Delores Fossen - Mason

“I don’t know. Over the past twenty years, Ferguson has managed to find me two other times, and both times he sent hired guns. Nothing recent, though. Mainly because we’ve been very careful.”

Mason didn’t miss the we , and later he would ask who this person was in her life. Because it might be important to the investigation. Not because he was thinking she had a boyfriend stashed away. On her job application she had said she was single, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in love with someone.

And for some reason, a reason Mason didn’t want to consider, that riled him a little.

Abbie closed her eyes a moment and when she opened her eyes, she turned them on Mason. “My caseworker is Deputy U.S. Marshal Harlan McKinney over in Maverick County. He’ll need to know about this.”

Mason nodded, but it was Grayson who reacted. “I’ll call him. And check in with the fire chief.” Grayson glanced at her shoeless feet peeking out from the blanket. “I’ll also ask my wife about getting you some clothes.”

“Thank you,” she said in a whisper. Abbie didn’t move until Grayson was out of the office and had shut the door. Then she sat up as if ready to leave.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Mason reminded her.

She blinked. “But I figured you’d demand that I leave. It’s not safe for any of you with me here.”

“That’s probably true, but you’re still not going anywhere.” In case she’d forgotten, he took his badge from his desk and clipped it to the waist of his jeans. “You’ve got six lawmen on this ranch.”

Her gaze came to his again. “And yet someone still got to me.”

Yeah, and that meant whoever had done this was as bold as brass, stupid or desperate. Mason didn’t like any of those scenarios.

“Why would Ferguson still want you dead if he got off on the charges with a technicality?” Mason asked. He located a black T-shirt in the closet and pulled it on. He grabbed his black Stetson, too.

“Maybe he still considers me a loose end.” But she didn’t sound convinced.

And that only reinforced the fact that something just wasn’t right here.

Mason pulled his chair over to the sofa and sat so that he’d be more at her eye level. Abbie adjusted her position, too, easing away from him, and in the process the blanket slid off her.

Great.

He felt another punch of, well, something stirring below the belt when he got another look at the gown. And at her breasts barely concealed beneath the fabric. Not a good combination with that vulnerable face and her honey-brown eyes.

“I swear, I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she said. “I didn’t know Ferguson could find me. I’ve always been careful.”

Mason made a heavy sigh and reached out. He doubted his touch would give her much comfort, but he had to do something. He put his fingertips against her arm. Rubbed gently.

And he felt that blasted below-the-belt pull happen again.

Their gazes met, and the corner of her mouth lifted. Not a smile but more of a baffled expression. Either she figured out he was going nuts or else she was feeling something, too.

“For the record, I didn’t think you’d be like this,” she said.

The cryptic remark got his attention, and Mason would have asked what she meant. If her gown hadn’t shifted. Yeah, he saw her breasts. The tops of them anyway. And while they snagged his attention in a bad way, it was what was between her breasts that snagged it even more.

The pendant.

Or rather, the silver concho.

He instantly recognized it because he had one just like it. All of his brothers did. A custom-made gift from their father with their initials on the back. A blood gift he’d given them all just days before he’d run out on them.

Abbie gasped when she followed Mason’s gaze, and she slapped her hand over the concho. Mason just shoved her hand away and had a better look at the front of it.

And there it was.

The back-to-back Rs for the Ryland ranch. This wasn’t a new piece either. It was weathered and battered, showing every day of its twenty-one years.

Abbie tried again to push his hand away, but Mason grabbed both her wrists. He turned the concho over, even though it meant touching her breasts. But it wasn’t her breasts that held his attention right now. It was the other initials on the back.

B.R.

For his father, Boone Ryland.

Mason let go of the concho, leaned down and got right in Abbie’s face, but it took him a moment to get his teeth unclenched so he could ask her the mother of all questions.

“Who the hell are you?”

Abbie knew her situation had just gone from bad to worse. She also knew that Mason wasn’t just going to let her run out of there again. Not that she could.

Not now.

Not after the gunman’s attack.

She’d opened this dangerous Pandora’s box and had to stay around long enough to close it. If she could. But closing it meant first answering the Texas-sized question that Mason had just asked.

Who the hell are you?

“I’m Abbie Baker,” she said, knowing that didn’t clarify anything, especially because it was a name given to her twenty-one years ago by the U.S. Marshals when she and her mom had entered witness protection.

Her real name was Madelyn Turner. Maddie. But she no longer thought of herself as that little girl who’d nearly died from a hired gun’s bullet.

She was Abbie Baker now.

And she had a thoroughly riled, confused cowboy lawman looming over her. He was waiting for answers that didn’t involve her real name or anything else so mundane. Mason’s attention and narrowed glare were on the concho.

“Where did you get it?” he asked.

Abbie considered another lie. She’d gotten so good at them over the years, but no one was that good. There was no way she could convince Mason that she’d found the concho and then had coincidentally applied for a job at the Ryland ranch.

There was nothing chance about it, and now she might have endangered not just Mason but also his entire family. Someone had come after her tonight, and she had to get to the bottom of that—fast.

First, though, she had to get past Mason, literally. And that meant giving him enough information to satisfy him but not so much that he would have a major meltdown.

“Where did you get the concho?” he repeated.

Abbie tried not to look as frightened as she felt, but she figured she wasn’t very successful. “Your father gave it to me.”

She saw the surprise go through his eyes. Maybe Mason had thought she’d stolen it or something.

“My father? ” he snapped.

Abbie settled for a nod, knowing she would have to add details. But the devil was in those details, and once Mason heard them, he might physically toss her off the ranch. That couldn’t happen at this exact moment.

“When?” he pressed. “Why?”

She had no choice but to clear her throat so she could answer. “When I turned sixteen. He said it was a good-luck charm.”

That was a lie. Actually, Boone had said he wanted her to have it because it was his most valuable possession. Something he’d reserved for his own children.

Nothing about his severe expression changed. Mason’s wintry eyes stayed narrowed to slits. His jaw muscles stirred. He continued to glare at her. For several snail-crawling seconds anyway. Then he cursed. One really bad word. Before he turned and scrubbed his hands over his face. It seemed to take him another couple of moments to get his jaw unclenched.

“So Boone is alive,” he mumbled. “Or at least he was when you were sixteen.”

“He still is alive,” Abbie confirmed. “I talked to him on the phone before I went to bed.” She chose her words carefully. “He met my mother and me about four months before she was killed.”