

Raymond started and spun toward her, a scowl slashed across his face. Then he stood and replaced the scowl with a thin smile. “Hello.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Oh, it’s my own fault.” His smile strengthened as he wiped the sweat off his brow with his lower arm. “I heard about what happened to you on the highway last night. I guess it’s made me a little jumpy.”

“I feel like I’ve been jumpy forever.” She scratched her thumbnail against a loose fleck of paint on the stable wall. “Could you use some help?”

“Sure. There are always things to do. But don’t you want to spend your time visiting with your aunt? Your vacation here will fly by before you know it.”

“Actually, I’m thinking about staying in Painted Rock.” Maybe her plan to get a new start here was back on again. There was no harm in mentioning it out loud and seeing how it felt. It felt pretty good.

“You think you might settle in here? Claudia must be thrilled. I wasn’t sure she even had any living relatives until we found out you were coming for a visit.”

Olivia felt a twinge of guilt. She scratched at the peeling paint a little harder. “Just something I’m thinking about.”

“And you want me to put you to work?” He grinned. “You want me to help you figure out if you’re cut out for ranch life?”

“Physical work might make me a little less jumpy.”

“It probably will.” He rubbed his hand across his chin while he looked around at the various sheds, stalls and other buildings on the property. “If you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, I might have something for you to do. Most of these buildings haven’t been cleaned out and organized in a while and I don’t have time to do it.”

“I love organizing things,” Olivia said.

“I’m in the middle of a couple of projects right now. Give me until tomorrow morning and I’ll set you up with something.”

“Sure.” She could feel her spirits lifting already. “Thanks.” This was a good idea. Coming to Painted Rock was a good idea.

He brushed his hands together to wipe off the straw and dust. “Enjoy your day off.”

Olivia relaxed into a genuine smile as she walked out of the corral, through a maze of gleaming white fences and across a section of pasture. Chin up, shoulders back, she was finally feeling like her old self.

Arms swinging at her sides, she ploughed up a nearby grassy hill toward the tree line. There was one particular pine she’d spotted from Claudia’s back door. A big one with a wide, lacey-looking shadow underneath it. It would be an easy hike up there and she could get a good view of Claudia’s ranch.

The view was as gorgeous as she’d imagined. She could see a good chunk of the ranch and even a little bit of downtown Painted Rock.

A little farther up the hill, into the thicker part of the forest, a rocky shelf jutted out of the earth. If she stood up there she’d get an even better view of the town. She headed toward it, soaking up the sun and enjoying just being outside.

She was nearly there when she heard a cracking sound. Then another.

No, not a crack. A rifle shot.

Ice water swirled through her veins. She spun around, but she didn’t know what she was looking for. Which direction had the sounds come from?

Her pulse hammered furiously and it was hard to take a breath. She tried to tell herself that in a wilderness area, gunfire wasn’t a big deal. People probably shot at things all the time. Rattlesnakes. Mountain lions. Rabid coyotes. No one was targeting her. She was overreacting.

Then she heard another shot. This one was closer. Something tugged at the shoulder of her shirt. She looked down and immediately wished she hadn’t.

Blood. Sprayed like a fine red mist across the stones. She put her hand to her shoulder and pulled it away. More blood. Her blood.

FOUR

Olivia’s legs felt as heavy and unwieldly as bags of wet cement. Dizziness sent her vision spiraling in such nauseating waves she thought she might be sick.

Her injured shoulder burned like fire, but the arm below it felt strangely numb and useless. Blind panic propelled her forward. She didn’t have a destination. She just flung herself onward, driven by terror. He’s trying to kill me.

Another shot cracked through the silence. From a different direction this time, but she couldn’t think where. Behind? In front?

She clambered over the rocky hillside as best she could, between pine trees and over tall, yellowing grass. She stumbled over the stone shelves jutting up from the ground, narrowly avoiding a face-plant.

Which direction had the shot come from? What if she was moving toward the shooter?

She tried to clear her mind, but her senses were abandoning her. Except for her vision. That was improving as the swirling dizziness slowed and finally stopped.

At that point a dormant part of her brain woke up. A part that told her she was smarter and wilier than she thought herself to be. Look! Use your eyes! Find a place to hide!

She’d received safety training for her job at the shelter, but that focused on urban situations. Most of it didn’t apply here. Disoriented, she had no idea which way to run for help. Trees, rock outcroppings and tall grass surrounded her. A few minutes ago they had been beautiful but now they were terrifying. Any one of them could be hiding the shooter.

Claudia’s house was downhill, but downhill which way?

Think! If she kept stumbling around, the shooter was sure to find her. She was acting like panicked, witless prey. But that was not the true Olivia Dillon. It was not.

She slid to a stop, ignoring the way her heart hammered. In the quiet stillness between her own raspy gasps for air she heard a snap.

Not a gunshot. Something else. Coming closer.

“Oh, God, help me.”

The sound of her own desperate, whispered cry brought a fresh round of tears to her eyes. Her gaze lit on a rock shelf with a pair of short, slender pine trees in front of it. The hollow between the flat slab of stone and the dirt beneath wasn’t very big, but maybe she could lie down and slide in. It might be full of snakes but they’d just have to get out of her way. She was not going to just stand there and get shot. She was not going to give up and collapse in terror. Not this time.

She dropped down and crawled forward toward the mouth of the opening, forcing her numb arm to do its share of work despite the searing pain in her shoulder. She refused to look behind her. If the shooter was there, she was already trapped. If that was the case, she didn’t want to know.

As she crawled forward, her hand slid across a long, narrow tree branch that had fallen to the ground. She wrapped her fingers around the branch and held on tight. Inching forward, she reached the opening beneath the rock shelf and jabbed the tree branch into it. She braced herself for a snake’s venom-tipped strike—but it didn’t happen.

Gritting her teeth, she reached forward, pushing aside the young pines in front of the opening and crawling into the small void formed between the rock and the dirt. She pulled her feet in last and let the limber young trees bend back into place to partly conceal her hiding place.

There was barely enough room for her to turn her head to face the opening. She breathed in dirt, tasting its metallic tang on her tongue. Her exhalations stirred up a small cloud of soil and tiny bits of decaying plants. The dusty mess stuck to the sweat on her neck and to the blood on her shoulder and arm.

She tried to hold her breath and listen, but her body seemed starved for oxygen and she couldn’t stop panting. From where she lay she couldn’t see much of anything outside her little cave. But after a few minutes she heard something. It sounded like someone walking. Then the footsteps stopped.

Moving very slowly, she lifted her head and saw a man walk by, carrying a rifle and wearing a knitted black ski mask. Was it Ted Kurtz? She couldn’t tell.

A cold chill shot through her body and she started to feel dizzy again. She had to drop her head back down and concentrate on staying conscious. A few deep breaths, a few seconds of willing her mind to stay focused, and her thoughts finally cleared.

Was the man with the rifle still out there? Had he wandered off, still looking for her? While fighting the wave of dizziness, she’d lost track of where he was. She was afraid to try to lift herself up and look back outside again.

The hiding place she’d been so happy to find suddenly seemed too tight and confining. Too much like a grave. Her panting breaths turned to shallow gasps. She thought she might be hyperventilating.

What if she passed out? Even if Claudia had heard the rifle shots and sent someone to look for her, they might not ever find her if she stayed in this hole in the ground.

Straining to listen, she heard only the breeze rustling the pine branches. Then she heard a voice. A man’s voice. She held her breath and listened very hard. It sounded as if he was calling her name.

“Olivia! Are you out here? It’s me, Elijah. It’s okay. I’m going to help you.”

“Here!” Olivia tried to call out. “I’m here!” But the sound she made wasn’t very loud.

She tried a second time, straining to make her voice louder, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Her thoughts started turning woozy again and she felt cold.

She reached for a branch on one of the little pine trees at the opening of her hiding place and tugged it, hoping the rustling would draw Elijah’s attention. The tree barely moved. She gritted her teeth and put every ounce of her strength into tugging it again.

Suddenly Elijah’s hand was clasping hers. Tears of relief flooded her eyes.

He dropped down so that he was looking at her from just a few inches away. “Hey, what are you doing in there?” he asked in a gentle voice so at odds with his usual tough, unsmiling expression. Even now, he didn’t offer her a smile. He just looked at her with a world of tender compassion in those obsidian eyes and said, “Let me get you out of there.”

She held out her other hand, the one covered with blood and dirt. He took hold of it without hesitation and helped her out.

“What happened to you?”

“Sh-shot.” A chill shook her body, but at least her voice was back. “My sh-shoulder.”

“Yeah, I heard it. I was afraid it was you.” He started at the top of her head and quickly patted down her body. “Let me see if you got nicked anywhere else,” he said. “I’ve been shot and didn’t know it until later.”

“How could you not know?”

He got out his phone and dialed 911, asking for EMS to meet him at Claudia’s, and quickly explaining what had happened. He was so calm and cool that Olivia started to get angry. She’d been shot. He’d found her bleeding and hiding in a hole in the ground. Shouldn’t he be freaking out a little bit? Didn’t she deserve that?

He helped her to her feet, and then peeled off the light flannel shirt he was wearing over a T-shirt and wrapped the flannel around her. Then he tucked his arm around her shoulder and they started down the hill in a direction that didn’t look at all familiar.

She had to be in shock because she was on the verge of laughing. But then, almost as quickly, she was on the verge of tears again. She had been shot. She could have died.

Feeling insignificant in a cold, hard universe, she stumbled down the hillside until they reached Elijah’s motorcycle.

He helped her onto the seat, sat down behind her and cranked up the engine.

“What kind of cowboy are you?” Olivia muttered. “Why don’t you have a horse?”

“I do have a horse.” He pulled her back so she rested against him. She melted into his muscled chest, soaking up his strength and feeling safe for the first time in a long while.

“The sheriff’s department will need help searching the countryside for any sign of Kurtz. After I get you to the hospital, I’ll go home, saddle up my horse Churchill and ride back over here. If Ted Kurtz is out here, we’ll find him.”

“No!” Fear shot through Olivia. She gripped his shirt and shook her head. “I don’t want him to shoot you, too.”

“It’s okay.” He brought his arms closer together, held her a little tighter and revved the engine. “I’m not the one you need to worry about.”

* * *

After making sure Olivia was safely transported to the hospital, Elijah joined the other volunteers who’d gathered near the shooting site and started combing the hillside, looking for any clues left behind by the shooter. Five hours later, he was still looking.

“Elijah! Hold up!”

He turned his buckskin in the direction of the voice. Churchill was so sure-footed he practically moved like a cat. “What did you find?” Elijah demanded, as Jonathan rode up.

Jonathan, Elijah’s younger brother, was also searching the ridge between Claudia’s ranch and the Morales ranch. Deputy Bedford rode beside him. Discovering the deputy rode had improved Elijah’s opinion of him.

“Nobody’s seen anything since you found the bullet casings and those footprints,” Jonathan said. The footprints had led to a rocky stretch of land that went on for miles. Elijah had been riding at the edge of the rock outcropping for hours, trying to pick up the shooter’s trail.

“Sheriff Wolfsinger is wrapping up the search.” Jonathan rubbed the newly grown tuft of hair below his bottom lip. A “soul patch” he called it. Apparently to a nineteen-year-old it looked cool. Elijah thought it looked ridiculous.

“The sheriff says it’s getting too dark,” Jonathan added.

“It’s not dark yet.”

“I told him you’d say that.”

“We might as well stop,” Bedford said. “Everybody’s just riding over each other’s tracks at this point.”

Elijah’s phone rang and Claudia’s name came up on the screen. Last he’d heard from her, she was at the hospital with Olivia.

“How are you?” Claudia asked when he answered.

“How are you? You’ve been at the hospital all day. You must be tired. I’ll have Jonathan pick you up and drive you home.”

“You mother’s coming to get me in a little bit.”

“Good. How’s your niece?”

“She’s doing well. Doc Beamer was able to get her shoulder sewed up. No serious injuries, no fractures, nothing like that.”

“Glad to hear it.” And relieved. Seeing her bleeding and shaking had worried him. She hadn’t looked particularly healthy even before she got shot.

“They were going to discharge her, but the doctor changed his mind at the last minute. He thinks she should stay overnight. She’s pretty run-down.”

He heard Olivia say something in the background, but he couldn’t make out the words.

“It’s for the best, honey,” he heard Claudia say. For the next few seconds the two women argued. Both sounded polite, though he could tell by Olivia’s tone she wasn’t very happy. He didn’t envy Claudia having to be with Olivia at that moment.

Then again, maybe he did. A little. Just because there was something fascinating about Olivia Dillon. Even when she was cranky. Which, as far as he could tell, was all the time. She wasn’t insulting or cruel. She’d just been rubbed a little raw by life lately, and Elijah could relate to that.

“So, yes, Olivia’s okay,” Claudia said to Elijah, directing her conversation back to him. “Are you finished up there on the ridge?”

“Almost.”

“Well, you be careful.”

“You, too.” Elijah disconnected and slid the phone back into his pocket. He reached down to give Churchill a couple of pats on his neck while looking around at the nearby hills and the purple mesas in the distance. “I hate to leave without figuring out how that shooter got up here and back out again.”

“He must have hiked or driven along a main road, then crossed Aunt Claudia’s land or ours,” Jonathan said. Elijah frowned at him. If it were true, whoever was hunting Olivia was skilled and stealthy.

“I don’t want to believe it, either.” Jonathan glanced around. “But there’s no other explanation. Unless he rode a horse or a bike to the backcountry and hiked down here.”

“That doesn’t sound like the fat-cat lawyer Miss Dillon’s worried about,” Bedford muttered. “Sounds more like hired firepower.”

If that was true, Olivia was especially fortunate she’d survived. Elijah glanced upward. Thank You, Lord.

“Anyone trying to help Miss Dillon might be crossing some very dangerous people,” Bedford said to Elijah. “I know about your military service, and I’m not saying you can’t handle yourself. But this might require more extensive resources and backup than you’ve got. You don’t want to hunt this guy on your own.”

Elijah wasn’t exactly on his own. But he wouldn’t ask his friends in Vanquish the Darkness to put themselves in harm’s way. They were organized to provide spiritual comfort, particularly for veterans and their families, and to reach out to people in hospitals and other facilities who might have been otherwise forgotten. The riders had crossed paths with a few unsavory people along the way—it couldn’t be avoided—but they weren’t some personal protection group under Elijah’s direction.

“How well do you know Olivia Dillon, anyway?” Bedford asked.

“I just met her last night.”

“Why such a personal interest?”

Elijah shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about it.

“Mrs. Somerset,” Jonathan said quietly.

Bedford glanced at Jonathan and then back at Elijah as though expecting an explanation. He wasn’t going to get one. Mrs. Somerset was only one name on the long list of war casualties Elijah knew personally. In her case, she was a woman he should have protected but didn’t.

Jonathan knew the whole ugly story, yet the kid still looked up to his big brother. Sometimes his admiration made Elijah feel like a fraud.

“We just going to sit around here?” Elijah said gruffly, aware he’d started to drift into the past again. “If we move out, form a wide perimeter and look closely one more time, maybe we can find some tracks or trampled grass we missed earlier before we call it a night.”

“Worth a try,” Bedford agreed.

Jonathan nodded. “Let’s do it.”

They rode until full dark, staying in contact by phone, but found nothing. “If I hear anything I’m authorized to tell you, I’ll let you know,” Bedford promised.

When he got home, Elijah cooled down Churchill and made sure he was fed and watered. Then he got in his truck, drove to the hospital and found Olivia’s room.

Olivia lay in bed, sleeping. With her bruises and bandages, she looked as if she’d gone a few rounds with a prizefighter. In a way, she had.

She needed somebody to look after her, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

Elijah dropped his tired body into a chair at the foot of her bed to keep watch.

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