Joanna Wayne - Hard Ride to Dry Gulch

Yet the rotten bastard always came out on top. His rule of threats and intimidation eliminated any chance of getting one of his patrons to testify against him. Not that they would have had a shred of credibility if they had.

A rap song blared from the sound system as a couple of seminude women with surgery-enhanced butts and breasts made love to skinny poles. Two others gyrated around the rim of the stage, collecting bills in their G-strings.

A familiar waitress whose name Travis couldn’t remember sashayed up to him. “Business or pleasure, copper boy?”

“What do you think?”

“Business, but a girl can hope. Are you looking for Georgio?”

“For starters.”

“Is it about that boy who got shot up in Oak Cliff last night?”

Now she had Travis’s full attention. “What do you know about that?”

“Nothing, I just figured that’s what brought you here.”

Travis had a hunch she knew more than she was admitting. He was about to question her further when he noticed a woman at the bar trying to peel a man’s grip from her right wrist.

“Let go of me,” she said, her voice rising above the din.

The man held tight while his free hand groped her breast. “I just want to be friends.”

“You’re hurting me.”

Travis stormed to the bar. “You heard the woman. Move on, buddy.”

“Why don’t you mind your own business?”

“I am.” He pulled the ID from the breast pocket of his blue pullover. “Dallas Police. Back off or I snap a nice metal bracelet on your wrist and haul you down to central lockup.”

A thin stream of spittle made its way down the man’s whiskered chin as his hands fell to his sides. Wiping it away with his shirtsleeve, he slid off the barstool and stumbled backward.

“She’s the one you should be arresting. She came on to me,” he slurred.

Travis studied the woman and decided the drunk could be right. She was flaunting the trappings of a hooker, right down to a sexy pair of heels that made her shapely legs appear a mile long.

But one look into her haunted eyes and Travis doubted she was looking to make a fast buck on her back. She had a delicate, fragile quality about her that suggested she’d be more at home in a convent than here shoving off drunks. Even the exaggerated makeup couldn’t hide her innocence.

If he had to guess, he’d say she was here trying to get even with some jerk who had cheated on her. That didn’t make it any less dangerous for her to be in this hellhole.

“Party’s over, lady. I’m calling for a squad car to take you home.”

“I have a car.”

“Get behind the wheel and I’ll have to arrest you for driving while intoxicated.”

“I’m not drunk.”

He couldn’t argue that point. She smelled like a distillery, but she wasn’t slurring her words and her eyes were clear, her pupils normal.

“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing or who you’re trying to get even with, but if you hang around here, you’re going to run into more trouble than you can handle.”

“I can take care of myself.” She turned and started to walk away.

Travis moved quicker, setting himself in her path without realizing why he was bothering.

He looked around for Reno, but his partner wasn’t in sight. He was probably already questioning Georgio, and Travis should be with him.

“Look, lady. You’re in over your head here. I’ve got some urgent business, but sit tight for a few minutes and I’ll be back to walk you to your car. In the meantime, don’t make friends with any more perverts. That’s an order.”

She shrugged and nodded.

He stalked off to find Reno. He spotted him and Georgio a minute later near the door to the suite of private offices. When he looked back, the woman was gone.

Just as well, he told himself, especially if she’d gone home. He didn’t need any more problems tonight. But even after he reached Reno and jumped into the murderous situation at hand, he couldn’t fully shake her from his mind.

Whatever had brought her slumming could get her killed.

Chapter One

Four months later

Travis adjusted the leather-and-turquoise bolo tie, a close match to the one his brother was wearing with his Western-style tux. The irony of seeing his formerly Armani-faithful attorney brother dressed like this made it hard for Travis not to laugh.

“I never thought I’d see the day you got hitched to a cowgirl.”

“I never thought I’d see the day you showed up at the Dry Gulch Ranch again,” Leif answered.

“Couldn’t miss the wedding of my favorite brother.”

“Your only brother.”

“Yeah, probably a good thing you don’t have competition now that you’re building a house here on the ranch. On the bright side, I do like that I get to wear my cowboy boots with this rented monkey suit.”

Travis rocked back on the heels of his new boots, bought for the conspicuous occasion of Leif’s wedding to Joni Griffin. He’d never seen his brother happier. Not only was he so in love that he beamed when he looked at his veterinarian bride, but his daughter, Effie, would be living with him for her last two years of high school.

The Dry Gulch Ranch was spiffed up for the ceremony and reception. Lights were strung through the branches of giant oaks and stringy sycamores. A white tent had been set up with chairs, leaving a makeshift aisle that led to a rose-covered altar where the two lovers would take their vows.

Most of the chairs were taken. Leif’s friends from the prestigious law firm from which he’d recently resigned to open his own office nearer the ranch mingled with what looked to be half the population of Oak Grove.

The women from both groups looked quite elegant. The Big D lawyers were all in designer suits. The ranchers for the most part looked as if they’d feel a lot more at home in their Wranglers than in their off-the-rack suits and choking ties.

In fact, a few of the younger cowboys were in jeans and sport coats. Travis figured they were the smart ones. Weekends he wasn’t working a homicide case he usually spent on a friend’s ranch up in the hill country.

Riding, roping, baling hay, branding—he’d done it all and loved it. A weekend place on the Dry Gulch Ranch, just a little over an hour from Dallas, would have been the perfect solution to Travis. Except for one very large problem.

Rueben Jackson Dalton, his father by virtue of a healthy sperm.

“Time for us to join the preacher,” Leif said, jerking Travis back into the moment.

He walked at his brother’s side and felt a momentary sense of anxiety. He and Leif had been through hell together growing up, most caused by R.J.

It had been just the two of them against the world since their mother’s death, and they’d always been as close as a horse to a saddle. Now Leif was marrying and moving onto R.J.’s spread.

Oh, hell, what was he worried about? R.J. would never come between him and Leif. Besides, the old coot would be dead soon.

The music started. Leif’s fifteen-year-old daughter started down the aisle, looking so grown-up Travis felt his chest constrict. He could only imagine what the sight did to Leif. Travis winked at Effie as she took her place at the altar. Her smile was so big it took over her face and danced in her eyes.

Travis looked up again and did a double take as he spotted the maid of honor gliding down the aisle. She damn sure didn’t look the way she did the last time he’d seen her, but there was no doubt in his mind that the gorgeous lady was the same one he’d rescued in Georgio’s sleaziest strip club four months earlier.

He’d spent only a few minutes with her, but she’d preyed on his mind a lot since then, so much so that he found himself showing up at Georgio’s palace of perversion even when his work didn’t call for doing so.