Texas Manhunt Read online

  “I have one more stop to make before we go back to the ranch. Okay?” What he wanted was time enough for her to cool off before they went home.

  She folded her arms over her chest. “We’ve already given out all the food supplies. Did we forget something?”

  Good. Her mind was beginning to move on to other things. He hoped to hell their next stop wouldn’t seem too familiar and bring up the whole charity dispute again. But he had no choice—he was committed now.

  “This man is different from all the others. He’s an old classmate fallen on hard times.” Travis swung the steering wheel and headed for the edge of town. “Bodie Barnes has a problem with alcohol, but it’s not entirely his fault. His father was the town drunk for years. And that was particularly hard on Bodie as a kid. His old man found an opportunity to embarrass him at every football game, practice or party. None of us kids could ever go to Bodie’s house after school—our parents worried his father was too unpredictable.”

  “Sounds like an awful way to grow up. Were you two friends?”

  “More like friendly adversaries, I’d guess you’d say. I knew he had trouble at home. But whenever we competed for honors or positions, I’d still try my best to win. And I did win most of the time. I’m not proud of trying to outdo a guy who had so many problems at home, but that’s all in the past.”

  “Nice of you to try to help him at last.”

  Travis winced at her tone, but he deserved her disdain. “I have tried a couple of times in the past to help him, but without much luck. After my dad went to prison and I was running the ranch, I hired his father as a wrangler so there’d be enough money to send Bodie to college. But that didn’t work out.”

  “What happened?”

  Man, this was hard to say. Why the hell had he even brought it up?

  “Bodie’s father came to work drunk one time too many and caused an accident that involved several of the other wranglers. One good man lost his finger in the screwup.”

  Travis remembered the day as if it was yesterday. “I was hot. Furious—mostly at myself for bringing him on board. Fired Bodie’s dad on the spot and told him to stay off the Bar-C for good.”

  Holding his breath, he finished the story. “Two days later the old man hanged himself in a tree behind his house. Took a week before anyone noticed the body.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Yes, it is. My only excuse is that I was too young to know better.”

  “I don’t mean what you did. Getting angry probably didn’t help anything, but you were right to fire a man like that.”

  He felt his chest easing and began breathing again. “Range work is hard and dangerous enough as it is,” he admitted. “I’d hoped the physical labor would sober him up. But he was too far hooked on drink.”

  Shaking his head, he managed to continue the tale of long ago. “I felt terrible about the whole thing and tried to make a deal with Bodie’s college to finish paying his tuition. He wouldn’t hear of it. He quit school and vowed never to come back to this town.”

  “But he’s here now?”

  “Came back about three months ago and moved into the old, abandoned place where he’d grown up. He hasn’t had much luck finding a job, since he’s spent some time in prison, and I hear lately he’s begun drinking the same as his father.”

  “And he won’t take your money—or your food.” It wasn’t a question, so Summer already seemed to understand the problem.

  “No. But I’ve got to try one more time. I’m hoping Bodie can still be saved.”

  He pulled the SUV up in front of the ramshackle dump where Bodie Barnes was living. If you could call it living. The place didn’t even have running water.

  “I should have the sheriff condemn this mess,” he muttered under his breath.

  He was only half kidding. But he intended to get Bodie Barnes out of this place today or else burn it down.

  Summer’s eyes were wide as he turned the key and shut off the SUV. “Um, maybe he’s living in his truck?”

  “If he has any sense.” Which Travis doubted.

  Bodie stepped out of the shade behind the house. It was hard for Travis to tell what kind of shape he might be in. From this distance, he could plainly see Bodie’s face, but his expression gave nothing away. His eyes were glazed and he had dark circles under them. Had he been drinking? Or had he just been isolated and alone too long?

  “Stay in the car,” Travis cautioned her. “Let me talk to him for a few minutes.”

  Travis left the engine running, the air conditioner on and the windows rolled up. He didn’t want Summer to hear their conversation. No telling what Bodie might say.

  “Well, well,” his old friend muttered as he walked closer. “If it isn’t the great man himself. What are you doing on my property?”

  Bodie seemed steady on his feet, and Travis prayed the man still had his senses about him at this hour of day. “I came to offer you a job on the Bar-C.” He held his breath, hoping for Bodie’s sake he would take the offer in the spirit in which it was offered.

  Bodie closed his eyes for a second, as a pained expression streaked across his face. “You’re joking, right? You want me to take my old man’s job as a wrangler? Didn’t that work out badly enough for you the first time?”

  “Ah, come on,” Travis said with a shake of his head. “All that stuff happened a long time ago, and I’ve regretted it every day since. I’m giving you a chance for a different kind of life. You could apprentice under one of the foremen part-time, and earn your keep doing odd jobs around the ranch for the rest of the time. I’d want you to move into one of the bunkhouses today so you could start right away. What do you say?”

  Travis watched him carefully as Bodie shot a sharp glance behind him, toward the SUV.

  Instead of answering the question directly, he said, “I’d heard you’d thrown out Callie a few years ago. This new one measure up to your standards better? She’s prettier than Callie.”

  Travis held his temper. Callie was one more thing Bodie had wanted in high school that Travis had won instead. But all of their competitions, all of their old squabbles, had been over for a long time.

  “She’s just on the Bar-C temporarily. Acting as a housekeeper until I can locate someone permanent for the job. She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “I saw the way you looked at her when you stepped out of the SUV. You got that serious look.”

  Travis did not want to have this conversation. “What about my job offer? You ready to leave this…” he waved a hand at the dump of an old house “…place? I could use the extra hand on the ranch. We’ve been friends a long time, bud. Let’s help each other out.”

  To his surprise, that seemed to do the trick, as Bodie nodded his agreement. “Yeah, that’d be okay. I’ll head out to the Bar-C later this evening.”

  Well, Travis hadn’t expected much of a thank-you. But some sort of appreciation might’ve been nice. Shrugging off Bodie’s foul attitude, he chalked the whole thing up to a grudging win and nodded, too.

  “Fine. I’ll tell Barrett to find a place for you. Ring him when you get to the gate.” With that, he turned and walked back to the waiting SUV.

  Before he could reach for the door, his cell phone rang. Jenna’s name appeared on the screen.

  “What’s up, Jenna?”

  “Come get me, Daddy. I want to go back to the ranch with you now.”

  He knew it was the foal she was dying to see. “You don’t want to stay with Auntie June overnight?”

  “Oh, Daaaddy. I had to stand still for hours while Auntie and Rosie took measurings of me. I want to go home.”

  Travis stifled a chuckle at her veiled excuses for wanting to see her new filly. “All right. Summer and I will swing by in a few minutes and pick you up. Okay?”

  “See you, Daddy.” Jenna hung up the phone.

  Opening the SUV’s door, he stepped into the driver’s seat, still smiling at his daughter’s words while he put away the phone.

>   “What happened?” Summer sounded slightly frightened as she stared out the window.

  When Travis looked, he found his former friend right where he’d left him, standing in front of the SUV and studying Summer through the windshield. “I offered him a job, and he took it. Don’t pay any attention to him. I’m sure he’ll swallow whatever is stuck in his craw as soon as he starts earning money. The past is the past.”

  “I hope he thinks so.” But Summer didn’t sound too sure.

  Travis put the SUV in reverse and backed up. “Jenna just called and wants to be picked up. That’ll be our last stop. Okay by you?”

  “I’m ready to go back to work. There’s still plenty to do at the house.”

  “Well, now, I was hoping you’d take the rest of the afternoon off and let me show you around the horses. Jenna would probably love to introduce you to her new filly.”

  “I will, if you’ll take me off the clock and not pay me for the time.”

  Shoot. He couldn’t pull anything over on her. Not even a few extra hours of pay. Giving this woman even a small bit of help was going to be a struggle from here on out. God help him.

  * * *

  He rounded his aunt’s neighborhood street corner, while thinking about all the places on the ranch he wanted to show Summer. But they were running out of daylight, and he knew he’d never get Jenna away from her foal for long today. He would probably have to wait until Monday, when Jenna went back to school, to have a good tour around the ranch operations.

  Lost in thought, he didn’t see the blinking blue lights behind him until he heard a siren and glanced up. “What the…?”

  “Are you speeding?”

  Putting on the brakes and pulling over, he said, “No. I’m not speeding. I don’t know what this is about.” He stopped and shut off the motor. “Stay in the car. I shouldn’t be too long.”

  As he opened the door and got out, a sheriff’s deputy’s white pickup came to a stop behind him. But it was the sheriff himself who stepped out. McCord had been driving his personal cruiser when they’d seen him at Stockard’s earlier. Travis wondered about the change and why he’d been stopped.

  “What’s the problem, Sheriff?”

  “Wanted a word with you, Chance.” The sheriff hiked up his waistband, put his hands on his hips and stood about a foot away.

  “You could’ve called the ranch.” Being stopped by the side of the road didn’t make Travis all that eager to stand around chatting with the sheriff.

  McCord ignored the dig, spread his feet and tried to throw back his shoulders. At the age of sixty, the sheriff’s body had seen better days. He hadn’t exactly taken care of himself over the years, especially in the last few years since his wife had died. And the man’s protruding belly kept getting in the way of his best attempts at standing tall.

  The sheriff glared at him through dark sunglasses. “Saw you heading toward June’s. Thought I’d save the call.”

  As the years had gone by, Sheriff McCord had become less and less friendly with the Chance family—especially Travis. But he still showed up on Bar-C land at the drop of a hat. Whenever he wanted to arrest one of the wranglers for a bad Saturday night on the town, or when he needed to speak to Travis about county road right-of-ways, or for just about any reason he could manufacture.

  Travis didn’t care for the idea of the sheriff wandering alone on Bar-C property without warning Travis in advance. But there wasn’t much he could do about it. His father had given the sheriff free trespassing rights when he’d first hired him thirty years ago, and Travis hadn’t been able to find a good way around those rights since.

  Maybe he should try giving McCord a break. The sheriff hadn’t abused his position. Or, at least, he hadn’t yet. Just lately, though, it seemed the sheriff had developed some kind of chip on his shoulder. Travis wondered about the man’s personal life since his wife’s death.

  “What did you want?” That was the best he could do while standing in the middle of the street.

  “Wanted to ask about the woman you’ve taken in.” The sheriff opened a small notepad, a reminder of his old-school ways. “According to Stockard, her name is Summer Wheeler and she’s just passing through. That right?”

  What on earth did McCord want with Summer? “That’s right. Why?”

  “I’m running her plates to see if the car was stolen. Just thought I’d mention that. What do you know about her background?”

  Travis had no intention of telling the sheriff what his brother had learned. He intended to stick with Summer’s version of the story.

  “She said she was traveling around Texas, looking for a place to settle down. Her car broke down right outside town, and now she’s stuck here until Stockard can get the parts in. She needed a temporary job to carry her through, and I had something she could do. That’s about it.”

  “Don’t you think it’s kind of odd she was passing through Chance? This place ain’t on the road to anywhere.”

  “Ah, look, Sheriff, if you have a lot of questions, why don’t you ask her to come in and talk?” Not that he would rush her down to the sheriff’s office anytime soon for such an interrogation.

  The sheriff had no business snooping into a private citizen’s background. Texans respected independent spirits—they didn’t persecute them.

  “Think I’ll make a few calls first, Chance. And if I were you, I’d watch my back around her. Something don’t feel right about her story. She could be dangerous.”

  Oh, for pity’s sake. “If that’s all that’s on your mind, McCord— I’m late to pick up my daughter. You know where to find us.” He turned and strode to the driver’s side door.

  “Mark my words, Chance,” the sheriff called out to his back. “This one will be trouble.”

  Chapter 7

  An angry man, lost in the shadows of a cottonwood tree, watched as Travis drove Summer and Jenna down the side streets at the edge of town, heading back to the Bar-C.

  Odd how that bastard, Travis Chance, had hooked up with such a screwed-up broad, he thought. Hard to imagine the high and mighty CEO of the Bar-C with a woman the likes of her. They seemed to come from different planets.

  Maybe linking the two of them together would be just the break he’d been looking for. After all, the Bar-C was ripe with opportunities to make Travis Chance worry and wonder what was coming next. Yes, indeed. Any ranch would be chock-full of potential dangers and numerous ways to make a point. And he certainly had a point he wanted to drive home.

  Whistling as the Bar-C SUV drove out of sight, he hustled back to his truck. There were lots of plans to make and not much time left.

  His mind whirled with possibilities. Yes, sirree. Now he could solve a couple of his biggest problems with one set of plans. Laughing for the first time in what seemed like years, he stepped up into the pickup, as endless images ran through his mind. Images of maneuvers guaranteed to cause fear and anguish.

  Payback. At long last.

  This was sure going to be fun.

  Chapter 8

  Summer lived through the rest of the weekend—barely. Without Rosie to rely on, she’d had to think up various ways of encouraging Jenna to eat after she refused to leave the barn. Travis had made up a bed of blankets for his daughter so she could stay with her new horse. The whole weekend had been a tricky balancing act and tried Summer’s creativity, along with her patience.

  But by Sunday night, she found herself fighting an attraction to both Jenna and her father even though she hadn’t seen a lot of either one of them. Jenna seemed so lost, so hungry for attention. And Travis—Travis was really getting under her skin. Her first impression of him as the sexiest man she’d ever met still held true. Every time he came near she got goose bumps. It wasn’t right and she didn’t want to have these feelings, but there it was. She kept trying to push them aside and kept reminding herself that he was kind but controlling and would be impossible to live with for long. He was her boss and the closer she got to him the more she felt g
uilty about keeping her secrets.

  Monday morning dawned fresh and new, with the sky decked out in crisp, clear sunshine and the day full of glowing potential. A Texas sort of Monday, according to Travis.

  Rosie was back to work at the ranch and asked her to drive Jenna to school. Summer was pleased to cooperate and hoped that the time spent alone with the little girl would do them both some good.

  But Jenna was sullen, silent and grumpy on the way into town. Every word the little girl uttered made it quite clear that she believed her life had become a terrible ordeal. Seemed little Jenna would much rather stay in the barn with her horse than be forced to go to school.

  Summer had to laugh inside, thinking of how at that age she too had wanted to do other things besides go to school. But she wouldn’t dare let Jenna catch her smiling. So she smothered every chuckle and tried to be as sympathetic yet firm as she knew how.

  After she dropped Jenna off, Summer took a slow drive around town on the way home. Checking everywhere, every store and every side street, she hoped to locate the truck and the man she’d now seen twice.

  If she got lucky, she could at least jot down the license number and the sign on the truck’s door panel. Then she would find someone to tell her where the truck belonged. The truck was the key—even if checking on it meant she would need to call on the P.I. back home for help.

  But she wasn’t lucky. Not today. Giving up temporarily, she headed back to the Bar-C, ready to begin her day.

  Travis met the SUV as she drove into the side yard of the ranch house. He waved and came her way, looking so energetic and full of good spirit that her mouth actually watered.

  Smiling, he stepped beside her door and waited until she turned off the engine. When she reached for the door handle and turned her gaze in his direction, a sharp, sudden hunger leapt into his eyes. She felt it to the tips of her toes.

  Her body’s automatic response caused a war to erupt inside her. She wanted this man. This beautiful but decidedly arrogant man who was currently her boss. But wanting him the way she did seemed totally illogical. She couldn’t.