Rita Herron - Certified Cowboy

Johnny glanced at Rachel and noticed she was trembling slightly.

Dammit. He hadn’t meant to frighten her or the boy. But someone else obviously had. And he intended to find out who it was.

Then he’d see to it that it never happened again.

RACHEL SAVORED THE FRESH night air as Johnny showed them to the cabin, yet her eyes constantly scanned the area for signs that Rex had followed them.

“The cabin isn’t large,” Johnny said almost apologetically. “But it’s clean and furnished and you’ll have your own kitchen, so you can make meals on your days off and if you and Kenny decide not to eat every meal in the dining hall.”

He unlocked the door and Kenny bounded in, racing through the den/kitchen combination to explore.

“There are two bedrooms,” Johnny said. “But you’ll share a bath.”

“That’s fine,” Rachel said, admiring the wood floors and beams in the ceiling. “This has a lot of rustic charm.” And was more cozy and homey, with its country furnishings, throw rugs, pillows and the painting of horses above the couch, than any place she’d stayed in the past year.

“Mom, there’s bunk beds!” Kenny shouted from the second bedroom.

Johnny chuckled. “I always wanted bunks when I was a kid.”

“Did you get them?” Rachel asked, curious about the rodeo star. He’d seemed so…normal today. Not like the arrogant playboy the papers had claimed him to be.

He shook his head. “Nope. A couple of friends of mine, we built a fort in an old tree. That was about as close as I got.” A faint blush stained his cheeks. “But I did put them in one of my guest rooms at my place.”

Rachel quirked a brow, wondering about that detail. Had he planned to have a family someday?

He shifted, then gripped the front door. “Let me help you bring your stuff in, then I’ll let you get settled.”

“I can handle it,” Rachel said, stiffening.

Kenny raced back in. “I can see the horses from the window by the top bunk.”

Rachel smiled. It had been a long time since she’d seen her son so happy.

She only wished it could last.

“Come on, partner,” Johnny said to Kenny. “Let’s bring in your stuff.”

Kenny loped up beside Johnny and the two of them headed back to her Jeep. Rachel followed, tensing as Johnny opened the back and spotted the two small suitcases.

He pivoted to look at her, questions in his eyes. “Is this it?”

She nodded. “We like to travel light.” Because I had to leave my other stuff behind.

He stared at her for a long minute, then nodded, lifted her suitcase and Kenny’s smaller one, handed Kenny his backpack of toys and strode back inside the cabin.

Rachel heard a truck rumble and jerked around, fighting panic, her heart racing as she searched for Rex.

But the truck rolled on past in a cloud of dust.

She sighed in relief, grateful for the reprieve as she met Johnny on the steps.

She just wondered how long it would last.

REX SLID LOWER INTO THE seat of his car, where he’d parked beneath a cluster of live oaks, his fingers sliding over the Smith & Wesson in his hands as he studied the Georgian house with the gigantic columns and sculpted shrubs.

The house belonged to Judge Walton Hammers. A rich, powerful man who held the fate of people’s lives in his hands.

An arrogant bastard who’d signed the papers granting Rachel the divorce.

A chuckle rumbled deep in his chest. The stupid, fat fool had no idea that by doing so he’d signed his own death warrant.

A Mercedes rolled up and Rex tensed, his heart pounding, his fingers itching to do the job. The judge steered the Mercedes into the driveway, then hit the garage door opener, and the door slid up. The Mercedes coasted inside, then the lights flicked off.

Night had fallen, dark shadows casting the mansion in gray as Rex climbed from the sedan, grabbed his rope and inched his way along the wooded lot toward the garage.

He tiptoed into the space, hiding in the shadows as the judge and his wife climbed from the car. The judge staggered, a little tipsy, and his wife moved around to help him inside.

Rex gripped his gun at the ready, then bolted up behind them and jammed the gun at the judge’s back.

“Inside now. And disarm the security.”

The woman shrieked and the judge started to turn around, but Rex crammed the gun in his back. “Do it or you both die.”

“Who the hell are you?” the judge grumbled.

“Just do as he s-says,” his wife cried.

The judge stumbled in, his wife gripping his arm, and punched the alarm. Rex relaxed slightly at the sound of the beep, then shoved the man into the room.

“Why are you doing this?” the judge bellowed.

The wife started to sob. “Please, my jewelry is upstairs. Just take what you want and don’t hurt us!”

Rex released a sinister laugh. Good idea. Make it look like a robbery gone bad.

“Up the steps,” he ordered.

The judge tilted his head sideways to look at him, but Rex jerked his arm. “I told you to move!”

“You won’t get away with this,” the judge growled.

Rex shoved them both toward the hallway and followed them as they climbed the winding staircase, the wife clutching her husband as if she might fall if he didn’t hold her up. When they entered the bedroom, the judge reached for a light.

“No.” Rex shoved the woman onto the bed, jammed the gun at the judge’s head, then pushed the rope into his hands. “Tie her up.”

The judge stammered a protest, but Rex turned the gun on his wife and he complied. The woman cried and wept as her husband bound her hands and feet, and the judge kept apologizing to her, promising that it would be all right. When he had the knots secure, Rex ordered the judge to sit down beside her.

“Just take the jewelry, and there’s money in my safe,” the judge offered in a shaky voice. “You can have it all. Just don’t hurt my wife.”

Rex barked a laugh. “You don’t understand, Judge. You took my wife from me. Now I want you to feel that same pain.”

With a flick of his finger, he pulled the trigger and shot the woman in the head. She screamed a second before the bullet pierced her brain. Blood splattered, then she slumped onto the bed in a flood of red.

The judge bellowed in shock and grief, then charged toward him. Rex pulled the trigger, firing a round into the fat man’s gut.

Then he pushed him back onto the bed and sat down, smiling as the blood began to seep from the judge’s belly.

The judge groaned and wheezed for a breath, struggling to get back up and fight.

But it was useless. He was going to die. It was only a matter of time.

The sweet taste of victory surged through him, and he fired a shot into the man’s kneecap and was rewarded by a loud scream of pain.

The woman’s death had been quick and relatively painless.

But the judge would die slowly, bleeding to death.

He grinned. He would watch the old bastard suffer until the end.

Chapter Four

The next few days Rachel avoided Johnny as much as possible. He was nice to her, good with Kenny and patient with the older boys who’d arrived. He had allowed Kenny to join in the camp activities with the other children, and let her son follow him around. He tolerated his questions and never lost his temper.

He was too good to be true.

And too sexy.

Not that she was interested in sex. No, Rex had ruined that for her, too.

But as she hurried back to the dining hall to help Ms. Ellen with dinner, she spotted him working with a group of teens in one of the pens. He was teaching them how to rope a calf, his muscles bunching as he gripped the animal and tied the rope around its legs.

She kept waiting for the ball to drop, for him to go off on one of the boys like Rex would have, but so far, he’d remained calm and in control.