Soul Deep (6 page)

“Jack, there’s something you need to see.
Whoever shot Chinook—”

“Hey, boss.” Chuck, a big-bellied man with
ruddy cheeks, a dark mustache, and a white cowboy hat, walked in.
“I looked around the corral, but I couldn’t find where he was
standing when he got hit. The wind has blown the snow around, and
he’s churned it up with his hooves. Maybe in the morning—”

“Hang on a minute.” Jack held up his hand to
Chuck, his gaze focused intently on Janet. “What were you about to
say?”

Janet gave a slight shake of her head, tried
to tell Jack without words that what she had to tell him was for
his ears alone. “Nothing that can’t wait.”

Jack held her gaze for a moment, then looked
over at Chuck. “The trouble with waiting till morning is that we’re
due for another foot or so of snow. Whatever is there will be
buried. Get the big spotlights out and rig them up to shine down on
the corral.”

“Whatever you say, boss.” Chuck turned and
walked away.

“Spotlights?”

“We’ve got a rig with a couple of big halogen
lights on it. We use it when we’re branding calves into the
night—that sort of thing. The sun doesn’t always shine when we need
it.” He opened the box, took out a brown bottle labeled “Tea Tree
Oil” and a wad of gauze. “So what were you going to tell me?”

She put her hand over the stippling on
Chinook’s chest. “I found—”

“I got it shoveled, boss man.” The young
freckle-faced man in a ski cap who’d been shoveling the
sidewalk—Chuck had called him Luke—entered and approached the
stall. “You need my help? I’ve got a lot of experience treating
flesh wounds. I’m good with—”

“I can handle it. Why don’t you get back to
the bunkhouse, warm yourself up, get some coffee going, and then
meet Chuck at the corral? It’s going to be a late night.”

Luke seemed to hesitate. “You want
me
to make coffee?”

The way he said it left no doubt that he felt
making coffee was beneath him.

“For the love of Pete! I believe that’s what
I said.” Jack swore under his breath. “We’re all going to be cold
and tired before the night’s out.”

Luke turned and walked away.

Janet leaned down, lowered her voice so as
not to be overheard. “There’s stippling on Chinook’s skin—powder
burns.”

“Stippling?” Jack looked where she pointed,
traced the pattern of dark marks with a gloved fingertip. “Son of a
bitch.”

“This wasn’t a stray shot from some hunter’s
rifle. Whoever shot Chinook had to have been standing no more than
a few feet away.”

And Janet saw in Jack’s eyes that he
understood why she hadn’t wanted anyone to overhear her. She saw,
too, that he didn’t like what she was implying.

“You think one of my men did this?”

“Who else could have gotten so close to
Chinook without drawing attention to himself?”

# # #

Anger on slow burn in his chest, Jack
carefully walked the length of the corral, the big halogen lamps
turning night into day. “Here.”

Blood on the snow.

There wasn’t as much as Jack had expected,
but the wind and Chinook’s hooves had, indeed, taken their
toll.

Chuck, Luke, and Burt came over, looked
down.

Jack watched their reactions, still unable to
believe one of his own men could be behind this. He’d known Chuck
for decades. Burt had been with him for five years now, and though
Luke was new, he’d come highly recommended and loved horses. “I
can’t tell for certain whether he was standing here when he was
hit, or whether he simply bled into the snow here afterward.”

He’d kept Janet’s discovery of the stippling
to himself. There was no reason to give away what they knew. But he
did need to get to the bottom of it. Not only was Chinook an
innocent animal in Jack’s care, the stallion was also crucial to
the financial well-being of the ranch, bringing in hundreds of
thousands each year in stud fees and foal sales. Jack couldn’t bear
the thought of losing him—and neither could his bank account.

He wanted to believe it was a misfire. Maybe
one of his men had been handling a pistol and had accidentally
fired a shot. If so, the culprit obviously didn’t have the balls to
come forward and face him, knowing he’d lose his job outright.

If it had been a deliberate act …

Christ almighty.

Who would do such a thing?

He supposed it was possible that someone from
that hunting party had gotten onto the property and come this close
to the house. He just couldn’t imagine anyone being bold or stupid
enough to take that risk, especially knowing that Jack and his men
were well armed. They’d have to be completely loco even to try
it.

But even that unlikely scenario seemed more
feasible to him than the one Janet had suggested. Why would any of
his men shoot Chinook? As far as he knew, none of them harbored
grudges against him. True, there’d been some grumbling when he’d
put an end to smoking weed and gambling in the bunkhouse. But that
had been months ago.

And yet what better way to get back at him
for some misdeed, real or imagined, than to kill his beloved
champion stud?

Thank God the bastard had missed! Still, Jack
wanted to find the man who’d done this—and beat the shit out of
him.

Chuck knelt down, touched a finger to the
snow. “Why would anyone shoot a beautiful animal like Chinook?”

“I don’t know.” Jack had always trusted
Chuck. Apart from a time or two when his foreman had been a little
too free with his opinions—most particularly two years ago when
those opinions involved Nate’s choice of wife—Jack had never had
cause even to feel irritated with the man. “Did any of the men
report misfires today?”

Chuck shook his head. “I can ask around if
you’d like.”

“Please do. I also want to know if anyone
heard anything.”

“I think it’s those damned hunters,” Luke
said.

Luke had been hired to give Nate a hand in
the stables. Young and hungry to prove himself, he hadn’t been here
long enough for Jack to form a solid impression of him. The kid
doted on Chinook and the mares.

Burt said nothing, his gaze lifting to follow
Janet, who was searching the wall of the barn with a flashlight,
hoping to find the bullet embedded in the wall. Burt had always
been quiet, but that was fine. Jack didn’t hire men to talk. Burt
was a good hand with horses and cattle both and a hard worker. As
far as Jack could recollect, he’d never had an occasion to complain
about Burt’s performance on the job—until today.

There were seventeen other men who worked and
lived on the ranch, but Jack couldn’t imagine any one of them doing
this.

“Jack.” Janet turned toward them, motioned
Jack over, her stiff posture all the proof Jack needed that she was
cold.

Jack stood, crossed the corral, and climbed
over the fence to join her. “Find something?”

She turned the flashlight on the barn wall,
where he could see a bullet hole. “Either the slug embedded here,
or it went through the wall. What’s on the other side?”

“A closet full of old tack and grooming
gear.”

She lowered her voice, her teeth chattering,
her cheeks red from cold. “I wouldn’t have said anything with your
men standing around, but now that I’ve found the slug, we need to
get our hands on it before the shooter does.”

“You should go back inside and let me handle
this. It’s ten below out here, far too cold for a special agent who
was fighting hypothermia earlier today, no matter how tough she
thinks she is.”

“I’ll go back inside when you’ve got the
slug.”

“You mean to tell me you’re watching my
back?” It was a sweet idea, if completely absurd.

“There’s no one else here I trust to do that.
If the person who shot Chinook did so deliberately, there’s a good
chance it was done to hurt you. Since he didn’t succeed in killing
the stallion, he might escalate the violence and go after you
directly.”

“All right then.” He fished his Swiss army
knife out of his pocket, took Janet’s flashlight, and knelt down.
“It’s still in here.”

It was harder to dig out than he’d imagined,
the wood seasoned and hard. By now, his actions had drawn the
attention of his men, who stood in a group, leaning against the
corral fence and watching.

“She’s an FBI agent,” Chuck said.

“No shit?” Burt answered. “She doesn’t look
like an agent.”

Finally, Jack pried it loose. “Got it.”

A copper-jacketed slug fell into his gloved
hand.

“It’s a forty-five,” Janet said.

“It sure looks like it.”

“You are going to bring the sheriff in on
this, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” Before she could
object, which he could tell she was about to do, he went on. “We
can talk about it—inside. I want you out of this cold now.”

The storm was picking up speed, flakes
falling thick and fast.

He turned to the men. “Shut the lights down
and stow them away. Thanks for your help tonight, men. Warm up, and
get some sleep. Chuck, lock up the stables.”

Normally, they didn’t lock the stables, but
things weren’t normal tonight. Jack would take no chances where
Chinook was concerned—or Janet, for that matter.

Holding the slug in his left hand, he offered
her his right arm. “It’s slippery.”

She tucked her arm through his, smiled. “It’s
okay. I won’t let you fall.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Sniper! Nine o’clock!

Janet jerked awake to the memory of flying
bullets, sat up in bed, her body drenched in cold sweat, her heart
pounding, her stomach in knots.

It was the third time tonight she’d been
awakened by that same nightmare.

She turned on the light on her
nightstand.

Four in the morning.

She reached for her cane, got to her feet,
then went into the bathroom, where she splashed cold water on her
face. She knew she ought to try to get more sleep. She was running
a serious sleep deficit. But sleeping would mean dreaming, and she
didn’t want to dream again.

Instead, she undressed and climbed into the
shower, turning the water on as hot as she could stand it, washing
the dream away, letting the multiple shower heads massage tension
from her back and shoulders. But as the tension began to ebb, tears
came. She wasn’t sure why she was crying. It was probably just
stress and fatigue. Or maybe it was the nightmare. What had
happened yesterday must have triggered her in some way.

Listen to yourself.

She hated how emotionally fragile she’d
become. The person she’d been a year ago wouldn’t have been thrown
over an emotional edge by the sight of a bullet wound. It hadn’t
even been that serious of an injury.

Of course, she hated the fact that someone
had hurt Chinook. She supposed it might have been an accident. She
knew that’s what Jack was hoping. People who abused animals were
the worst. Lacking empathy even for innocent creatures, they were
likely to hurt other people, too. She hoped Jack caught the
bastard.

Oh, God, how was she going to face Jack?

Memories of last night flooded her mind, made
her pulse pick up.

You’re a beautiful woman.

Is that you talking—or the Côte de
Brouilly?

It takes more than a few glasses of wine to
make me say things I don’t mean—scotch if you want poetry.

She closed her eyes, let the hot water pour
over her as she remembered what his kiss had felt like—the brush of
his lips against hers, the skilled teasing of his tongue, the hard
feel of his body. God, she loved the way he kissed. She loved his
confidence. She even loved the way he smelled.

Have you lost your mind?

Now wasn’t the right time to get involved
with a man. She had so far to go to get her life back together. She
had finished rehab, but she was still adapting. On Monday, she was
starting her new position. Most of all, she had no idea if she
could even enjoy being in a relationship with a man.

Yes, she had healed, but her surgeon had
cautioned her that she might find sex painful, at least for a
while. He’d also warned her that pelvic damage of the kind she’d
sustained often left women with some level of sexual dysfunction.
She’d taken that to mean she might find it hard to climax. She
ought to have experimented on her own, tried to figure out what
still worked for her, but months of pain and narcotics and the
breakup with Byron had squelched her libido.

Still, last night had proved to her that she
still had sexual needs. That was something at least. But was she
ready to go there?

No. Not yet. Her body with its new
limitations and scars did not feel like her own. She wasn’t quite
up to exploring its unfamiliar terrain with another person, no
matter how handsome he was.

She turned off the water, reached for a
towel, dried herself, her mind made up.

After breakfast, she would call for a tow
truck and a ride back to Denver. Her week of relaxation in the
mountains was blown thanks to the weather. While it had been kind
of Jack to offer to house her for the week, she might as well get
home and face real life head-on. If she stayed, she’d only be
leading him on. Even if he had been despicably rude the first time
they’d met, he didn’t deserve that.

She dried her hair, put on her makeup, and
dressed, then left her room, thinking she’d explore the library
until Jack awoke. It was nearly five AM, and with livestock to care
for, he would probably be up and awake soon.

She was surprised to hear voices coming from
the kitchen. She found Jack there, drinking coffee, reading the
paper, and listening to a radio program about agricultural
futures—prices on hog bellies, cattle, soybeans, and other
crops.