Too Close To The Fire/Too Hot To Handle (Montana Men 3) (14 page)

Chapter Four

Love
is like a spider web, the harder you struggle, the more tangled up you become
and the harder it is to escape.

 
~Unknown

Rimrock, Montana

Blackstone Ranch

February 6, Friday

7:45 p.m.

Sheriff
Rafe McCord of Triangle, Texas stood in the home of Sheriff Danger Blackstone,
his best friend, and wished he was anywhere but here. At last, the CSI team had
cleared the house and let him in the kitchen. So much traffic. So much tramping
about the crime scene. He doubted there was much left in the line of evidence
he could actually sort through, but for Lacey’s sake, he’d give it a shot.

At
least Danger had taken Karen and left for the hospital to be with Joseph.

He
figured it was just as well Lacey wasn’t here to meet the woman who’d stolen
her husband. God, he didn’t understand how Danger got himself involved with the
scheming bitch.

Rafe
hadn’t known for certain the Rimrock lawman was having an affair, but the way
things had fallen in December, he’d strongly suspected it. He hadn’t known
Lacey had sought a divorce either, or that she was pregnant.

Jesus,
this entire thing was a frigging nightmare, and one little step from a bigger catastrophe.
He needed a few minutes to clear his head. There was so much to take in he
couldn’t concentrate on the crime scene. All he saw in his head was Lacey—Lacey
in front of the fireplace popping corn. Lacey crying. Her sorrow at the things
Danger did and said. Why the hell couldn’t he get her off his mind?

In
his callused hands, he held a Colt .45 and the strong desire to use it on one
man. At the moment, it was the only comfort he had. He studied the gun and knew
if he had to, he’d put a bullet between Smitt Davis’s eyes, but damn it, he
also knew if it came right down to it, he’d do it legally. Legal was a whole
lot more than the rat bastard serial killer deserved.

Rafe
stared at the antique firearm and realized he must be in a bit of shock over
all the events he’d walked head-on into tonight. Danger’s new marriage. Lacey
divorced. Lacey pregnant. The baby wasn’t Danger’s, so where did that leave
everything standing?

Smitt’s
attack on Lacey, Joseph, and Anna Leigh was a nightmare, but Danger calling
Lacey his wife while his new bride stood beside him was unbelievable. Rafe had
met Karen a time or two when he’d came to visit the Blackstone’s and Danger and
he’d go to town for coffee. He’d never liked her. She’d always been too flirty
for his tastes.

He
never would have guessed she was the woman Danger was seeing. To say Karen was
a little upset with her new husband would be putting it mildly. Danger might
not have witnessed her displeasure, but
he
damn sure had, and the woman hated Lacey.

It
was a lot to take in, or he wouldn’t be standing here eyeing something as
mundane as the gun in his hand.

However,
it was as much a part of his personal history as history itself. It let his
mind escape from what was all around him—Lacey’s blood—her last moments inside
the ranch house.

Think
about something else! Think about the gun.

The
Colt had been passed down through generations of Texas Rangers, of McCord
males, to his grandpa, and finally to him. Men, who’d, upheld the law, not taken
it in their own hands.

He
couldn’t dishonor those men by cold-bloodedly murdering a man who deserved
killing in the worst way. It would make him no better than the animal he was
going to hunt down, but in his heart, Rafe knew the way
he’d
dealt with Lacey Blackstone had stained a part of him, put a
blot on his honor.

Rafe
had always been a straight-shooter, honest to a fault, and upfront with the
women in his life—an honorable man, except for—

No,
that was personal, not professional.

He
returned the gun to the specially made holster he’d designed for it and wore
inside his jacket. The pistol had seen him through many ordeals. It was an old
and necessary friend. His love for law and justice started at an early age. A
former Texas Ranger, he still used the Colt .45.

Even
though he’d gone on to become a federal agent and was issued a Glock, he
trusted his old friend more. When it came to dealing with bastards like Smitt
Davis, he liked to believe he was merciless. Still, he’d always followed the
letter of the law.

And
that was the problem. This time was different. This time he was torn between
what was right and what he wanted to do, because this time, there was a woman
involved—and he owed her.

Not
knowing if Lacey Blackstone was dead or alive was ripping out his guts one
pearly strand at a time. Everyone assumed she was dead, even her ex-husband.
Rafe figured the odds of her still being alive were pretty slim. Smitt Davis
didn’t leave survivors. His profile listed him as a ruthless killer known to
take his victims’ bodies away from the original crime scene and dump them
somewhere else.

But
he wouldn’t give up or stop searching for Lacey until he found her body, until
he was proven wrong and she was still alive. Oh, God. He couldn’t bear the
thought of what she must have suffered at the hands of a butcher like Davis.

“Shit!”
He couldn’t think about it. He
couldn’t think about what Smitt had done to her. If he did, he’d go mad. Hell,
he couldn’t think about what
he’d
done to her.

Shoving
a small spiral notebook and gold-capped ink pen in the pocket of his plain
white shirt, he leaned back against the kitchen counter and rubbed a thumb over
his bottom lip.

An
honorable man?
Nothing he’d done
concerning Lacey struck him as honorable. He’d known it then, and still he’d—Rafe
broke off his thoughts. “Jesus, what the hell am I doing here?”

He
had to be completely insane coming back to Danger’s home, insane, or a total
glutton for punishment. And why did Danger welcome him, when he had to suspect—

Fuck!
Suspect hell! The man set his own wife up
for a fall. What man did that to the woman he loved? Supposedly loved? And why?
That was the weird thing. Why?

Rafe
rubbed a spot between his eyes and tried to block out the ache his memories
brought on. The last time he’d stood in this kitchen, in this exact spot, he’d
made an absolute fool of himself. He winced. Hell, he didn’t even want to think
about the things he’d said to Lacey, words he never should have voiced.

At
the time, he’d only known an opportunity presented itself, and he grabbed it.
No doubt he’d do it again, because nothing about the way he’d felt then had
changed now. If anything, his emotions were deeper involved than ever.

Just
because he’d left Lacey Blackstone standing at the airport and he hadn’t known
if she’d welcome him back, didn’t change anything that happened or make the
fact he loved her go away.

“It’s
never going away.” He knew it, and if he knew it, so had Lacey.

What
happened couldn’t be fixed. He hadn’t realized until much, much later it was
what broke her emotionally—what scared her. Why she’d cried like her heart was
shattered in a million pieces after the first time he made love to her. She’d
known immediately nothing could be mended, and still she’d stayed with Danger.
She’d tried to
fix
it.

To
him, it seemed there were no choices, but he hadn’t allowed for the fact she
had a son to consider. Had he had the same realizations Lacey had, instead of
walking away, certain she’d go with him, he’d have pressed his advantage,
hammered away at her defenses, persisted in his seduction, and he’d have won—then,
when he left the Blackstone Ranch that last morning, he would have taken her
with him. Smitt Davis would never have had the opportunity to do the things he
did to her.

Too
late! Rafe scrubbed a hand across his furrowed brow and stared at the bloody
scrawling on the kitchen wall. They were all so damn late in their care of her.
The bastard used Lacey’s blood to finger-paint symbols on the walls.

Swallowing
hard, Rafe fought to gain control of the anguish running rampant inside him. If
she was still alive, then he wouldn’t do Lacey any good if he couldn’t keep a
clear head.

And
he had to find her.

He
was as anxious about her as Danger. The difference—Danger was the only man with
the right to be concerned. Rafe frowned. No. That wasn’t true any longer. Rafe
figured the sheriff cast away any privileges he’d had when he’d walked away and
left Lacey to the wolves. It didn’t matter that
he
was the wolf waiting to devour her. What mattered now was
finding Lacey. And by the grace of God, finding her alive!

No
matter how difficult it was, Rafe knew he had to keep his feelings under wraps.
Reigning in his emotions had never been easy, especially when anger was
involved. He was plenty pissed at Danger.

He
wanted to beat the man to a bloody pulp. The man had held a prize in his hands
and hadn’t taken care of her, hadn’t protected his own son, or the baby Lacey
carried. The sheriff failed her in so many other ways, too. Jesus. Rafe dragged
fingers through his dark hair. He was still fuming over the fact Danger brought
his new bride to the ranch.

What
if Lacey had been here? How cruel would that have been?

Where
Lacey’s feelings were concerned, Danger had developed a callous heart toward
her. Not that she had been here to witness him bringing his new wife into her home,
but still, how could he risk doing that to her?

If
Lacey had been home, Rafe thought she would have been devastated.

No
doubt Smitt Davis had done a number on her, too.

Rafe’s
gut clenched. “Damn it!”

No
matter the circumstances, it wasn’t his place to judge. He didn’t have any
rights where Lacey was concerned, not yet, except one. He needed time to
consider that one.

Maybe
because Rimrock was where Smitt grew up, and he was familiar with the
territory, he’d stashed the bodies of several women he’d murdered in a cave at
the back of Jace Remington’s property. Smitt seated them in chairs around a
large stone table and set it with dinner plates, wine glasses, and cutlery, as
if they were all dining in a fancy restaurant.

Three
years ago, Lacey and Danger had stumbled onto Smitt’s cache of bodies. The
chilling factor had been the fact that each woman was in a different month of
pregnancy, as if Smitt Davis planned to have nine women ringed around that
table. The serial killer disappeared after the bodies were discovered, but now he
was back with a vengeance.

And
he’d included Lacey on his list of targets.

Rafe
sighed and hooked his thumbs inside the waistband of his jeans and pondered the
situation. He had a feeling before it was all said and done all hell was going
to rain down. On him. On Danger. On Rimrock.

But
no matter what Smitt had done or would do in the future, he wasn’t the one
who’d caused all these problems or the ones Rafe now faced. When the dust
finally settled, he and Danger would no longer be friends, because when it was
all over, when tempers settled, and shouted accusations stopped, and all the
guilt reared its ugly head and finally died, he intended to walk away with
Lacey Blackstone and make her his wife.

Hell,
who was he kidding? His and Danger’s friendship had ended months ago. He didn’t
regret it. Sooner or later, it would have ended anyway. What he regretted was
the fact he’d left Lacey behind. He should have taken her with him.

Rafe
threaded fingers through his dark hair and blew out a puff of air. A monumental
task there—taking Lacey from Danger, making her his—but not an impossible one,
just a perilous one.

His
heart raced. That was then. She was free now. He already had a hold on her, one
he had no plans to change. Two months ago, he’d backed off, willing to give her
some time to think things over, but he’d always intended to come back and take
her away from here. He would have already done so if he’d known she was
divorcing Danger. If he’d known she was—

Swearing,
he deliberately closed off his thoughts and reached for the cup of coffee near
his hand—another commonality he and Danger shared. They were caffeine addicts.
He chugged down the liquid gold that had grown cold, wiped his mouth with a
paper napkin, and eyed the crime scene.

“Shit.
What a fucking mess!”

And
what a perverted fuck Smitt Davis was.

Rafe
moved closer to the wall and concentrated on the pictures Smitt had drawn. They
resembled little more than chicken scratches. He closed his eyes, no longer
able to focus his attention on the impossible scrawls.

Lacey’s
blood. So much blood. How could she still be alive?

Memories
haunted him and tugged at his heartstrings.

Three
years ago, he’d given up his job as a Special Agent and settled in Triangle,
Texas. Shortly after, he’d bought a fair-sized ranch on the outskirts of
Triangle with hopes of meeting the right woman and starting a family.

Instead,
he took on the responsibilities of sheriff and, to his utter horror, fell in
love with another man’s wife. He’d never been the kind to poach from another’s
preserve, especially when the man was a good friend.

Rafe
didn’t believe in adultery. Just love—a strong love, like the kind that had
smacked him cold upside the head and knocked him to his knees.

To
put it bluntly, when it came to Lacey Blackstone, his dick was dragging in the
dirt.

Just
like then, he still had no idea how to handle the situation with her. The best
solution he’d come up with was to stay away, but it had been doomed to fail.