Joanna Wayne - Dropping The Hammer

“Yep. Wish Lucky was mine. She’s one hell of a cow pony.”

“How many horses does Albert have?”

“Eight quarter horses that he keeps in his new fancy horse barn. Those are his pride and joy. Gonna be tough on your dad if he can’t ride anymore.”

“Hopefully that won’t be the case.”

“He also has three other cow ponies and one good cutter. They have stalls at the back of the old barn when they’re not loose in the pasture.”

“What’s the size of the cattle herd?”

“I don’t have the exact numbers, but I s’pect your dad has a hundred or so Black Angus and damn near that many Santa Gertrudis. That’s just an estimate. Numbers change, of course, depending on when he takes the beef to market and how many calves are born in the spring.”

“That sounds like a lot of work for a man who’s almost seventy to manage,” Luke said.

“He always kept a few hired hands around until he got mad about something and ran them off. He had two hired hands when he had the stroke. They weren’t from around here. Just showed up from somewhere in Oklahoma around Thanksgiving looking for work. They disappeared when Albert had his stroke and wasn’t around to pay them.”

Luke couldn’t really blame them for that. He couldn’t imagine Albert had done anything to deserve a lot of loyalty from them.

He and Buck talked for a few minutes more, long enough to convince Luke that the ranch was not as neglected as the house.

He waited until Buck rode away before stepping inside. Déjà vu hit with a wallop. Memories, both bad and good, came crashing down on him.

It got worse when he reached the kitchen. He leaned against the counter and would have sworn he could smell frying chicken. His mother’s shiny black hair would dance about her shoulders as she cooked and she’d be humming the latest hit from the pop chart. Her lips would shimmer with a bright shade of lipstick.

Before everything had gone bad. So many, many years ago.

Luke shut down the recollections before the bittersweet turned to just plain bitter. It was after three in the afternoon, and darkness set in early in January.

From all accounts, his father was being well cared for and might even be asleep for the night before Luke could make the drive to San Antonio, where he was recovering. A visit with him could wait until tomorrow.

Luke would spend the last of the daylight hours checking out the ranch by horseback.

Suddenly he found himself downright eager to get back in the saddle again. Or maybe he was just glad of an excuse to avoid seeing Alfred for one more day.

Chapter Three

Rachel shrugged out of her navy blue blazer and draped it over the arm of the comfortable wing chair before taking a seat in her psychologist’s office. Her first visits to Dr. Stephen Lindquist’s had been awkward and strained and had always ended with her in tears.

That had been in late September, during the first weeks after she’d been rescued by her sister, Sydney, and Sydney’s now husband, Tucker Lawrence. Rachel had been a total wreck then, the panic attacks hitting with excessive regularity and crippling ferocity.

Work was impossible. Sleep deprivation was taking its toll.

Not atypical with her degree of post-traumatic stress, Dr. Lindquist had assured her. His skill and easy manner had quickly won her over, yet she wasn’t making the kind of progress she’d hoped for.

She couldn’t bring herself to talk about her experience in captivity. Couldn’t deal with the fact that if her sister and Tucker had come moments later she would have been burned alive.

Talking or thinking about it brought it all back to life.

Dr. Lindquist settled in his rustic-brown leather chair. “Good to see you, Rachel.”

“Thanks for fitting me in on a Friday afternoon with such short notice,” she said.

“You sounded a bit panicky on the phone.”

“I was. I am.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “I had a major meltdown at work this morning.” Her voice cracked. She wrapped her arms around her chest as if that could calm her shattered nerves.

“Take a few deep breaths,” Dr. Lindquist suggested. “There’s no rush. You’re my last appointment for the day. You have me as long as you need me.”

“Thanks, but you may be sorry you offered that.”

“I won’t be. Is it the nightmares again?”

“No, though I still have them from time to time. It’s just that every time I seem to be getting in control of my fears, something happens to send me back into the self-destruction spiral.”

“You’re dealing with a lot. A little backsliding is to be expected. We’ve talked about that.”

“I know. But this is more than a little backsliding. I may have blown my career.”

The doctor crossed an ankle over his knee. “Why don’t you tell me what happened from the beginning?”

“I suppose you’ve heard that Senator Covey’s son, Hayden, has been arrested.”

“No way to miss it. The murder of his ex-girlfriend is dominating the news. I’m sure the senator and his wife are devastated.”

“And desperate. I didn’t know it until this morning, but the senator is a good friend of my boss, Eric Fitch Sr.”

“Guess that means your firm will be defending Hayden.”

“It looks that way. I was offered the chance to be the lead attorney in charge of his defense.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Troubled. Confused. Anxious.” Her muscles tightened and she felt a nagging ache at her right temple.

“It’s the kind of high-profile case that can make or break a defense attorney,” she continued, “the kind of opportunity I’ve been waiting for. The kind I thought I was ready for.”

“And now you’re not sure. What changed your mind?”

“Doubts that I can handle the job. Thoughts that I don’t want to handle the job.”

He leaned in closer. “Go on.”

“Senator and Mrs. Covey brought their son into the office this morning for a preliminary interview. As I shook hands with Hayden, I stared into the cold, barren intensity of his predatory eyes and an icy shiver ran though me. In that second, it was as if I knew that he was capable of murder.

“No evidence had been presented. It was nothing Hayden had said or done. I just looked into his eyes and saw Roy Sales.”

“What did you do?”

“I mumbled something about feeling ill, which I was, and then stood and staggered out of the meeting.”

Rachel covered her eyes with her hands, fighting back salty tears of frustration. Her life had changed forever. Now the past was destroying her career with no relief in sight.

“If it turns out Hayden Covey is guilty of the brutal murder of his former girlfriend, I’d say your assessment of him is right on target,” the doctor said.

“Which doesn’t excuse my unprofessional behavior.”

“Have you talked to your boss about the incident?”

“Not yet. I think he was with the Coveys the rest of the morning, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time until he confronts me about my reaction. I’ll be lucky if I’m not fired. My boss put me to the test and I failed miserably.”

“Failure is a strong word.”

“And not one I’m used to,” she admitted. “But nothing is what I’m used to anymore and I’m tired of having my friends and coworkers feel sorry for me instead of seeing me as an equal.”

“I’m sure most of them mean well,” Dr. Lindquist said.

“I know, but it’s not the way I want to live.”

“Maybe it’s time you changed your life. Go somewhere where everyone doesn’t know about your past.”

“You’re starting to sound like my sister, Dr. Lindquist, and I get her advice for free.”

“What kind of advice does she give you?”