Twice A Target (Task Force Eagle) (10 page)

“Don’t kiss me again,” Maddy said as firmly as she
could muster, “and we won’t have a problem.”

She pivoted and slammed into the house before he had a
chance to remind her she’d participated as enthusiastically in that kiss as he
had.

Had wanted his touch.

Had needed it.

Chapter 10

Maddy wanted nothing to shatter the fragile peace
between her and Holt. They preparing to go photograph the crash site and visit
neighboring ranches on Tuesday, Esperanza O’Grady’s regular day of cleaning and
cooking.

“
Engaged!
” Espie clapped her hands. “When I
heard it in town, I thought I must be dreaming. Or that old busybody Phyllis
Patterson must be exaggerating. Must be more goes on between you two when I’m
not here than I realized.”

“Well, it was kind of sudden,” Maddy said. “Impulsive,
you might say.” She winced at her choice of words.

The other woman winked. “So when’s the happy day?”

“Oh, we haven’t made definite plans yet.” Maddy should
have known Phyllis’s gossip network would broadcast faster than You Tube. She
could imagine Holt’s reaction when he’d have to handle congratulations from
friends and neighbors. She paced the kitchen and rubbed the baby’s back in a
rhythmic circle. “There’s too much up in the air about Rob’s death. And about
Bobby.”

“I suppose. I see this engagement as a good omen all
around.” Espie pocketed her dust cloth in the wrap-around apron she habitually
wore. “Bobby’ll be fine with me while you and Holt are gone today. I best fix
some breakfast. He’ll be in from the barn in a few minutes, I expect.” She
opened the refrigerator and extracted eggs and bacon and set them on the
counter beside the loaf of freshly baked bread she’d brought. A soulful
harmonica wailed from her small portable radio. She preferred the tried and
true to newer gadgets like her sons’ iPods.

A juicy eruption announced Bobby’s digestive success.
Maddy mopped up milky drool, then nuzzled his warm head, the downy hair
tickling her lips. She strapped him into the infant seat. He watched her with
solemn eyes, but didn’t fuss.

“Can I do anything to help?”

Espie shook her head. “Don’t you need to change
clothes before you go?” She glanced pointedly at Maddy’s light sneakers and
Machu Picchu T-shirt.

“I’ll be fine. My denim jacket will keep me warm, and
I have a sweater.” A cotton sweater, and not very warm. She didn’t want to tell
the perceptive housekeeper she hadn’t brought anything heavier. Her other
suitcase with her warm clothing had been stolen off the tarmac in Katmandu. For
not the first time.

Clucking her disapproval, Espie arranged bacon strips
in a skillet. “Gets colder than you’d expect in those woods. You watch the
bacon while I fetch some things from the attic.” Wiping her hands on her apron,
she whisked from the room.

Before Maddy could react, the older woman climbed the
pull-down stairs. What could she be looking for?

The bacon was browning nicely, its tempting aroma
making Maddy’s mouth water. She turned over the strips and broke eggs into a
bowl. A few more moments’ rustling and scraping upstairs before the bang of the
attic door announced Espie’s return.

“It took some rummaging, I don’t mind telling you.”
The housekeeper, her crow-black hair flying about her lined face, entered the
kitchen bearing a boot box and a sheepskin jacket. “These were Bonnie’s. She
didn’t take to anything about the ranch, not horseback riding nor cattle nor
nothin’ except the wildness of the mountains. So instead of western boots, Ford
bought her these for her birthday.”

“Holt’s mom?” Maddy eyed the boot box with
trepidation. Apprehension crawled up the back of her neck. Just what she
needed, something else to remind Holt that she’d bolted like his mother. “I
don’t know...”

Espie led her to a chair and proceeded to wait on her
like a clerk in a shoe store. “You’re part of the family now, so don’t be
foolish. Traipsing around the woods, those flimsy sneakers will be soaked in
five minutes.”

“I could wear my riding boots.”

The Ute woman tsked. “You’d ruin them. And you get
sick, what would little Bobby do?” She laced the cordovan-leather hiking boots.
“Holt’s daddy thought Bonnie might like hiking the park trails.”

Despite Maddy’s trepidation about Holt’s reaction, she
yielded. When Espie slipped the boots on her feet, she had to admit they felt
wonderful. “They fit. Well, almost, but with a second pair of socks, I’ll be
fine. Imagine a woman with bigger feet than mine.” Her size tens always seemed
like flippers to her. She laughed, then peered more closely at the boots. “She
didn’t use them. They’ve never been worn.”

“Not once,” Holt said from the kitchen doorway. “She
left the day before Dad planned to give them to her. I didn’t know they were
still around.” He sent a black look Espie’s way.

“Your dad had me pack ‘em away in the attic. Boots’ll
rot up there unused.” She closed the subject by snapping the lid on the boot
box and crossing to the stove.

At the sight of Holt, tall and strong and grim-faced,
Maddy’s mouth went dry. Her cheeks warmed. Did they look as hot as they felt?

The baby emitted a happy squeal at the sound of his
uncle’s voice. “Aah-ga!”

Holt hung up his barn coat on a hook by the door.

Maddy stood, determined to smooth matters. “Will it
bother you if I wear the boots?”

Espie bustled to the table with two cups of coffee.
“You start on this, and I’ll have the eggs ready in a flash.”

His gaze was opaquely neutral, and determination
firmed his jaw. “Somebody should get some use out of them.”

Maddy couldn’t expect more yielding than that, but no
telling whether it was directed at her or at his mother.

He bent to the infant seat and lifted a cooing Bobby
into his arms. “How’s my little buddy?”

Seated opposite her with the baby snug in the crook of
one arm, he sipped his coffee. His open and obvious affection for his nephew
softened his expression and squeezed Maddy’s heart. “Wear that heavy coat too.
You’ll need it. Wind has a chill to it.”

He was wrestling with powerful emotions, and she had
to ask. “Do you ever hear from her?”

“My mother?”

She nodded as she started on the scrambled eggs and
toast Espie placed before her. “Does she ever write or telephone?”

“You can’t eat proper with that bundle on your lap.” Espie
scooped Bobby up in her arms. “Oops, someone needs changing.” As though
escaping, she hustled out of the room with the infant complaining about being
rousted from his cozy seat.

Jaw working, Holt stared at congealed egg bits. “Mom
wrote us regularly for a few years after she left for Las Vegas. Rob answered
some of her letters, but I was too angry.”

“Sounds like you have regrets.” She longed to reach
out, to offer comfort. She gripped her fork, crumpled her napkin in her lap.
“Maybe it’s not too late.”

He shook his head. “It’s been too long. Finally after
she remarried, she stopped writing.” He pushed away his plate. “She still lives
in Vegas.”

His bitterness and regrets radiated into her. Without
further thought, she grasped his hand. Calluses from physical labor toughened
his long, capable fingers and palm, but they couldn’t armor the vulnerable man
inside. “She might want to see her grandson.”

“Maybe. Leave it alone, Maddy.” He freed his hand,
slid his plate closer and aimed his fork at her like a weapon. “Now eat up. We
ought to get going.” He tucked into his eggs and bacon as though starved.

An act of bravado. And if their cease-fire wasn’t
shattered, it was at least shaken. She stirred the eggs around, but her
appetite had disappeared. She needed sustenance and managed to swallow half her
eggs before Holt declared it time to go.

*****

An hour later, Holt headed his Silverado southeast
toward the site where Rob’s old truck had spun out of control over a steep
embankment. Behind him, he caught a glimpse of what could be the same black
truck as before. He slowed, looking to see if it was that Ford with the
Circle-S brand, but he couldn’t get the right angle. The vehicle passed behind
them as they turned onto the two-lane back road the locals called Wagon Spur.
He shrugged off the prickles of suspicion. It was a small community. He was
bound to see the same vehicles from time to time.

Rangewood and the surrounding ranches spread across a
series of high mountain valleys and rolling peaks on the edge of the national
forest. The Wagon Spur wound along the sides of two mountains and through the
forest. Today he couldn’t appreciate the greening beauty of the forest or the
distant vistas from its hilltops. Awareness of the woman beside him and the
grim task ahead kept him in a state of heightened alertness. It was too much to
expect they’d find any evidence, but he nurtured a kernel of hope.

“The crash site is just up ahead.”

Maddy was loading a new memory card in her camera.
“Something bothers me about this ambush. How did the killer know Rob and Sara
were going out that evening? How could he know they’d take this road?”

“Hell, the whole town knew. Sara went into Rangewood
that day to have lunch with her mother at the Bull’s-Eye. I reckon she bragged
to everyone she met that her husband was taking her down to Cripple Creek for a
night. Those she missed her mother told.”

“And Bobby. Where was Bobby that night?”

“At Espie’s house.” He shuddered. “Thank God.”

“Why not at the Pattersons’?”

“You’re wondering if they feel resentment at the
slight. Maybe, but they had some civic function that night. Chamber of Commerce
or Elks.” If the grandparents had had possession of Bobby when Sara and Rob
were killed, he might not have received even temporary custody. His chest
tightened and he shook away the thought.

“What about this route?” Maddy asked, fiddling with
her camera.

“A calculated risk the killer took. Unless it’s
storming, most folks prefer it. He had a seventy-five percent chance anyone
leaving Rock Valley would go this way.”

“If the killer was actually after Rob and Sara and not
someone else in a similar truck.”

He’d put together some facts. He looked ahead, paid
attention to the curves before he replied. “I haven’t come up with a motive,
but it wasn’t mistaken identity.”

“But how do you know?”

“I had a look at the wreckage in back of the sheriff’s
office. Since I was last home, Rob replaced the rusted-out front fenders with
used ones from a junkyard, but he didn’t repaint the truck. It had one blue
fender and one black one—on a green truck. No mistaking that heap.”

They reached their destination, and Holt pulled over
to the left verge. He hadn’t passed any other vehicles, but he ought to be well
out of the roadway.

Along this ridge, the pine-dotted hills rolled on
toward the distant gray cone of Pikes Peak. The air, crisp and clean, was
redolent with juniper and the sweetness of decayed grasses. At their intrusion,
two gray jays exploded from the roadside with squawks. Holt had to stifle a
reaction.

“Just look at that sky. It’s so blue it hurts your
eyes.” Maddy clambered out with her smaller camera case slung over her
shoulder.

He watched her scan the fir and juniper-lined
roadsides, uphill and across to the steep downhill slope that was nearly a cliff.
Maybe her photographer’s eye would find something everyone else had missed.

Today he couldn’t win. Either he focused on the
gut-wrenching task of examining this site or on the woman who had him teetering
between horny and crazy.

She tugged the fleece jacket closed against the chill
and zipped it. Her mouth thinned to a taut line as she blinked back tears. She
shook her head, flipping her short hair around her face. “Where did the shooter
sit?”

Grief rimmed her eyes, and horror dulled the violet
irises. He saw her caring for Rob, though she hadn’t loved him. He saw her
passion for people and her vulnerability. Something he wasn’t ready to name
tugged at his chest muscles, and he turned aside.

“Up in this grouping of rocks.” He led her up the
short slope above where they’d parked.

They poked around in the rocks and scrub brush, but
found nothing unusual. The thawing ground held a litter of Ponderosa pine
cones, sticks, and dried grasses, but no prints or human debris like cigarette
butts. No sign a stalker had hunkered there waiting for a green truck with
mismatched fenders.

Propping one foot on a lichen-encrusted rock, she shot
several frames of the spot, including close-ups. After changing lenses, she
took more of the approaching road—the shooter’s view.

Immersion in her professional task made him aware of
her on a new plane.

Apparently oblivious to his gaze, she bent and twisted
around to frame her shots. He tried to think about how enlargements might
reveal some telling evidence to them rather than how delectable her curvy
backside looked, even partly covered by the borrowed jacket. Hell. He dragged
his gaze back to the camera.

“Should you have a tripod?” he asked. “Or another
camera?”

“This Nikon’s a versatile enough camera for this kind
of work. Besides I stashed my other equipment in storage.” She cocked a hip.
“You think I don’t know my business?”

He threw up his hands. “Just anxious.”

“Me too.”

Her soft smile started an unwelcome tingling. He
looked away—
again
—and paced a tight circle. “So, what now?”

“How about where the truck landed? Do you think
there’s anything to find down there?” She pointed toward the low side of the
roadway.

“Can’t hurt.” He adjusted the Broncos cap he’d worn
instead of his Resistol. “When we’re done, I want to go on into Fort Adams. Got
to lay in the vaccines I need for next weekend’s branding.”

“I heard Espie’s boys are coming to help. Will that be
enough hands?”

“Bronc’ll rope the calves. The boys’ll wrestle them.
That leaves me to do the rest.” He shook his head at the prospect. That wasn’t
nearly enough wranglers. He should have at least two more, but he couldn’t
afford wages.