Joanna Wayne - Point Blank Protector

“I remember her because she was as annoying as a burr in a sock and kept following me around.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“He’s shaking in his boots,” Jaime teased. “Want me to tag along and protect you?”

“Scared has nothing to do with it. I just don’t like calming hysterical women. What if she starts crying?”

“Hand her a tissue,” Lenora said. “And don’t come on to her. This isn’t the time for that.”

“Give me a little credit.” Zach left through the kitchen door, but returned a second later wearing a black leather jacket and holding his Stetson.

“That was quick,” Jaime said. “I think your complaints were camouflage. Looks to me like you’re eager to hook up with this old flame.”

“I’m just going to get my neighborly duties over with before Mom hands me a basket of goodies to deliver.”

“Great idea,” Lenora said. “Juanita baked yesterday and there should be plenty of the lemon tea cakes left.”

Zach groaned. “This isn’t a tea party.”

“You win, Zach. I’ll give her the cookies later, but I want you to insist she join us for dinner tonight. If she’s afraid to stay on the ranch alone, just bring her back with you now.”

“Okay, but if she’s as weird as she was as a kid and starts stalking me, it’s on your conscience.”

“I’ll live with it,” Lenora said, smiling. “But be careful, Zach, and I don’t mean of Kali.”

“If you’re worried, you can send Matt. He’s older and—well, he’s older.”

“You’ll do fine. Just be careful.”

But he was already heading for the back door, his cocky swagger a discomforting reminder that he wasn’t afraid of anything and that being wary would never cross his mind. Maybe sending him to see Kali wasn’t the best idea after all.

“Relax, Mom,” Jaime said, no doubt reading her concern. “I’m sure the killer is long gone. If he wasn’t, Sheriff Guerra would already have him in custody.”

“That makes sense,” Lenora said. Still she worried. It was her job. She was a mother.

ZACH WAS not looking forward to playing comforter to Kali Cooper, but he’d love to go toe to toe with the cowardly skunk who’d murdered a young woman. He hadn’t wanted to belabor the point with his mother or Jaime, but what kind of deranged pervert got his rocks off like that?

Zach kept his eyes peeled for anything suspicious as he made the short drive to the Silver Spurs Ranch. He’d taken Bart’s pickup truck instead of his own new Jaguar. The main roads at Jack’s Bluff were graded regularly and kept in excellent condition, but the ones at the Silver Spurs were another story.

He slowed as he turned right on Cooper’s Road. That wasn’t the official name of the blacktop that dead ended at the front entrance to the Silver Spurs Ranch, but that was the only thing Zach or probably anyone else around here had ever heard it called. And there was no road sign to suggest they were wrong.

The fence posts along the edge of the road were leaning and there were several breaks in the strings of barbed wire. Old man Cooper had kept the place in top-notch shape when he was able, but it had fallen into disrepair when his health had started to fail, and it had gone downhill even faster during the months since his death.

That might explain why a killer had found his way to the spot. He could have gotten lost and wound up on the dead-end road. One look and he’d have figured that the ranch was deserted.

The gate was open and banging in the wind when Zach reached it. He drove through, then got out of his truck and closed and latched it. Not that there were any livestock to worry about or that closing it would deter a killer, but latching gates was a habit everyone growing up on a ranch learned early in life.

As he’d suspected, the ranch road was a muddy slush and he dodged potholes and trenches where the squad cars had slewed around them. He wondered as he did what a city girl was going to do in a place like this. He could imagine her now, traipsing through the mud in fancy, high-heeled boots with her skinny arms swinging at her side and her red hair flying about like a horse’s mane.

Probably more of a pain now than she’d been that long-ago summer when she’d followed him around like a sick calf. Still, he felt bad that she’d arrived to a bloody welcome.

He pulled up in front of the house and was about to step out of the pickup when the front door of the house flew open. A young woman stepped onto the porch with a shotgun in hand. If the woman was Kali, she looked a lot different all grown up.

He climbed from behind the wheel and waved a greeting. “Zach Collingsworth,” he said. “I’m a neighbor, and I’d feel a bit more welcome if you’d aim that gun in another direction.”

“You’re Zach?” she said, sounding a bit shocked. Guess he’d changed in fifteen years as well. Unfortunately, the gun was still aimed at his eyeballs.

“I heard you had some trouble last night. I came over to see if I can help.”

“That’s nice of you, but everything’s under control.”

“Not if you plan on shooting everyone who stops by.”

“Not everyone,” she said, “just the ones who look like trouble.”

But his new voluptuous neighbor had finally lowered the gun. He took that for an invitation, so he grinned and headed for her porch. Suddenly renewing old friendships and offering comfort didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.

Chapter Two

“I really am okay,” Kali said, when Zach joined her on the porch.

“I believe you, but since I’m here you might as well invite me in.”

“The house isn’t exactly ready for guests.”

“That’s okay, as long as you don’t expect me to grab a mop.”

“I make no promises, but if you’re not afraid of dirt and bugs, come on in.”

The front door opened directly into a large dark-paneled room with a brick fireplace. The heavy oak tables, two brown tweed sofas and a couple of rocking chairs were covered in a thick layer of Texas dust and a substance Zach guessed to be fingerprint powder.

The windows were so streaked with grime that the bright rays of late-morning sunshine could barely fight their way through. Worse, every nook and cranny sported a filigreed network of spiderwebs.

“I see what you mean,” he said. “No offense but the place looks like a haunted house at an amusement park.”

Only this time the dead body had been real. And Kali had walked in on the scene late at night and in the middle of a thunderstorm. He’d have expected her to be speeding down the Interstate by now heading back to wherever it was she’d come from. Instead she was swatting at a wasp that had just dive-bombed her.

Zach picked up one of the stained towels she’d obviously been using for cleaning and slammed it and the wasp against the wall. When the struggling insect fell to the floor, he squashed it under the toe of his boot. “Save you from having to waste a shotgun shell on him,” he teased.

“Not funny.”

She was right, he decided as he eyed the bloodstain on the floor. “Your arrival last night must have been a shocker.”

“To say the least.”

“Yet you came back out here today. That takes guts.”

“I don’t have a choice. I quit my job in Atlanta and sold everything I owned except my Jeep and the belongings I could stuff into it so that I’d have funds to get the Silver Spurs up and running again.”

“Surely you’re not planning to do that by yourself?”

Her eyebrows arched. “You think I can’t because I’m a woman?”

A loaded question that called for an evasive answer. “I just wondered if… I wondered if you were married.” A blatant lie, but better than getting her riled.