Dana Mentink - Cowboy Christmas Guardian

The rain had slackened off to a weak sprinkle. The events of the day overwhelmed her as her mind spooled through the memories. A sudden blow to the head, the sensation of being hauled into her trunk, the awful sound of the lid slamming shut.

The attack had been from Joe Hatcher, she was sure of it, but why? Just to keep her away from the mine? Out of greed? Anger at her perceived trespassing? Or perhaps he had some deep-seated resentment about her uncle, too?

“You ride?” Barrett said, pulling her back to the present.

“Since I was a kid,” she said. That was probably overstating. She’d slacked off on her riding since her youth when she would visit her uncle in the summertime, but she found herself wanting to prove her worth to Barrett Thorn. Bad enough that he’d had to rescue her from a locked trunk and lug her out of a ravine. She couldn’t leave him thinking she was some flimsy damsel-in-distress type.

He untied the horse that Jack had been riding. “Lady is a gentle ride.”

She was right. He did think she was clueless. Ignoring his offered hand, she put her foot in the stirrup and climbed onto the saddle.

Barrett mounted his horse and clicked his tongue at the big animal.

Shelby was grateful that the rain had tapered off. Moonlight cast a weak glow over the landscape as they trailed back to where she’d parked her car. Her own stupid mistake made her groan inwardly. Some assayer. Hadn’t even realized she’d strayed onto Hatcher’s property.

Determined not to incur any more embarrassment for one evening, she slipped off Lady and handed the reins to Barrett. He was a giant astride the big horse, and as immovable as a cliff.

“Thank you again,” she said. “I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

“Don’t owe me anything. I’ll help you find your keys or maybe I can hot-wire it.”

“No need for you to stay. I’ll find them.”

He ignored her, dismounting and beginning a search of the wet ground.

She hesitated, curiosity burning inside. “Barrett, what do you have against my uncle?”

He looked away. “Don’t need to talk about that now.”

“It’s not likely we’re going to do much chatting in the future.” That got no reaction. “So tell me. If you have a beef against Uncle Ken, then I have a right to know. He’s my only family.”

Barrett’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “No disrespect intended, ma’am, but you don’t have a right to know.”

She folded her arms, her pulse kicking up. “If Uncle Ken has an enemy right next door, then it is my business.”

Barrett looked down at her, considering, shoulders a broad, tense wall against the night sky. He blew out a breath. “All right. You want to know so bad, I’ll tell you.”

She waited quietly.

“Ken’s son killed my wife.”

The words dropped like stones. Killed my wife. She found herself unable to speak. An endless moment passed between them but she could not think of a single response.

“Let’s find those keys,” he finally said.

Her thoughts ran rampant as they searched. Glass littered the ground from where Barrett had broken the window.

Her cousin Devon had killed Barrett Thorn’s wife? She flashed back to the photo she’d seen, a radiant bride and her handsome groom. With a surge of guilt, she realized she hadn’t been back to her uncle’s ranch in so long that she had only known the barest hint about what was going on in the lives of Uncle Ken and Devon.

She’d known Devon had gone to prison for causing an accident that had killed a woman, but she did not know the particulars. The times she’d called, Uncle Ken had steadfastly refused to discuss it.

Still lost in thought, she found her pack under a nearby shrub. There was no sign of her samples, but everything else was there.

Barrett held the reins of the two horses in his hands. He looked somewhere over her head, anywhere but in her eyes.

“I’ll wait until you get your car started,” he said. “Good night, Miss Arroyo.”

In his tone, she heard the bitterness. Ken’s son killed my wife. She was anxious to get away, to sort it all out in her mind.

A noise behind her made her turn.

Barrett was staring at something in the distance. His attention was riveted to a spot under the trees, pitch-black except for a soft orange glow.

Her mind was slow to put it together. The orange glow was not an electric or battery light. It sparkled and fizzed like a firecracker on the Fourth of July.

No, not a firecracker.

A fuse.

“No,” Barrett shouted.

Shelby could not see who was standing there under the trees. With a blur of movement, the stranger launched the dynamite through the air. It arced a golden trail through the night, speeding straight toward her.

FOUR

Barrett dropped the reins, grabbed Shelby’s hand and yanked her after him. There wasn’t time to do anything but dive behind a pile of boulders and put his bulk between her and whatever shrapnel was about to come their way.

The explosion was deafening. Shards of glass flew through the air, smashing on the rocks and cutting into his back as he tried to block Shelby from the falling debris. His eardrums rang with the percussive burst. The ground shuddered under them. He looked up in time to see Lady and Titan bolt, fleeing to the safety of the trees.

Shelby stirred in his arms but he caged her there with his body.

“Stay still until we know there’s nothing else coming.”

She probably wasn’t thrilled about his command, but she acquiesced.

It was silent save for the wind in the branches and his own harsh breathing. Through the thin jacket his mother had insisted she wear, he felt her sides rising and falling in rapid rhythm. After a few moments, he poked his head up above the pile of rocks, watching for signs of movement. He saw nothing but a flicker of white as Titan led Lady away from the danger.

Barrett eased up and crawled from the hiding place, offering Shelby a hand. She took it, and together they surveyed the damage. He still kept a cautious eye on the trees.

The front of her car was blackened and twisted, smoke pouring out through the broken windshield. Her expression was hard to read in the scant moonlight. Fear? Outrage? Confusion? All of them would apply.

“What just happened?” she demanded, hands on hips.

“Dynamite.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “So somebody actually ignited a stick of dynamite and lobbed it at me?”

He nodded. “Plenty left around here from the mining days. Easy to lay hands on it.”

“I don’t care where it came from. The bigger point here is why would someone light up a stick and toss it at me? It has to be Joe Hatcher.”

“Maybe, unless you’ve angered somebody else.”

She folded her arms and skewered him with such a look of disdain it almost made him smile.

“I haven’t done anything to anyone in this town.”

He didn’t answer. Whatever she had or hadn’t done wasn’t his business. Yet once again, he found himself trying to extricate her from a pile of trouble.

“What makes you think it’s not Joe Hatcher?” she said.

“Doesn’t seem like a rational thing for him to do.”

“He threatened to kill me recently, if you remember.”

“And that was completely out of line, but he might have been shooting his mouth off. My father believes him to be an honorable man, deep down.”

“And you believe that, too?”

He cocked his head. “I don’t know, but I trust my father. So for now, I’ll reserve judgment.”

She met his eyes, her own glimmering with unreadable emotion. “I admire that kind of familial respect.”

Something was under those words, something deep and painful and raw.

Since he did not know what to say, he dialed his cell phone and told his family about the newest development.