RESCUE AT CARDWELL RANCH (16 page)

“McKenzie!” There was blood everywhere. He couldn’t tell how much of it was hers as he felt for a pulse, praying with every second that he would feel one. “McKenzie?”

He found a pulse and tried to breathe a little easier as McKenzie’s eyes blinked open. What was it about those eyes? “McKenzie. Sweetheart. How badly are you hurt?”

She shook her head and tried to smile through the pain. “The bastard cut me. His name is Jason Mathews. He—”

“Don’t try to talk,” he told her. He could hear sirens in the distance. “You’re going to be all right. You’re safe now.”

She closed her eyes as he took her hand. He thought about the first time he’d told her that. It had been a lie. She hadn’t been safe. But she would be now, he thought as he looked over at the dead man.

Outside police cars and an ambulance had pulled up. He didn’t want to let go of her hand, but he did only long enough to go to the window and direct the EMTs up on the elevator.

As he dropped down onto the bloody floor next to McKenzie again, he realized he was shaking. He thought about what he’d seen the moment he’d cleared the bedroom doorway. McKenzie bound up like that on the floor and that man standing over her, a pair of long-bladed scissors clamped in his hands, the man’s beaten face twisted in a grimace—

That was all he remembered until he was on his knees next to McKenzie. He didn’t remember pulling the trigger, couldn’t even say how many times he’d shot the man.

That thought scared him. He’d been in the P.I. business for ten years. He considered himself a professional. He’d never lost control before.

Suddenly the room was filled with cops and EMTs and a stretcher. He let go of McKenzie’s hand and moved back out of the way.

“Is she going to be okay?” he asked as two EMTs went to work on her.

“She’s stable. We’ll know more once we get her to the hospital.”

Hayes wanted desperately to ride in the ambulance with her but one look at the cops and he knew he wasn’t going anywhere. “Mind if I call my brother so he can go to the hospital to be with McKenzie until I can get there?”

Chapter Sixteen

McKenzie woke with a start. As her eyes flew open, she saw the woman standing next to her hospital bed. Had she been able to forget yesterday’s horror, she might not have recognized the woman at first.

But she hadn’t been able to escape Jason Mathews, even filled with anesthesia in the operating room or later in a sedated sleep. He’d followed her into her nightmares.

“Emily Mathews?”
She tried to sit up but the woman placed a hand on her shoulder, holding her down on the bed. McKenzie looked up into Jason’s wife’s face. A pair of dark brown eyes stared back at her.

“I had to see you,” the woman said in that small, timid voice McKenzie remembered from the day at the ranchette showing. “Jason’s dead, you know.”

Dead, but far from forgotten. She tried to sit up again, but she was weak from whatever she’d been given after the surgery. Her side hurt like the devil from where she’d been stabbed. She saw that one of her wrists was bandaged and there was something plastered to her back under her nightgown that burned.

She felt foggy, as if caught between a nightmare and reality. Was this woman even really in her room or was this yet another nightmare?

As she felt the pain and recalled what the madman had done to her, she knew she wasn’t dreaming.

“Here, let me do that,” Emily said as McKenzie reached for the nurse call button. The woman didn’t press it to call a nurse. Instead, she moved it out of her reach.

Fear spiraled through her, making her feel as if she might throw up. Jason was dead but this woman... She tried to sit up again. “What are you—”

The door burst open. McKenzie fell back with such relief that she could no longer hold back the tears. “Hayes.” There’d been only one other time she’d been so happy to see him and that had been yesterday. She reminded herself that he’d also saved her the first time they’d met, as he rushed to her bed and took her hand.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She couldn’t speak. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she tried to swallow down the fear that had settled like a dull ache in her chest.

Behind him was a male police officer. “Mrs. Mathews, you shouldn’t be in here.”

“I had to come,” Emily said in her tiniest voice.

“Well, you need to leave now. You’re upsetting Ms. Sheldon,” the cop said.

“Of course,” the woman said, and turned to look at McKenzie. “I’m sorry.”

McKenzie thought for a moment that she had misunderstood the woman’s intentions. Maybe Emily had only come here to tell her how sorry she was for what her husband had done. But then she looked again in the woman’s eyes. There was no compassion. The only emotion burning there was fury.

The woman was sorry, but not for the reasons anyone else in the room thought.

As the policeman led Emily out of the room, she turned to Hayes. “She
knew.
She knew the whole time. Her only regret was that I lived and he died.”

Epilogue

“You’re going to get sunburned.”

McKenzie opened her eyes to look over at Hayes and smiled. “The sun feels so good.”

Hayes sat up and reached for the suntan lotion. Since they’d been in Texas, the color had come back into McKenzie’s cheeks and she’d gotten a nice tan. She looked healthy, even happy. But he knew she hadn’t forgotten her ordeal. Never would. Neither would he.

The scars weren’t just on her body, he thought as he rubbed the cool lotion on her back. He’d been surprised when she hadn’t wanted to see a plastic surgeon about having the scar on her back removed or the others.

“What would be the point?” she’d said. “For me, it will always be there. Anyway,” she’d said, tracing one along his shoulder, “we all have scars.”

He remembered each of his scars that he’d gotten growing up with four brothers as well as the ones he’d gotten working as a P.I. Life was dangerous. Sometimes you got lucky and survived it.

“I’m going to be all right, you know,” she said when he’d finished applying the lotion.

“I never doubted it.”

She sat up to look out at the Gulf of Mexico, her back to him.

“You are the strongest, most determined woman I know.”

She smiled at him over her shoulder. She had the most amazing smile. Her hair was even shorter than it had been in Montana. He liked it, but wondered if she missed her long hair. She hadn’t known that men like Jason Mathews targeted women with long hair. Women exactly like her. She hadn’t known a lot about killers, but she did now.

“I like Texas,” she said as she took a deep breath of the gulf air.

He waited, anticipating a “but” before he said, “That’s good. You haven’t seen much of it yet. It’s a big state.”

She was watching the waves as she had other days, lying in the sun, wading in the water, seemingly content to spend her days on the beach. The hot sun beat down on the white sand while the surf rolled up only yards from their feet, just as it had all the other days.

Only today, Hayes felt the change in her.

“I’ve had an offer on the agency,” she said after a long moment.

He held his breath, not sure what he wanted her to say. He’d known she couldn’t be content spending the rest of her life as a beach bum. That wasn’t her. It wasn’t him, either. Their lives had been in limbo for weeks now. He’d known she needed time and had been determined to give it to her.

She turned around to face him, sitting cross-legged on the towel. Her skin was tanned, her high cheekbones pink from the sun, her amazing eyes bright. She looked beautiful. She also looked more confident than he’d seen her in a long time.

“I spoke with your cousin Dana. She wanted to know what our plans are for the wedding.”

The sudden shift in subjects threw him off for a moment. “You still want to go to Tag and Lily’s wedding?”

“Of course. He’s your brother and I adore Lily.” She frowned. “You do realize this—” she waved an arm, a motion that encompassed the Galveston beach “—this has been wonderful but only temporary, don’t you?”

He nodded. “I’ve just been waiting for you to get your strength back.”

She smiled and placed a cool palm on his bare leg. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I know you can afford to spend the rest of your life on this beach if you wanted to, but I don’t think that is what you want to do, is it?”

“No, I need to work. Not for the money so much as for the work itself.”

She licked her lips, catching her lower lip between her teeth for a moment. He felt a stirring in him, his desire for this woman a constant reminder of how much he loved her and that he hadn’t yet told her.

The timing had felt all wrong. He wanted her strong. He wanted that unsinkable McKenzie Sheldon back before he laid that on her.

Now as he looked into her eyes, he saw that she was back.

“There is something I have to tell you,” he said as he took both of her hands in his and got his courage up. His parents’ marriage had failed. His brother Jackson’s, as well. He wasn’t sure he ever believed in love ever after, but he damned sure wanted to now.

McKenzie smiled, amusement in her eyes. “Is it that hard to admit?”

He chuckled. “I’ve been wanting to say it for weeks. I just had to wait until I was sure you were going to be all right.”

“I’m all right, Hayes.”

“I can see that.” He gripped her hands, his gaze locking with hers.

* * *

M
C
K
ENZIE
LOOKED
INTO
his dark eyes, afraid of what he was going to say. They hadn’t talked about the future. She knew he’d made a point of not pushing her. He’d given her time to heal and she loved him for it.

“I love you.”

She laughed. “And I love you. I have for a long time.”

He let out a relieved breath and pulled her into his arms for a moment. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don’t care where it is as long as we’re together.”

“Are you saying you would go back to Montana with me?”

“If that is what you want. I could open a private-investigation business in Bozeman or even in the canyon. Dana was telling me about a ranch near hers that was going on the market. I would need a good real-estate agent to handle things.”

She couldn’t believe what he was saying. “After staying at the Cardwell Ranch, I’m spoiled to live anywhere but the canyon. Could we really do this?”

“Only if you agree to marry me.” He looked into her eyes again. “But be sure. This is a no-holds-barred offer till death do us part with kids and dogs and horses and barbecues behind the house.”

She laughed as she threw herself back into his arms, knocking them to the sand. “Yes,” she said as she looked down into his handsome face. “Yes to all of it.”

“And I haven’t even made you any Texas Boys Barbecue yet.” He flipped her over so he was on top. “Woman, you are in for a treat.”

She sobered as she looked up at him. “You’ve saved my life in so many ways,” she said as she touched his cheek. “Do you think it was fate that night that we met?”

“I don’t know. But I think I knew the moment I first looked into your eyes that you were the only woman who could get this Texas boy out of Texas.”

He kissed her with a promise of good things to come as the surf rolled up to their feet and Montana called.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from WEDDING AT CARDWELL RANCH by
New York Times
bestselling author B.J. Daniels.

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Intrigue story.

You crave excitement!
Harlequin Intrigue
stories deal in serious romantic suspense, keeping you on the edge of your seat as resourceful, true-to-life women and strong, fearless men fight for survival.

Enjoy six new stories from Harlequin Intrigue every month!

Connect with us on
Harlequin.com
for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!

Other ways to keep in touch:

Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com

SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM

Read on for a sneak peek of
WEDDING AT CARDWELL RANCH
by
New York Times
bestselling author
B.J.
Daniels
Part of the
CARDWELL
COUSINS
series.
In Montana for his brother’s
nuptials, Jackson Cardwell isn’t looking to be anybody’s hero.
But the
Texas single father knows a beautiful lady in distress when he meets her.

“I’m afraid to ask what you just said to your horse,”
Jackson joked as he moved closer. Her horse had wandered over to some tall grass
away from the others.

“Just thanking him for not bucking me off,” she
admitted shyly.

“Probably a good idea, but your horse is a she. A mare.”

“Oh, hopefully she wasn’t insulted.” Allie actually smiled. The
afternoon sun lit her face along with the smile.

He felt his heart do a loop-de-loop. He tried to rein it back
in as he looked into her eyes. That tantalizing green was deep and dark,
inviting, and yet he knew a man could drown in those eyes.

Suddenly, Allie’s horse shied. In the next second it took off
as if it had been shot from a cannon. To her credit, she hadn’t let go of her
reins, but she grabbed the saddle horn and let out a cry as the mare raced out
of the meadow headed for the road.

Jackson spurred his horse and raced after her. He could hear
the startled cries of the others behind him. He’d been riding since he was a
boy, so he knew how to handle his horse. But Allie, he could see, was having
trouble staying in the saddle with her horse at a full gallop.

He pushed his horse harder and managed to catch her, riding
alongside until he could reach over and grab her reins. The horses lunged along
for a moment. Next to him Allie started to fall. He grabbed for her, pulling her
from her saddle and into his arms as he released her reins and brought his own
horse up short.

Allie slid down his horse to the ground. He dismounted and
dropped beside her. “Are you all right?”

“I think so. What happened?”

He didn’t know. One minute her horse was munching on grass, the
next it had taken off like a shot.

Allie had no idea why the horse had reacted like that. She
hated that she was the one who’d upset everyone.

“Are you sure you didn’t spur your horse?” Natalie asked, still
upset.

“She isn’t wearing spurs,” Ford pointed out.

“Maybe a bee stung your horse,” Natalie suggested.

Dana felt bad. “I wanted your first horseback-riding experience
to be a pleasant one,” she lamented.

“It was. It is,” Allie reassured her, although in truth, she
wasn’t looking forward to getting back on the horse. But she knew she had to for
Natalie’s sake. The kids had been scared enough as it was.

Dana had spread out the lunch on a large blanket with the kids
all helping when Jackson rode up, trailing her horse. The mare looked calm now,
but Allie wasn’t sure she would ever trust it again.

Jackson met her gaze as he dismounted. Dana was already on her
feet, heading for him. Allie left the kids to join them.

“What is it?” Dana asked, keeping her voice down.

Jackson looked to Allie as if he didn’t want to say in front of
her.

“Did I do something to the horse to make her do that?” she
asked, fearing that she had.

His expression softened as he shook his head. “You didn’t do
anything
.” He looked at Dana. “Someone shot the
mare.”

Someone is hell-bent on making Allie Taylor think she’s
losing her mind. Jackson’s determined to unmask the perp. Can he guard the
widowed wedding planner and her little girl from a killer with a chilling
agenda?
Find out what happens next in
WEDDING AT CARDWELL
RANCH
by
New York Times
bestselling author B.J. Daniels,
available
July 2014, only from Harlequin® Intrigue®.

Copyright © 2014 by Barbara
Heinlein