Loe raamatut: «Cowboy to the Max»

Chapter One

Carter Flagstone would die before he would go back to prison.

Which might just happen if he didn’t find out who had framed him for murder.

He rolled over on the makeshift bed he’d made in one of the unused barns at the Bucking Bronc Lodge, breathing in the smell of hay, fresh air and freedom.

A freedom that was temporary at best. One that had come at a cost. A guard had been injured in the prison escape, and fingers were pointing at him as the shooter.

His escape only made him look more guilty of that crime and the murder of that man named Dyer, the man he’d been convicted of killing five years ago.

The police had orders to shoot to kill. His damn mug shot was plastered all over the television and in the papers. And if that guard died and the cops caught him, and by chance he lived, he’d end up on death row.

Yep, Texas held one of the highest records for executions, and adding his name to the list would be his claim to fame.

Just like his sorry old man’s name would have gone on the list if he hadn’t developed lung cancer. Hell, the state had decided to save their money and the publicity. Killing a dying man just didn’t seem worthy.

His bones creaked and his muscles ached as he unfolded his body from the floor and stood. The scars on his arms and chest looked stark and ugly in the thin stream of light seeping through the slats of the barn.

He’d always been a fighter, but prison had hammered in those instincts and made him better at it. Meaner. Tougher. Harder. Unrelenting.

He would use those skills now to find out who’d framed him, put him in jail and ruined his future.

Then he’d get on with his life.

A desolate emptiness filled him at the thought. What life? He’d lost it all the minute the police had slapped the handcuffs on him.

Even before that, he’d been on a downward spiral. He’d had a major rift with his two best friends, who were now rich and owned their own spreads. He’d drunk himself into bar fights and jail more than once before he was incarcerated and earned a reputation that meant no one would hire him if he tried to get a job.

And now his old man was dead, but his ranch had gone belly-up and the bastard hadn’t even had the courtesy to will it to him. It was one last dig into his soul that said how much his father had hated him.

Outside, the sounds of the ranch burst to life. The gentle summer breeze fluttering the leaves on the trees. The noise of trucks cranking as workers started the day. The hush of a mare’s tail swishing flies.

All sounds he’d missed and yearned for daily. Anything to replace the clank of metal chains, keys unlocking cell doors, feet padding in rhythm as the prisoners were led to the mess hall like cattle to the trough.

Well aware he’d return to that mundane life if he didn’t make use of his time, he peeked through the crack in the door to see if the coast was clear. Cows grazed in the lush pastures, two geldings galloped across the flat ranch land, their hooves pounding the grass. The sound of a truck’s engine rumbled down the dirt drive.

Maybe it was Frank Dunham, his buddy from the pen who had landed a job at the Bucking Bronc Lodge. Dunham had owed him and helped him hide out here for the past two days, but if the police found out, Dunham’s parole would be revoked and he’d go back to jail.

Carter didn’t want that on his conscience.

Sweat beaded on his neck as he watched the truck blaze a dusty trail toward the barn. No, not Dunham’s. This truck was black, had shiny new chrome wheels, was newer.

He sucked in a breath, his pulse pounding. Twice today he’d seen choppers flying over the property. Had someone caught wind he was here, hiding out like a trapped animal? Had they called the cops?

His ears perked up, listening for a siren.

Then the truck sped past the barn and veered onto the turnoff for the main lodge. Clenching the edge of the barn door with a white-knuckled grip, he watched it disappear in the trail of dust, then finally managed to breathe again.

Another close call. Another reprieve.

It wouldn’t last.

The last few days on the run he’d felt the devil breathing down his neck at every turn. The cops. The real killer.

The reality that he was a dead man walking.

Determined and knowing that he couldn’t hide out on the Bucking Bronc for long, not with another group of campers due any day now, he unfolded the news article of the fundraiser rodeo Johnny had organized to raise money for the camp and stared at the picture of the woman who could save him.

Sadie Whitefeather.

God, she was beautiful.

Raven-black hair framed her heart-shaped face and delicate features, her high cheekbones accentuating eyes as rich and deep as dark chocolate. Those sinful eyes had mesmerized him, had seduced him. Had made him want to believe that a man like him could not only hold her in his arms but have her.

Those eyes had also held secrets. Pain. A gentle, unspoken understanding that had radiated from her touch.

She had talked of her Navajo ways, her training in medicine with the shaman, her desire to educate herself and become a doctor to help her people. She was also an advocate for the Native American segment and a staunch supporter of environmental issues.

Another seductive quality.

Or so he’d thought.

Dammit. It had all been an act.

She was the reason he’d spent five years in prison, and her day of reckoning had come.

The date on the newspaper proved she’d attended the rodeo a couple of weeks before. Which meant she might be living close by.

For the past two days, he’d been lurking around the ranch hoping she’d show again. Dunham was on the lookout as well, but so far no luck.

His mind rolled back to that fateful night five years ago, and once again he cursed his stupidity. He’d been pissed at his life in general. Mad at his old man for doing an interview from jail, yet again dragging the Flagstone name through the mud.

He’d also had another run-in with Johnny and Brandon. Brandon had beat the hell out of him for sleeping with Kim, his former girlfriend and Johnny’s sister. It hadn’t mattered to Brandon that he’d broken up with Kim and crushed her heart. That Carter had only tried to comfort her.

Hell, it hadn’t mattered to Johnny, either. He’d accused Carter of taking advantage of his sister.

So he’d gone on a drunken tear and ended up at a bar near the reservation. That was where he’d met Sadie Whitefeather.

His body hardened just thinking about her luscious body and the way she’d wound her long legs around him. Her long black hair had hung down her back to her waist, her skin a creamy, sun-kissed Navajo brown, her big, dark eyes haunting and sultry.

One night in her bed and he’d fallen madly in lust.

So he’d gone back for another.

But that night had been his fatal mistake. He’d woken up with no memory of what had happened, with blood on his hands, a dead man on the floor beside him, a man named Dyer who he didn’t even know, and the police on his tail.

She had drugged him. That had to be the explanation.

Then she’d disappeared and left him to rot in jail.

He tapped the picture with his finger. Now he’d escaped and he intended to find her. And he would make her talk.

If she didn’t, he’d show her firsthand the hard lessons he’d learned in prison, where she had sent him.

SADIE WHITEFEATHER SHIVERED at the news photo of Carter Flagstone as the story of his prison escape and criminal record flashed across the TV screen perched on the wall above the bar.

His dark brown hair was shaggy now, his face unshaven, rough with stubble, his eyes tormented, his strong, stubborn jaw set in anger.

He looked hardened, scarred and lethal.

All deadly to a woman whose dreams of making love to him still taunted her.

Not that he would want her in his bed again.

No, he’d probably kill her.

“Flagstone is considered armed and dangerous,” the reporter said. “Police have orders to shoot to kill. If you have any information regarding his whereabouts, please contact the police.”

Her fingers itched to make that call. But she didn’t know where he was.

Only that he was most likely coming for her.

Of course she couldn’t blame him.

What she had done…was wrong.

She sucked in a sharp breath, then rubbed her finger over the prayer beads around her neck. Her mother’s people had taught her that all life was sacred. That all things on the earth were alive and connected. That all things alive should be respected.

But she had been a party to a murder and sent an innocent man to prison for it.

Shame clawed at her, but she fought it, struggling with her emotions and reminding herself of the circumstances.

She had had no choice.

The sound of the bell over the doorway tinkled, barely discernible over the wail of the country music floating through the Sawdust Saloon. But her senses were well-honed to detect the sound, knowing it might alert her to trouble.

A cloudy haze of smoke made it difficult to make out the new patron as he entered. He was big, so tall that his hat nearly touched the doorway. And he had shoulders like a linebacker.

He hooked his fingers in his belt loops, standing stock still, his stance intimidating as he scanned the room. Shadows hovered around him, and the scent of danger radiated from him like bad whiskey.

She froze, her heart drumming as she studied his features. Carter?

Or the evil monster she’d been running from for five years?

She hated to be paranoid, but life had come at her hard the night she’d met Carter.

He wasn’t the only one with scars.

She had her own to prove it.

Her finger automatically brushed the deep, puckered X carved into her chest, now well hidden by her shirt, and traced a line over it. For a moment, she couldn’t move as she waited to see the man’s face in the doorway. He was imposing like Carter and her attacker. Muscular. Big-boned. Large hands.

His boots pounded the wood, crushing the peanut shells on the floor as he moved into the light, and her breath whooshed out in relief.

Even in the dim lighting, she could see he had dark-blond hair.

Carter had thick brown hair, so dark it was almost black.

Her attacker—a shaved head, and he’d smelled like sweat and tobacco.

A group of the men in the back room playing pool shouted, toasting with beer mugs, and two men to her right gave her a flirtatious grin and waved at her to join them.

Sadie inwardly cringed, but remembered she needed this job, and threw up a finger gesturing that she would be right there.

“Your order’s up!” the bartender yelled to Sadie.

Amber Celton, blond, boobs falling out of the cheap lacy top of her waitress uniform, and a woman who would screw any man in pants, sashayed up beside her and gestured toward the TV screen. “Man, I don’t care if that cowboy is armed and dangerous. He could tie me in his bed anytime.”

Sadie wiped her hands on her apron and reached for the tray of beer she needed to deliver. Carter had been seductive, all right.

All that thick, scraggly hair. Those deep whiskey-colored eyes that looked tormented, like they were hunting for trouble. That crooked nose that looked as if it had been broken and needed kissing.

And his mouth…thick lips that scowled one minute as if he was the devil himself, then twitched up into a lazy grin that had made her weak in the knees.

And Lord, those big, strong, wide hands. What he could do with those hands was sinful. Downright lethal.

He had destroyed her for wanting another man as a lover.

And her attacker, the one who’d held her down, nearly suffocated her and cut her, he had destroyed her trust in men in general.

“If I were you, I’d stay away from him.” Sadie hoisted the beer-laden tray with her right hand, juggling it as she added a basket of peanuts. “Five years in a maximum security prison…you don’t know what they did to him inside.” Horror stories of beatings and prison rapes tormented her.

“Yeah, but that means five years without conjugal visits,” Amber said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “I bet he’s ready for a woman.”

A streak of jealousy pinched Sadie’s gut at the thought of Amber taking Carter to bed. Guilt followed that she had helped put him in that godforsaken jail. That five years of his life had been stolen from him when if she’d only told the truth, he wouldn’t have been convicted.

Yes. And you would have been dead and so would your mother.

“Hey, sugar, we’re thirsty,” one of the men yelled.

“And I’m hungry,” his buddy shouted, as he reached out a hairy hand to pull her to him. “Hungry for you.”

Sadie forced a polite smile as she sidestepped his grip, desperately trying to control a nasty retort that would not only cost her a tip but her job. Five years of working in low-rent restaurants and divey bars just to make ends meet and take care of her mother had taken its toll on her body and shattered her fantasies.

But her mother was gone now, God rest her soul.

Unfortunately so were her dreams of becoming a doctor.

She was broke, alone, and she’d been looking over her shoulder so long that she was half-afraid of her own shadow.

But she had enough sense to know that she was still in danger. Maybe even more so now.

Because Carter Flagstone was most likely looking for her to force her to go to the police about the night of that murder. Which meant the man who’d threatened her life and cut her was probably intent on preventing her from doing just that.

Her own private hell was starting all over.

DARK, HEAVY CLOUDS ROLLED across the night sky as Carter snuffed out the campfire where he’d cooked the fish he’d caught earlier in the stream. He tensed at the sound of a car engine rumbling down the road. He had to hide his tracks.

Still, he was anxious to talk to Dunham and find out if anyone had been snooping around the ranch.

He thought he might have seen something suspicious today. Maybe hints of a cattle rustler. He’d heard they’d had some vandalism and problems before at the BBL, and wondered if this was the same lowlife or a band of rustlers.

Not that he needed to get involved. Hell, no. He had his own problems.

But Johnny and Brandon were dedicated to this ranch, and with more campers due to arrive the next day, they sure as hell didn’t need thieves on the land. Especially if they were toting guns.

Most likely, they were.

He rubbed the matchbook with the BBL logo on it, the image of a group of boys getting shot because they’d stumbled on some rustlers, sitting low and heavy in his belly.

The car engine sounded louder, and he stepped back behind a thicket of trees, gripping his gun to his side as he studied the situation.

Dust spewed in a cloud around the truck, then the muffler made a backfiring sound, and the headlights of a rattletrap truck coasted toward him.

Dunham.

The poor guy’s truck was in worse shape than the one Brandon had loaned him.

Relaxing, he shoved the gun in the back of his jeans, but he waited until the truck had parked and Dunham climbed out before he showed himself.

His boots crunched the dry twigs and grass. “Thanks for meeting me.”

Dunham gave a clipped nod. “You said you saw trouble?”

Carter explained about the two men he’d seen on the hill in the north pasture. “They had binoculars and looked as if they were staking out the lay of the land.”

Dunham made a frustrated sound. “I’ll tell Mr. Bloodworth. We’ll keep an eye out.”

Carter nodded. “How about you? Any sign of Sadie Whitefeather on the ranch?”

Dunham shook his head. “No, man. But I know where you can find her.”

Carter’s head whipped toward him. Could he finally be this close? “Where?”

“She works at the Sawdust Saloon near the reservation. Cocktail waitress.”

Damn. Same job. Different location. And only a few miles from the BBL.

“Did you talk to her?”

Dunham frowned. “Ordered a beer and tried to get friendly, but she brushed me off.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “She’s a looker, man. Half the men in the bar were itching to get in her pants, but she wanted none of it.”

Carter gritted his teeth. She sure as hell had been receptive to him.

At the time, his ego had soared. He’d been thrilled to have her attention, and her body in his bed.

Little did he know that she’d only been using him. Setting him up to take the fall for murder.

She hadn’t been working alone. That much he was sure of. He wanted to know who her partner was. That name would lead him to the killer.

And real freedom. Not this sick shade of it where he was hiding behind shadows and trees, skulking around in the night like a damn snake, afraid to show his face during the day for fear of getting his head blown off.

“Thanks, Dunham, I owe you.”

“Just don’t get yourself caught.” Dunham extended his hand and Carter shook it. “Or killed.”

Carter sobered, knowing either one was possible. And could cause Dunham to go back to jail and land Brandon and Johnny in hot water as well for helping him.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m going to see Miss Whitefeather right now. When I finish with her, she’ll talk.”

A worried look darkened Dunham’s face, but Carter didn’t care. He’d spent five long years rotting in prison for a crime he hadn’t committed, all because of one night in the sack.

Two, if the one he couldn’t remember counted.

Nothing would stop him from making this woman finally tell the truth.

SADIE CLEARED her assigned tables, swept up, then counted her tips. A couple hundred dollars. Hardly worth the never-ending ordeal of fending off dozens of men’s wandering hands.

Still, she needed every penny and would add the cash to her medical school fund. If she ever had enough time to study for the MCATS.

She’d barely been able to finish her undergraduate degree for taking care of her mother during her illness. Now…she was so exhausted after work that she couldn’t think about studying.

Amber waltzed out the door with one of the men she’d hooked up with for the night, and Big T—Teddy, the owner—waved to her to go on. Sadie settled her purse tightly over her shoulder, one hand rubbing the leather to make sure her derringer was still tucked inside, then gripped her keys and stepped out the door.

Although questions and doubts needled her. Would she be able to use the gun if she needed to defend herself? Her Native American roots haunted her—every life is sacred…

At one time, she’d been so close to her roots that she hadn’t doubted her people’s ways. But that was before the attack…

That horrid day had changed everything. Changed her.

And she didn’t like it.

But she had no idea how to rid herself of the fear that plagued her. Not when it was so real.

Nerves tightening her body, she paused, her gaze scanning the dark parking lot and the corner of the alley, searching to make sure one of the men she’d blown off during her shift wasn’t waiting to ambush her. That or the man who’d threatened her years ago. She’d sensed he was following her the last few days.

And now she had to worry about Carter Flagstone.

Stale beer, urine and smoke clogged the air as she rushed to her beat-up sedan. A sound from the alley beyond made her jerk her head around to search again. Something ran across the alley. A stray dog?

Or a man?

Pebbles skittered behind her, then the sound of a garbage lid clanging reverberated through the air.

Anxiety knotted her stomach as she glanced over her shoulder. A homeless man was digging through the trash.

Relieved, she picked up her pace, although the wind lifted her hair and suddenly an eerie premonition skated up her spine.

Someone was watching her.

Adrenaline surged through her, and she ran the rest of the way to her car and jammed the key in the lock. Her hands shook as she opened the door and collapsed inside. She hit the lock, then cranked the engine and tore down the deserted street, her heart ticking double-time as she swung through the alley. She searched left and right, down each side street, over her back to make sure she wasn’t being followed. Then suddenly headlights beamed down on her as a truck appeared on her bumper.

Fear nearly choked her, but she forced herself to turn down another side street to throw him off. The truck moved on, and she breathed out in relief, then cut back through another street to her small apartment.

It was in the seedy side of town, but it was all she could afford, and as she climbed from her car, the smell of refuse and body odor assaulted her. Darting a quick glance around to check for predators, she rushed toward her apartment, a corner unit with sagging shutters, mud-streaked siding and unkempt shrubs and weeds shrouding it, casting it in darkness.

Her hand shook again as she jammed the keys in the lock. Then suddenly a hard, cold hand clamped around her mouth, and she felt the tip of a gun barrel at her temple.

“Hello, Sadie,” a gruff male voice murmured. “It’s time we talk.”