Lone Star Rancher (2 page)

Clyde and his triplet brothers had loved Texas and had spent their summers on the ranch belonging to their Fortune cousins for nearly as long as they could remember. Once out of college, they'd pooled their resources and bought their own spread, the Flying Aces, two miles outside of Red Rock and not far from Ryan Fortune's Double Crown Ranch.

The brothers ran a very successful beef and egg supply business. They contracted with a major distributor in San Antonio, which was only twenty miles from Red Rock, for everything they could produce.

“I do have a favor to ask,” Violet admitted.

“Uh-huh. I thought that was what you had on your little mind. Otherwise, why bother to call?”

“Don't be so cynical. Besides, the phone line runs both ways. When was the last time you called me?” she demanded.

She had a point. “Okay, I give. You're right. I haven't called in weeks—”

“Months,” she corrected.

He sighed loudly. “How are our parents? Have you seen them lately?”

“I try to get out there for Sunday lunch,” she told him, becoming serious. “Mom is as active as ever, but Dad is having trouble with his knees. He's slowing down.”

“Well, he is seventy,” Clyde said. “Tell the old man to get knee surgery. Can't you docs replace everything in the body these days, even brains?”

“Very funny,” she snapped, but with humor in her tone. “I didn't call to talk about our family.”

“Ah, so whose family do you want to talk about?”

“Not a whole family, just Jessica.”

An image came to his mind—a tall girl with skinny arms and legs and a narrow frame, a girl who'd been shy and awkward when Violet had first brought her out to the Double Crown. The two girls had become fast friends, which he'd found surprising. Jessica had looked and sounded exactly like what she was, a down-home Texan with a twang and few social graces. Violet and the girl had remained friends all these years, had even roomed together a couple of times.

Even more surprising was the fact that Jessica was now a top model in New York, according to his sister. Since the world of fashion didn't come close to being on his list of priorities, he didn't know about that.

“Do you remember her?” Violet asked.

“Sure. Tall, awkward girl who morphed into a fashion model or something. Is that her?”

“Yes. Uh, she has a problem.”

“Yeah?” He wondered what that had to do with him and the price of eggs in China or, closer to home, San Antonio.

“There's this guy, a politician who's sort of big in the city, respected family and all that.” She paused.

Clyde felt tension in the back of his neck. He rubbed it away. “So?” he prodded, growing impatient.

“He's stalking Jessica.”

“Call the police.”

“She has. They won't do anything. There's no proof, just her word against his. Anyway, she's been working hard and this creep keeps calling and breathing into the phone, then he gives this little smirky laugh and hangs up.”

Clyde muttered a curse. He didn't like people, whether men or women, who preyed on others.

“She'd planned on taking September and October off, so I thought it would be good if she got out of town.”

He could sense what was coming.

“The ranch would be a perfect place for her to rest and to stay low while this jerk gets over his fixation.”

“Two months? I don't—”

“She would probably only stay a month. You won't have to do a thing. She can entertain herself. She just needs a quiet place where he can't contact her.”

Put that way, it was hard to refuse. “I don't know,” he hedged. “Let me talk to Steven and Miles first.”

“Steven doesn't even live there anymore,” she protested. “He's all wrapped up in his new ranch and remodeling the house for the love of his life. And Miles won't care. He loves having a woman around to flirt with and practice his charm on. You know that.”

“Huh,” he said, trying to think of a good excuse not to have her friend there and knowing it was a losing battle. His protective instincts were already prodding him.

“The problem is
you,
” Violet stated.

“Maybe,” he conceded, wondering if the man was at fault. Maybe the model had led him on.

Once he'd been twenty-two and a gullible dreamer. He'd gone to Dallas for the annual ranchers' association meeting and fallen headlong into love with a sweet-talking waitress who'd told him she was nineteen, pregnant and abandoned by both her lover and her family. He'd given her money and set up an account for the unborn child.

Claudia had used him and his trust in her to bilk him out of a couple of thousand dollars.

He'd even proposed, thinking to bring her to the ranch and share an idyllic life. The weekend they were to marry, he'd arrived at their meeting place in Dallas and waited…and waited…and waited.

As the hours passed, he'd been in agony, worrying that she'd been in an accident or something. Yeah, right. She'd taken his money and run out on him for parts unknown. He'd also found out there had never been a child, according to her friend at the restaurant where she'd worked. The older woman had looked at him with pity.

Man, he must have had “sucker” written in big, bold letters on his forehead. Since then he'd kept his distance from women.

Ignoring the urge to dash to the rescue, he tried once more to dissuade his sibling. “Look, little sis, Jessica would be bored out of her mind staying out here.”

“She wouldn't. She was born in Red Rock. She grew up there and she loves the area.”

Clyde glanced heavenward. His sister was nothing if not determined once she'd set her mind on a course. “Why doesn't she stay with her family? Doesn't she have relatives somewhere around here?”

“She doesn't want to put them in danger in case the stalker follows her and gets violent. Just last month one weirdo here in New York stabbed the actress he was obsessed with. Didn't you see it in the paper?”

“I might have read something about it,” he conceded. “Don't you think it's a tad strange that she won't put her family in danger but she thinks it's okay to stay with near-strangers and put their lives at risk?”

There was a tense silence on the line. “Hello?” he finally said to remind his sibling he was still there.

She cleared her throat. “I haven't exactly convinced her to head for your place. She's as stubborn as you are.”

He had to laugh. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” he murmured.

Violet waited a second, then continued, “She doesn't want to bother anyone. She thinks it's her problem, and she has to solve it. But I'm getting worried. The guy—his name is Roy Balter—is calling more and more often. Jessica has already changed her phone number, but he got the new one.”

“Info is a snap to get nowadays,” Clyde said. “I've heard of this Balter guy. He was one of the talking heads on a television news program the other day. He's on the city council and is heading up a commission on terrorism. He looked okay to me.”

“That's the problem. Everyone thinks he's perfectly sane, while they think Jessica is off her rocker. I was at her place last night and listened to his messages, the breathing, then this sinister little laugh. It gave me chills. Jessica is keeping the tapes from the answering machine. She says maybe the police will believe her when they find her dead body and a box of recordings from the creep.”

“Damn,” Clyde muttered. He closed his eyes and rubbed his neck, then gave up. “Okay, tell her she's welcome to come here next month if she wants to. I'll arrange transportation from the airport in San Antonio.”

“Oh, Clyde, thank you. I don't care what other people say. I think you're absolutely wonderful.” She laughed at this oft-repeated joke between them, then sobering, she
said, “Would you mind picking her up? I'll feel so much better knowing she's with you. Miles is wonderful, too, of course, but he doesn't take things as seriously as you do. This may be a matter of life and death. Really.”

“Yeah, yeah, I'll pick her up. Let me know the flight, date and time, okay?”

“Yes. I'll call as soon as I talk her into going. I'm sure she will. She's tired and discouraged and frustrated trying to deal with this and her work and all.”

“Make sure she understands that we'll be doing the roundup while she's here. No one will have time to babysit or entertain her. You understand?”

“Perfectly. She just needs a break and some peace and quiet. You will keep an eye on her, won't you? I mean, in case the stalker shows up?”

He exhaled heavily. “Yes.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

With that, she said her farewells and hung up. He realized he'd forgotten to congratulate her on the article in the medical journal, which their mom had sent a couple of months ago. Not that there wouldn't be other chances in the near future. If he knew his little sis, she would hound her friend into coming out, then she would hound him about looking after the visitor.

He grabbed a beer from the fridge, which held very little else, and went out on the patio to enjoy the twilight and the cool evening air. The cattle in the two thousand acres of pasture that comprised the ranch were grazing peacefully or bedded down while they chewed their cuds.

The quiet appealed to him. No cars were on the paved county road. The interstate highway, I-35, that ran up the middle of the state through San Antonio, Austin and points north was too far away to be heard.

He liked the distance to the horizon, as if one could ride into the sunset forever. He appreciated the vastness of these wide open spaces that were so different from New York where he'd grown up.

Years ago, his mother had declared the triplets to be cowboys at heart. She said she'd known it from the moment they'd been born. Instead of crying, they'd come into the world yelling, “Whoopie-ti-yi-yo.”

Or so she'd said many times with an almost perfectly straight face.

He smiled, then took a long draught of cold beer. Sometimes he missed his mom, he admitted. When she came to the ranch, she fretted about the house and its lack of a feminine touch and worried about the boys' love lives as well as their eating habits. She was into tofu and soybeans and healthy stuff. Married men, she pointed out, lived longer, healthier lives than bachelors.

She especially worried about him. When he'd returned from Dallas, alone and still single, he'd told his family his fiancée had died in a car accident and had never mentioned it again. His mother probably thought his heart was still broken.

Little did she know, as the saying went. He'd locked that unreliable organ away for good. The Flying Aces was the love of his life. It was enough.

Clyde smiled again, then frowned as he remembered his promise to his sister. Steven wouldn't care a whit if Jessica visited. Miles would flirt like mad with her when he was at the house, but most of the time he would be out on the back forty of the ranch, handling that part of the roundup.

That would leave
him
to watch after their guest.

He said a very bad word and was glad his mother wasn't there to hear it. He would have to guard his tongue if and when the visitor arrived, too.

Taking a long, long drink of the crisp, cold microbrew, he realized something else and nearly choked.

“Damn,” he muttered, then gave a snort of laughter. “It figures,” he said to Smoky, a dog that had drifted by last year and decided to stay, and now, attracted by the laughter, ambled over for a pat on the head.

He wondered if his sister had noted the day of the month when she'd called. That would be so like her.

It was Friday the thirteenth.

T
he wings of the airplane dipped first one way, then the other, as the flight approached San Antonio. Jessica closed her eyes and concentrated on keeping the soda and pretzels down. She wasn't sure whether it was better to have a full stomach or an empty one when flying in bad weather.

Lightning crackled, and several people gasped. A little girl screamed. So did her mother.

St. Elmo's fire danced along the front edge of the wing. Jessica thought the fuel tanks were located in the wings. Could they catch on fire?

Summoning up her courage, she reflected on the idea of leaving New York to keep from being killed by a stalker, only to go down in an airplane crash in Texas. There was a kind of rough poetic justice in the thought.

If the plane did crash, she wouldn't have to impose on Violet's brother, who didn't want to fool with her in the first place. At least, that was the impression she'd gotten when
her friend had carefully and thoroughly explained that the ranch was very busy at this time of the year.

Jessica would mostly have the house to herself and would have to find her own amusements.

Fine by her.

Clyde Fortune, the first-born of the triplets, was to pick her up. He was the least outgoing of the three. The brothers were identical triplets, all with dark hair and chocolate-brown eyes, around six feet tall, muscular bodies.

The last-born, Miles, had a dimple in one cheek, though, so maybe they weren't identical. She didn't know much about genetics, so she wasn't sure. Anyway, they looked like the proverbial peas in the pod. As a teenager, she'd had a crush on Clyde, the quiet one of the Fortune triplets.

Not that he, an older man, had known she existed.

She'd gotten over her romantic feelings quick enough when one of them had remarked that “she was so skinny and talked with such a twang, you could use her for a guitar string” when one of their friend's strings had broken.

Amusement eased the pain of that ancient insult. Her lean frame had earned her a
fortune
of her own—not in the form of a living dreamboat, but in cold cash.

At that instant, the plane touched down. Jessica thanked the heavens that they were safely on the ground. She collected her carry-on bag and all-purpose raincoat and headed for the baggage carousel.

She didn't see anyone she recognized. Several men looked her over, but none came forward. Apparently no one was waiting for her.

Wonderful, she thought, feeling like unwanted baggage. She grabbed her suitcase when it came around the moving belt, then rolled it closer to the door, not sure if her ride expected her to go outside and wait at the curb. She should
have asked Violet to be more specific about what she was supposed to do.

The oddest thing happened then. Her eyes filled with tears. Astonished, she blinked rapidly until they dried up.

Thirty minutes later, she was still standing by the sliding glass doors, watching as other passengers were met by their loved ones and hugged and kissed and made to feel wanted while she wondered what to do if Clyde didn't show.

She could take a room in San Antonio under an assumed name and hide out there just as well as the Flying Aces—

“Jessica?”

She jerked around and stared into a worried face and dark eyes with a scowl in their depths. “Yes.”

“Sorry to be late. There was an accident on the highway. It took thirty minutes for the police to get it cleared and let the traffic through.”

“That's okay. I was just thinking of getting a room in town. Actually I could stay here just as well as at your place. It's been a long time since I've been to the Alamo.”

“Violet would never let me hear the end of it if I let you do that.” Clyde plucked her two cases from her. “This way.”

Although he did manage to crack a smile, Jessica wasn't fooled. He was about as happy to see her as she was happy to be there. She silently said a word her mom had said she and her sister were never to use.

He led the way to his truck.

The rain hit them like bullets from the angry clouds that covered the city. She had her raincoat, which had a hood, but he wore only a light jacket. Water ran in a cascade from his gray felt cowboy hat.

His jeans were soon soaked along the entire front of the legs as the wind blew furiously against them as if trying to stop their progress. Her feet, clad in low sandals, got wet, and the cuffs of her summer slacks filled with water and wilted.

When they reached the parking space far out in the lot, he tossed her bags in the back of the crew cab pickup and her into the front. Not literally, but she had a feeling he would have liked to dispose of her as easily as the luggage.

It wasn't an auspicious start to a month-long visit, she thought.

“I'm sorry to bring you out in such weather,” she said, giving him one of the brilliant smiles she was known for.

He shrugged and growled in a low tone, “We don't usually have this kind of storm in September.”

Actually it was the second day of the month. A Friday. Two days ago, she'd finished the photo session and celebrated by hiding out at Violet's place so she wouldn't have to listen to the ringing of the phone every hour on the hour.

Worse—and this was what drove her into fleeing the city—was returning from her walk on Monday and finding a pale pink rose lying in the middle of her foyer. On Tuesday, a deep pink rose had been left on the sofa table. Then on Wednesday one had been placed on her pillow with all its bloodred petals torn off. Each petal had been cut in half. A police investigation had yielded no clues.

Shaken, she'd called Violet and told her friend she would love to visit the ranch for a month. They'd planned an elaborate strategy to get her packed and onto the San Antonio flight, via a separate ticket into Chicago for the first leg of the trip, with the help of a model friend.

Linda was close to Jessica in size, and had taken her place on the daily walk in the park, wearing sunglasses and a denim hat and Jessica's favorite sports outfit, just in case the stalker was watching her condo.

Glancing at her host now, Jessica wondered if it might not be worse to be trapped for a month at a remote ranch—well, two miles from town wasn't exactly remote—with a handsome but brooding Heathcliff type as her protector.

Was it better to face the evil she knew than to flee to another that she didn't? Ah, that was the question, she intoned sardonically to herself.

“Something amusing you?” Clyde asked.

She strangled the facetious smile and gave him a solemn stare. “No. I was just feeling sorry for you, being stuck with an unwanted guest for a month.”

His frown could have stopped the eighteen-wheeler, coming toward them down the state highway at seventy miles an hour.

“Violet did explain that we're in the middle of roundup, didn't she?”

“Yes. You don't have to worry about entertaining me,” she said graciously. The effort was wasted on him.

“Good,” he said in his serious manner. “No one will have time to do any entertaining. You'll have the house to yourself during the day. I'll be in late most nights. Miles will be out in the hills and will sleep in the RV we keep for times when we can't get back to the house.”

“I see. Uh, do you have a cook or housekeeper?”

“No. A woman from Red Rock comes in every Monday, to clean. Miles and I fix our own meals. Mostly eggs and toast or sandwiches,” he added.

“I don't eat a lot,” she quickly told him, making it clear she didn't expect him to wait on her.

His gaze ran down her like the sluice of cold rain hitting the windshield. In that one glance she felt he'd seen everything there was to see about her, both physically and mentally. It was rather daunting.

She gazed out at the land she hadn't seen in almost two years. Mmm… Yes, the last time she'd visited her folks, who lived in Austin now, had been two Christmases ago.

Her sister, brother-in-law and two nieces lived in Red Rock. They ran the hardware store Jessica had bought
with her first year's earnings so her dad wouldn't lose his livelihood.

Since she figured Roy might somehow have her family watched, she was going to have to avoid them.

Also, she realized, she would have to hide in the barn or somewhere when the housekeeper arrived, in case the woman was someone who knew her or her family.

She sighed.

Her reluctant host glanced her way again.

“I'm not bored,” she said as if he'd asked. She realized he probably wouldn't care if she was. “It's just that hiding out is more difficult than I'd thought it would be. I'm grateful that you're letting me stay at your place.”

He hesitated, then shrugged. “It's no problem.”

There was an unexpected softening in his tone that caused the ridiculous tears to burn behind her eyelids again. “Well, I know Violet twisted your arm. She can be very persistent when she gets an idea. She doesn't let go until she gets her way.”

His chuckle was as pleasant as it was surprising. “Tell me about it.”

“She's a wonderful friend,” Jessica said. “She's always been there for me. I can still remember the first time all of you came into the hardware store with some of your cousins. I'd never seen so many Fortunes in one place before. Although I was familiar with the Texas side of the family, you New Yorkers were like exotic foreigners to me.”

“I had to tell you three times what I wanted,” he said.

“Ah, you remember it, too.” She laughed. “I couldn't understand a word any of you said. Except Violet. She interpreted for me and glared at you and your brothers when you laughed.”

“Now Steven, Miles and I speak Texan jes' like you natives,” he drawled. He even smiled.

It did wonders for him, making him look younger than the thirty-six years she knew he was. His teeth were straight and very white against the tan of his face. She found herself wondering why he'd never married.

“Well,” she said in mock wonder, “you have a sense of humor. Violet assured me you did, but since I was never around you guys much, I didn't believe her.”

The smile disappeared. “If you're looking for charm, Miles is your man,” he suggested.

“I'm not.” She spoke as coolly as he had. “I'm trying to avoid one man. I'm certainly not looking to get involved with another.”

Silence prevailed as he turned off the state highway onto a paved county road that led to Red Rock. Two miles before they reached the town, he turned again, this time onto the road that went past the ranch.

The road had been newly topped with asphalt and wasn't yet marked with white lines. In the darkness of the storm and the deep twilight, it seemed to disappear in the downpour. She couldn't tell where the sides of the road were or what was ahead in the rain.

He slowed to a crawl, then made the final turn onto the ranch road, which was also paved. Her heart gave an odd lurch and beat very fast. She'd never been here.

The three brothers had purchased the place after she'd moved to New York. Except for infrequent calls, she and Violet had lost touch during those years when each was getting established in her chosen career. Then Violet had returned to the city, and they had picked up their old friendship. But Jessica had never called any of the Fortunes in Texas when she returned to visit her folks.

“Oh,” she said when the house came into view.

It was large and typical of the very popular Texas ranch style with a beige-painted wooden frame and shiny metal
roof, a second story with a balcony over the front porch that went all the way across the front of the house and lots of shrubs and flowers in borders along the curving front walk and the dark brick foundation.

There was a four-car garage attached to the side of the house. Clyde hit the opener, then drove inside and closed the door behind them, shutting out the blowing rain.

A station wagon was the only other vehicle in the large space. There were no tools or lawn mowers. It was the neatest garage she'd ever seen.

“At our house, the one where I grew up,” she clarified, “the garage was always a disaster area. My mom threatened to throw everything out on a regular basis, including the three lawn mowers. One worked. The other two didn't.”

Clyde retrieved her bags and motioned toward the door into the house. She went inside.

“We use a tractor to mow the grass when we cut the hay,” he said.

She followed him into a room that held a comfortable sofa and two leather recliners. A huge television was built into a bookcase-entertainment center beside a fireplace. The room led into a wide foyer that ran the length of the house.

On the other side of the foyer, she could see another room, a formal living room, although sparsely furnished.

The foyer had a graceful staircase of open oak steps and black wrought-iron railings. She could see a large dining table with six chairs beyond the steps and French doors opening onto a patio. The rain was too heavy to see what the view would be out the back of the house.

Clyde headed up the steps when she paused, not sure where to go. “This way,” he said.

The foyer was repeated upstairs in a gallery-type library with bookcases and twin groupings of two chairs, a table and
a reading lamp to either side. Here, too, the view through wide windows would be to the backside of the house.

“These are your quarters,” he said, going into the first room on the right and flicking a light switch. A lamp on a table softly lit the room.

She glimpsed beige walls and dark furniture that was Spanish in style, plus some light oak pieces that were called Texas frontier by the local decorators.

“You have your own bath through there.” He nodded toward the side of the room. “That's the closet next to it.”

She also had her own private sitting space beside tall windows on the north side of the house. A large bed occupied the opposite wall.

“It looks very comfortable,” she said politely.