Joanna Wayne - Point Blank Protector

“Yeah. Horses. I fell in love with them on my first visit to the Silver Spurs and they’ve never let me down. They’re far easier to bond with than any man I know. They’re honest and readable—most of the time.”

“You’re not one of those weird horse whisperers, are you?”

“I don’t whisper,” she said, her voice not only rising, but also taking on a defensive edge. “I relate. If that makes me weird, then I’m one of those.”

“Don’t get bent out of shape. I’m just asking. Jaime dated a guy who claimed to be a whisperer once. The only thing he was whispering that worked was sweet nothings in Jaime’s ear. She finally saw through him just about the time I was ready to knock out his lights.”

“Zach, the protector. You don’t seem the type.”

“I have my moments. Which brings me back to a statement I made earlier. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay at the Silver Spurs by yourself.”

“So what is it you think I should do, go find any old college grad to hook up with?”

“That’s one option. Another might be to hire a wrangler and let him live in the bunkhouse.”

“I don’t have any livestock to wrangle.”

“But you’ll be buying horses soon. Just put him on the payroll a few weeks before you actually need him.”

She sat up and finished her beer. “This may come as a shock to you, Zach, but not everyone has unlimited funds to work with. I can’t afford to hire a cowboy just for his company.”

“Then take one of our wranglers for a while. We’re not particularly busy on the ranch right now. I’ve got just the man for you.”

“Now you sound like my friend Ellen back in Atlanta. She’s always got just the man for me.”

“I can beat any offer Ellen can make. Take Jim Bob Harvey, expert wrangler, easygoing and according to my niece Gina, he does a dynamite Britney Spears imitation.”

“Now, that’s a selling point.”

“He can be temporarily yours for the asking.”

“I can’t just borrow a cowboy like a cup of sugar, Zach.”

“Sure you can. He’s visiting his brother up in Waco for the weekend, but he’ll come roaring in by bedtime. I’ll leave word with Bart to send him over to your place in the morning. I’d bring him and introduce him in person, but I have to go in to Collingsworth Oil early tomorrow. I’m in meetings all day.”

A nine-to-five job. Hell of a predicament he’d gotten himself into.

“I’m serious, Zach. I can’t just take one of your wranglers and even if I could, the bunkhouse isn’t ready for occupancy.”

“There you go. You’ve already got a job for him.”

“I’m not a charity case.”

“Give it a break, Kali. It’s the good-neighbor policy, not welfare. It’s expected when you live in Colts Run Cross, especially among the ranchers.” He jumped down from the hood of his brother Matt’s truck and extended a hand to her. She ignored it.

“I can take care of myself,” she insisted again as she slid off the hood on her own.

But her tone had lost some of its conviction. He’d send Jim Bob over to meet her. He’d win her over in no time flat. She might even fall for him. Plenty of the ladies in town had. Jim Bob just never fell back.

Only, something told him Jim Bob might fall for Kali Cooper. That thought settled in Zach’s mind like a three-aspirin headache. Maybe Jim Bob wasn’t the right man for the job after all. Not that Zach had any sights set on Kali. But there was no use messing up the mind of a good wrangler for a woman Zach had serious doubts would ever stay in Texas.

IT WAS twenty after ten on Sunday evening and Aidan was still at his desk in police headquarters, currently studying copies of the pictures from the Louisa Kellogg crime scene. The earliest he could expect an autopsy report would be late tomorrow, but he was pretty sure from the photographs that the M.E. wouldn’t find that Louisa had been brutalized in any way.

So why abduct an attractive young coed just to drive her sixty miles to an isolated ranch house and put two bullets in her head? It didn’t add up. Unless she’d been seeing the man and they’d gone there to make out and then gotten into a fight.

Only her roommate was adamant that Louisa never cheated and her steady boyfriend had an airtight alibi. He’d been with his team, playing varsity basketball at the University of Oklahoma.

Which meant this might well have been a random abduction. If that was the case, there was a strong possibility that Louisa’s murder was connected to his original unsolved case. Both victims were students at the University of Houston. Both were attractive. Both had disappeared from the same area. Both of their cars had been found parked and locked at their places of employment.

Not that Louisa and Sue Ann were the only young women who’d gone missing from the Houston area. With a population of over two million within the city limits alone, there were always a number of women who disappeared without a trace. But it was Sue Ann Griffin’s disappearance that haunted him the most.

He stared at his hands, half expecting to see traces of her blood glaring back at him. But all he saw was blurred ink blotches from a leaky ballpoint pen and a smear of chocolate from the candy bar he’d eaten an hour or two ago, washing it down with a diet orange drink out of the machine down the hall.

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