B.J. Daniels - Twelve-Gauge Guardian

His eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t expected her to find out who he was. Along with surprise though, there was grudging admiration in his gaze. “Not that it’s any of your business but my brother and I came here to see our grandmother, Pepper Winchester. She’s … dying.”

She flinched as a shaft of guilt pierced her conscience. She believed him. Just as she believed his shocked reaction to the photographs in her satchel. This man wasn’t working for a sexual child predator. At least she hoped not.

“Come on, we need to go somewhere so I can go through all of this,” he said. “Or are you going to lie to me and tell me that all of this doesn’t have something to do with you and the article you’re writing?”

She wasn’t.

He nodded, seeming relieved for once she wasn’t going to argue the point. “Since my brother’s pickup isn’t going anywhere until a wrecker pulls it out, you’re riding with me.”

“I’d like to speak to the nurse at the hospital first,” she said.

He turned back to look at her.

“I just want to verify what you’ve told me about your brother.”

“I’ve heard that journalists don’t take anyone’s word on anything without at least a backup source, but do you really think I’d lie about my brother being in a coma?” Even under the shade of his cowboy hat, she could see the piercing black of his gaze. He was angry and she really couldn’t blame him.

He shook his head in obvious disgust. “Fine. When we get to a place where my phone works, you’re welcome to call the hospital.” He swore under his breath. “Are you always this paranoid?”

“Only when people really are after me.”

He sighed and pulled out his cell phone. “No coverage. Or do you want to check yourself?”

“I’ll take your word for it until cell phone service is available.”

He shook his head. “That’s real damned big of you. Let me make something clear, I’m not sure what happened last night but I have a pretty good idea. You and your article got my brother into this. If guilt or the threat of jail doesn’t work, then I’ll use whatever methods I have to, but you will help me find the people who did this to him, one way or another.”

CORDELL COULDN’T believe this mess. Cyrus in a coma and him saddled with this journalist and her paranoia.

Now what the hell was he going to do with her? he asked himself as he studied Raine Chandler. The cool breeze stirred the hair at the nape of his neck and he turned to see a dark bank of clouds on the horizon to the west. Great, just what he needed. A thunderstorm and him miles from a paved road.

He remembered as a kid how the roads would be impassable until after a storm when the wind and sun dried things out.

He considered making a run for town, but he could tell by the way the clouds were moving in that he would never make it before the storm hit. The rental car would be worthless and his brother’s pickup was buried in the mud and not going anywhere. He swore under his breath again.

There was only one place to go.

As much as he hated it, he knew it was the best plan given the storm and the fact that he needed to take Raine somewhere so he could go through all of her research materials. His brother might have stumbled onto trouble last night, but Raine Chandler was up to her neck in it.

All he had to do was find the people after her.

That meant going to a private spot where she didn’t try to get away from him until he found out what he needed. Cordell groaned at the thought though. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“To my grandmother’s ranch. It’s closer than town.” He saw something flicker in her eyes. “Or would you rather go to jail?”

“Maybe I’d be safer there.”

He stopped to give her his full attention. “If you think your virtue might be at risk coming with me, then let me set you straight. You aren’t my type and I have much more important things on my mind than sex. That blunt enough for you?”

“Quite. Did I mention that I believe Emily Frank was taken by someone in one of Whitehorse’s more prominent seemingly upstanding families?”

Cordell let out a hoot of laughter. “Like the Winchesters? Think again. We’ve never been upstanding. Not even seemingly.”

“You might be surprised how money and power tip the scales toward upstanding.”

“No, actually I wouldn’t be surprised.” He eyed her, realizing she’d researched his family. Before or after Cyrus had crossed her path? “Winchester is just a name to me. I haven’t been back here in twenty-seven years and if there were any money or power, my father and brother and I have never been a part of it.”

She cocked a brow at him. “What about your grandmother?”

“Not that it is any of your business, but until recently my grandmother was a recluse who hadn’t left the ranch in all those years. None of the rest of us had seen her in all that time or lived anywhere near here. Even if she hadn’t been locked away for twenty-seven years, I can assure you she wouldn’t abduct a child.”

“If you haven’t seen her, then you have no way of knowing—”

“My grandmother,” he interrupted, “is so fond of children she doesn’t even know how many grandchildren she has. She had to pay her lawyer to try to track us all down. I won’t even go into how she treated her own children, even her favorite son.”

“And this is where you’re taking me? To see this grandmother?” She sounded incredulous.

“It wouldn’t be my first choice, but you’ve left us no other option.” Thunder rumbled in the distance. “You know anything about storms up in this country? Unless we get moving and damned soon, that storm is going to catch us and we are going to be stuck, literally, out here until someone comes along and that could be a damned long time. Once it starts raining, this road will become gumbo. We’d never be able to get back to town before the storm hits so we’re going to wait out the storm at the Winchester Ranch. And believe me, I’m much unhappier about that prospect than you could ever be.”

What in her research was she trying so desperately to keep from him? he wondered. Well, he’d soon find out. Once they reached the ranch, he’d go through everything in that satchel. She was his only possible connection to the men who’d put his brother in a coma. She was going to help him even if he had to wring her pretty little neck.

It would make it easier if she trusted him though, but he didn’t take it personally. If he’d learned anything from his first marriage and subsequent divorce, it was that trust is a fragile thing that once broken badly is impossible to get back again.

He wondered, though, who had broken Raine Chandler’s trust. Whoever it was had done a bang-up job.

RAINE REALIZED SHE had little choice but to go with him to the Winchester Ranch. Fighting Cordell would be futile since right now he held all the cards.

Also she wanted the man who’d hurt his brother just as badly as he did. If it was true and Cyrus Winchester was now fighting for his life, she owed him for his chivalry in saving her last night.

Cordell Winchester was another story. He didn’t have a chivalrous bone in his body and she balked at being forced into anything, especially by him.

But she also realized it couldn’t hurt having an obviously high-priced private investigator now helping her find the person who’d been driving that van last night—the same person she’d come to Whitehorse to find.

As she started to gather up her things he’d dumped in the grass, Cordell stopped her. “I’ll take care of this.”

“I’d prefer to carry my own things.”

He smiled. “I’d prefer you not bloody my nose or kick me in the groin or pull a gun on me.”