A Lawman's Justice (Sweetwater Ranch Book 8) (12 page)

Cooper moved in fast to take hold of his father’s arm. And his gun. Cooper also maneuvered Roy several yards away from Whitt, and Whitt got to his feet.

“I’m filing charges, of course,” Whitt said. Damn, it was not a good time for him to give Roy a smug look, because Cooper had to hold Roy back again.

Annette hurried to Whitt’s side, but he didn’t even acknowledge her. Instead, Whitt’s attention went to Shelby.

“You’re choosing the McKinnons and Seth Calder over me?” Whitt asked her.

The question alone no doubt hurt her, and coupled with the rest of this nightmarish day, Seth wasn’t surprised that Shelby’s first reaction was a slight hitch in her breath.

“Yes,” Shelby answered.

Whitt looked as if he wanted to lash out at her for that, but he only shook his head. “I expected better from you. From all my kids. But I come back from the dead and find all of you in bed with my enemies.”

“Enemies of your own making,” Seth quickly reminded him.

The glare Whitt gave him was hard and long, but Seth matched it.

“Come on,” Cooper said, ending the glaring match. “Dad, you ride with Seth, and I’ll take in Whitt. I need statements from everyone.” He glanced at Annette. “Including you. Follow us back to my office.”

Annette cursed him, huffed, but she did head toward her car. However, she’d barely made it a step when Seth heard something. Some movement in the line of trees to his left.

A rustling sound.

But the sound was his only warning. A split second later, a shot blasted through the air.

Chapter Twelve

Shelby barely had time to register what was happening. Everything came at her too fast. And too loud.

Seth hooked his arm around her and pulled her to the ground. Again. Just as he’d done at the jail. It wasn’t a second too soon because the next bullet slammed into the ground where she’d just been standing.

The fear returned, twisting and coiling inside her. But the anger came back, too. The outrage that rippled over her and caused her chest to tighten. So tight she could barely catch her breath. Could barely move. However, that didn’t stop the nightmare from going through her head.

This couldn’t be happening.

But it was.

Here, Seth and she were in danger yet again, and this time they weren’t alone. Cooper, Roy, Annette and even her father were out in the open with bullets flying. Any one of them could be hurt or killed, and while she wasn’t feeling fond of her father just now, she didn’t want anyone else to die. Especially not at the hands of someone who was gunning for her.

Seth soon did something about that being-out-in-the-open part. He caught on to her and pulled her to the side of the cruiser. Again, barely in time because the shooter fired another shot.

At her.

Shelby couldn’t see their attacker, didn’t know exactly where he or she was, but there was no mistaking from the direction the bullets were taking that she was the target.

“Get down!” Cooper shouted. As Seth had done to her, he got Roy off the road and behind the truck that Roy had driven to the Braddock ranch.

Whitt and Annette ran, too, both taking cover at the back of her car.

“This is all your fault!” Annette screamed, and she just kept screaming.

Even though Shelby no longer could see the woman, she was pretty sure that Annette had meant the remark for her. And in a way it was her fault. There’d been one attack right after the other.

The murders.

The attempt to blow Seth and her to smithereens with that bomb.

She was at the center of that, and she should have realized that wherever she went, the danger would just follow.

Even here to her family’s home.

The ranch hands would no doubt hear the shots and come running. Which could turn out to be a fatal mistake. Ditto for either of Cooper’s brothers, who were likely on their way.

“Seth, can you see the shooter?” Cooper shouted.

Seth lifted his head, his attention zooming to the cluster of trees fifty yards from the road. Shelby had played in that area plenty of times as a kid and knew the trees extended all the way to a dirt road that was used to haul in hay.

If the gunman was there, then he was well hidden. And worse, he would have an easy escape route once he’d finished the job that he’d come here to do.

“I don’t see him,” Seth answered. “But I think he’s using a rifle.”

Shelby wasn’t a firearms expert, but she figured that meant the shooter could be firing from a long distance. Maybe even beyond the trees.

“I need you to crawl toward the cruiser door,” Seth told her. “It’s bullet resistant, and you’ll be safer there.”

Shelby glanced back at the driver’s-side door and nodded. “But you’ll come with me.”

Seth only shook his head. “I’ll have a better vantage point from here.”

“Not a safer one, though,” she quickly pointed out.

Seth played dirty and brushed a quick kiss on her mouth. “Just get in the cruiser. This idiot wants to shoot you, and the best way to stop him is to get you in that car and out of his line of fire.”

Since this was a bad time for an argument, Shelby did as Seth demanded. Without lifting her head, she began to make her way to the door. Cooper’s cruiser was parked about fifteen yards away, and she could see Roy doing the same thing she was doing.

Cooper’s orders, no doubt.

Seth and Cooper were trying to protect Roy and her. Maybe her father was trying to do the same for Annette, because Shelby no longer heard the woman’s screaming. Or maybe Annette had realized she wasn’t the one in danger.

More bullets came, each slamming into the cruiser. Shelby was shaking now. An adrenaline overload, no doubt, but she managed to get the door open, and she crawled inside.

“Stay down!” Seth warned her.

She did as much as she could, but Shelby stretched out across the seat so she could check the glove compartment for a gun. There wasn’t one. Not that she could have risked opening the window or door to fire, but she would have preferred to be armed in case things got worse than they already were.

The shots kept coming.

Most of them hit the body of the car, but some went into the windows, cracking and webbing the glass. It was impossible for her to see outside, but at least the shots were still coming at her and not the others.

The radio on the dash made a static sound, and a moment later, she heard Colt’s voice. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

“It’s me, Shelby. A gunman attacked us at my family’s ranch. I think Cooper and your father are okay.”

Colt cursed. “Cooper’s not answering his phone.”

“Because the gunman has him pinned down. But I’m pretty sure he got your father inside the cruiser, where he’ll be safe.”

She hoped.

“Where’s the shooter?” Colt asked.

“Somewhere in the trees on the south side of the road that leads to the main house.”

More profanity from Colt. “What about Hance? Is he there, too?”

Shelby’s heart skipped a beat. “I don’t think so. Why?”

“Because I had a tail on him, and he was headed in the direction of your family’s ranch. The tail lost him about a half hour ago.”

That was more than enough time for Hance to have come to the ranch and gotten in position to launch this attack. Of course, Hance could have just hired someone to do the job, too.

“There’s no sign of Hance,” she assured Colt.

“Keep an eye out for him. There’s no good reason for him to be in that area. Plenty of bad reasons, though.”

Yes. And the bad reason could be murdering her.

“If you can, tell Cooper I’m less than a minute out,” Colt said and ended the call.

Since Colt was an experienced deputy, he wouldn’t just come driving into a hail of bullets, but maybe he could come up behind the gunman and capture him.

Shelby opened the driver’s-side door a fraction, just enough so that she could call out to Seth and Cooper, “Colt will be here soon.”

She tried to keep her voice as quiet as possible so she wouldn’t alert the gunman as to what was happening, but she had to repeat it because of the deafening blasts drowning her out.

“Get back down!” Seth warned her.

She did, but the moment Shelby shut the door, the shots stopped, and they went from the sounds of the blasts of the bullets to dead silence.

Did that mean the guy was reloading?

Or did hearing that the deputy was nearby cause him to run?

As much as Shelby hated not finding out who was shooting at them, at the moment she would settle for them all being safe. But soon she would need answers to stop this. She couldn’t continue with this avalanche bearing down on her.

“He’s at my two o’clock,” Seth called out to Cooper.

Shelby lifted her head just enough so she could try to get a glimpse of him, but the sound of the bullet sent her right back down on the seat. It was just a single shot, and it didn’t slam into the cruiser as the others had done.

But it slammed into
someone
.

She could hear Cooper groan in pain. Could hear Roy’s profanity, too.

Oh, mercy.

Cooper had been shot.

That avalanche of emotions came. The fear and anger mixed with the guilt. Cooper was out here because of something her father had set in motion. Because some monster was after her.

There was another shot. Not from their attacker this time. But from Seth. He was no longer ducked down behind the car but was standing, his gun aimed in the direction of the gunman.

He fired again.

Shelby wanted to yell for him to get down, but at this point anything she said or did might distract him and make things worse. But she did pray.

“Did you get him?” someone shouted. It was Colt.

“I think I hit him in the shoulder,” Seth answered, and in the same breath he looked back at Cooper. “How bad are you hurt?”

Shelby held her breath.

Waiting and praying.

“The bullet sliced across my arm,” Cooper finally answered. “It’s just a flesh wound.”

“He’s bleeding and needs stitches,” Roy argued. “I’ve already called for an ambulance.”

That didn’t help the hard knot in her stomach. Cooper was the father of a young boy, and his wife was pregnant. They didn’t need this. Not now, not ever. But maybe Cooper was right and it was just a flesh wound. Still, it must have looked more serious than that for Roy to have called an ambulance.

“When Tucker gets here tell him he’s my backup,” Colt snarled. “I’m going after this idiot who shot my brother.”

“If you wait until Tucker arrives, he can stay with Shelby, and I’ll go with you,” Seth offered.

But Colt only waved him off and headed for the woods. Now she had someone else to worry about. Someone else who might be killed or hurt because of her.

Shelby opened the door again and spotted Cooper. He was indeed bleeding, and he had his right hand clamped over his left arm.

“Is there anything I can do?” she called out to him.

“Stay put,” Cooper insisted.

“This guy might double back,” Seth added.

Of course, she’d realized that was a possibility, but everything inside her was screaming for her to move. To do something.

“Is anyone else hurt?” Cooper asked.

“I’m okay,” Shelby answered. Physically anyway. Inside was a different story.

“Fine,” Seth piped in. “Annette and Whitt?”

In all the chaos, Shelby had forgotten about them. But she certainly thought of them now.

When neither answered.

“Whitt?” Seth tried one more time.

Still nothing, and after the way Annette had carried on earlier with the screaming, Shelby didn’t think the woman’s silence was a good thing.

“Everybody stay put,” Seth insisted. “I’ll check on them.”

Shelby couldn’t stop herself from sitting up, and she watched as Seth made his way to the back of the cruiser. He didn’t call out to them any longer, and he kept his gun ready and aimed.

Each step he took caused Shelby’s heart to beat even harder. So hard that she could feel the vibration of her pulse all over her skin. It didn’t help her heartbeat when she heard Seth curse, but she couldn’t see what’d caused that reaction.

“They’re dead?” Cooper asked.

But Seth shook his head. “Not dead. Whitt and Annette are gone.”

Chapter Thirteen

Seth finished his phone call and stared down at the blood on his shirt.

He cursed.

It wasn’t his blood. It was Cooper’s, but it shouldn’t have been there. He already should have stopped the dangerous idiot who was causing all this trouble instead of letting one of his or her henchmen get to Cooper. Jewell already had enough to deal with—all of them did—without adding this.

“The medic said Cooper will be fine,” he heard Shelby say. “They just needed to stitch him up.”

Seth hadn’t heard her come out of the bathroom at the McKinnon ranch guesthouse, and he’d been in such deep thought, he didn’t even know how long she’d been in his bedroom doorway. However, he followed her gaze to the blood on his shirt. Blood he’d gotten on him when he’d helped Cooper get into his cruiser. Cooper had refused to ride in the ambulance, but Roy had assured everyone that he’d drive him straight to the hospital.

Mumbling another round of profanity at himself, Seth stripped off the shirt, tossed it in the laundry basket and looked in his closet.

Shelby walked in and sank onto the foot of the bed. She’d showered, no doubt to get the blood and grime off her, too, and she brought the smell of his soap into the room with her.

“You’re running out of clean FBI clothes,” she pointed out, glancing in his nearly bare closet.

Yeah, he was. He’d had bad days as an agent, but nothing like this. If he’d thought for one second that this fight was over, he would have put on his last clean suit, but a suit wasn’t exactly the battle clothes he figured he’d end up needing.

Seth grabbed a black T-shirt instead and unzipped his pants, ready to replace them with some jeans. That was when he remembered Shelby was in the room. Not that he’d forgotten she was there exactly. Impossible to do that. But what he had forgotten was that some people were more modest than he was.

“I won’t look,” she said. She stared at the light switch. “I’d just rather stay put if you don’t mind. Flashbacks,” she added. “Bad ones.”

He hated that she was having them, but would have been surprised if she hadn’t been. It would take her a long time to stop remembering this nightmare they were living. Especially since they were still in the middle of it.

“I’m guessing you made some calls when I was in the shower. Did you find out anything?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Nothing good, though, and he’d been on the phone almost the entire time not only during her shower but since they’d returned to the guesthouse. That was the reason he hadn’t gotten around to changing his clothes. “Still no sign of the gunman, your father or Annette.”

Shelby groaned, pushed her damp hair from her face. “How could my father have gotten far on a prosthetic leg?”

Seth didn’t have an answer for that, and he wouldn’t tell her that now that it was dark, the search had been called off until morning.

He ditched the black pants for the jeans and was still zipping up when Shelby turned and did something she’d said she wouldn’t do. She looked at him.

Oh, man.

It wasn’t one of the heated looks they’d been giving each other, but this one could be just as dangerous. Because her eyes were filled with tears. She quickly blinked them back, but Seth figured this was one battle she wasn’t going to win.

He wouldn’t win, either.

Seth had promised himself when he’d seen her in the doorway of his bedroom that he’d keep his hands off her. But those tears were a promise breaker. He sank down on the bed next to her and pulled her into his arms.

“Yes, I know we’re playing with fire,” she whispered.

However, she didn’t back away. Muffling a sob, she dropped her head on his shoulder. “Except I guess a crying woman isn’t much of a turn-on,” Shelby added.

Not under normal circumstances, but this was Shelby, so the rules didn’t exactly apply here. At least he had an out. He needed to go to the main house soon and check on his mother. After all, Roy and she had been divorced for years, and with the events of the day, Jewell’s and Roy’s emotions were running high.

But so were Shelby’s.

And Jewell had a houseful of people to settle her in. Roy, Rosalie, Rayanne, Blue, Austin, Cooper’s wife, and four grandchildren whom she would no doubt love getting to know. Shelby didn’t have anyone but him at the moment.

Seth huffed. Yeah, it was thin logic since he could call Shelby’s brother and sister, but the truth was Seth wanted to be the one to comfort her. He wanted
this
. Even though he was indeed playing with fire.

That was why he cursed when his phone rang. Then he cursed himself because this could be a critical update about the case, which should be his top priority. Solving this case would be a much better comfort to Shelby than leaning on his shoulder. His stomach clenched, though, when he didn’t recognize the number on the screen.

“It’s me, Whitt,” the man said the moment Seth answered. “I need to talk to Shelby now.”

Shelby was obviously close enough to hear her father’s voice. “Where are you?” she demanded, after taking the phone from Seth and putting it on speaker.

“Someplace safe. For now anyway. I just wanted you to know that I didn’t leave the scene voluntarily. Annette forced me at gunpoint to go with her. She led me through the woods and had a friend come and pick us up.”

Shelby squeezed her eyes shut a moment. “Annette?” And yes, she sounded skeptical.

“The woman’s crazy, and that’s why I’m calling. You need to stay away from her. I managed to get away from her when she fell asleep, but I’m pretty sure she’ll come looking for me.”

“Where are you?” Seth repeated Shelby’s question. “Where’s Annette?”

“I left Annette at her ex-husband’s hunting cabin. If you dig, I’m sure you can find the location, and I hope you’ll arrest her.”

“I’d rather arrest you,” Seth informed him. “Where? Are? You?”

Whitt hesitated. A long time. “Shelby, I love you.” And with that the man ended the call.

The hang-up didn’t exactly surprise Seth. Nothing about Whitt could at this point. But Seth would have preferred if the man had given them more about his whereabouts so they could find him and bring him in for questioning.

“Do you believe him?” Seth asked. He texted the number to an FBI friend and asked him to try to run a trace on it.

Shelby took a deep breath. “I’m not sure. I don’t trust him, but I don’t trust Annette, either.”

Seth was right there with her on that. Of course, Annette and Whitt could be working together in all of this.

“Why did my father really come back?” Shelby asked. It sounded as if she was still trying to work it out in her head. “Jewell kept the secret of the rape all this time. Kept the secret about his being alive, too. And I find it hard to believe he would return just to save me. He could have hired someone to protect me without me even knowing it.”

True, but this was something a father might do.
Might
.

“I don’t think Whitt lied about loving you,” Seth went on. “I believe he does. And maybe when he read about the attacks on you, he couldn’t stop himself from coming back.”

“Maybe.” She paused. “But I did write that blog post, and maybe he was upset enough about that...”

There was no need for her to spell it out.

Seth remembered the threatening note: “You’re a traitor, Shelby Braddock. And soon you’ll be a dead one.” Whitt might have wanted to punish her if he’d truly wanted Jewell convicted of his murder and was upset his daughter had even suggested her father’s killer was still out there.

That was a big if.

Because if Whitt had wanted that, all he had to do was stay away and let everyone believe Jewell had murdered him.

His phone rang again, and this time it was a number Seth recognized. “Rosalie,” he said after answering it. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine. Well, no danger anyway, but we’re pretty sure Rayanne’s in labor, so we’re taking her to the hospital.”

“
We?
Who’s going with you?”

“Don’t worry,” Rosalie assured him. “Blue and Austin will be with us. Mom and Dad, too. Plus, I called Cooper, and he said he’d wait with us at the hospital.”

Since both Blue and Austin were lawmen, Seth relaxed a little. But that left him with another problem. “What about Cooper’s wife, Laine, and the kids? I don’t want them left without protection in case...well, just in case.”

“I understand, and Austin’s already working it out. Colt and Tucker will stay with the kids and the others at Colt’s house and make sure everything’s locked down. You and Shelby are more than welcome to go over there and join them, or you can come to the hospital with us. I’ll warn you, though, it could be hours before Rayanne delivers.”

“Hours,” Seth repeated. “I don’t want Shelby sitting in a public place for that long.” Especially with Annette, Whitt and Hance out there. “And she’d probably be more comfortable here than at Colt’s.”

“I agree. I’ll give you a call when the baby comes. In the meantime, Austin said he’ll alert the ranch hands and they’ll close the gate leading to the house after we leave for the hospital.”

It wasn’t a foolproof plan, since their attackers could get through some of the fences and make their way to the house. It also was possible someone could sneak in posing as a ranch hand or with the delivery trucks that came to the ranch several times a week. The McKinnon ranch could be a beehive of activity.

Still, staying put was safer than sitting in a hospital waiting room. Besides, he’d locked all the windows and doors and had set the security system. The ranch hands also would be armed, and with so many lawmen living on the grounds, they’d dealt with trouble before.

Seth hoped that trouble didn’t continue tonight.

“Stay safe,” Seth added. “And tell Rayanne I love her.”

Seth was about to put away his phone when a text came in. It was from FBI agent Sawyer Ryland, and like just about every other message and call Seth had gotten about this case, this one wasn’t good news, either.

“Your father was using a burner cell phone,” Seth relayed to Shelby. “No way to trace it.”

A burner could mean two things. Either Whitt was intentionally trying to conceal his location or else that particular phone was the only one he had access to. After all, Whitt’s car had been left on the road at the Braddock ranch, so maybe his actual phone was in there. It was yet something else that Seth needed to verify.

And later, he would.

For now, though, he pulled Shelby to her feet so he could take her into the kitchen and get her something to eat. At least, that was the plan, but Shelby didn’t budge.

“I’m so sorry I got you into this mess,” she said.

Oh, man. They were back to that. “You didn’t get me into anything. The person trying to kill you is responsible for that. And don’t second-guess yourself about the article you wrote, your history with Hance or anything else.”

Her forehead bunched up. “I hear the V-word in there somewhere. As in
victim
.” She groaned, stepped away from him. “I really don’t want to be one.”

Neither did Seth, and he was about to tell her that when she whirled back around to face him.

“I don’t want to be scared anymore,” Shelby added. “And I don’t want to keep hiding. I want to just go outside and demand a face-to-face with whatever idiot is behind this.”

Seth had seen hard emotions in her eyes before, but this was a storm of a different kind. A storm that he was going to have to stop before Shelby made up her mind to do something stupid.

So he leaned in and kissed her.

A smart man would have come up with something a whole lot better, but Seth suddenly wasn’t feeling very smart. Heck, maybe he just wanted to kiss her. And it seemed to work. Shelby stopped talking about a deadly showdown and slipped right into his arms.

It obviously wasn’t the first time Seth had kissed her, but like the other times he felt that kick of surprise. Surprise that anyone could taste this good. Or feel this way in his arms.

Yeah, stupid.

Because kissing Shelby wasn’t doing a thing to help them out of their dangerous situation.

His body didn’t seem to care about that. And after the kissing had gone on for too long, the rest of Seth didn’t care, either.

“You know this is a bad idea, right?” he asked as he shoved up her shirt and moved the kisses to the tops of her breasts.

“It’s a terrible idea,” she agreed. Though she did add a silky little moan to her agreement that pretty much told him this was going to happen whether it was bad or not.

Seth gave it one last-ditch effort and steeled himself to move away from her. But she didn’t do that. Shelby slid her hand around the back of his neck, anchoring him in place.

With his mouth hovering over hers.

Could he have still stopped?

You bet.

Did he want to?

Not a chance.

The hovering vanished, and Seth kissed Shelby again, knowing exactly where this kiss would take them.

* * *

S
HELBY
FIGURED
THAT
even though they’d just gotten started, Seth already had plenty of regrets about doing this. She probably should, too. But she didn’t. It wasn’t just her life that’d been turned upside down during the past two days.

So had her heart.

And her heart was telling her there was no place she wanted to be other than in Seth’s arms.

Shelby just went for it. Thankfully, Seth did his part and cooperated. Or rather he continued to cooperate by kissing her until she was surprised she hadn’t turned into a pile of ashes.

He was certainly good at this.

He’d had plenty of practice, no doubt. Because even now with the fire burning inside her, she still took the time to savor that drop-dead hot face.

And equally hot body.

She got a nice jolt of more heat when she stripped off his T-shirt and saw his perfectly toned chest that had been fueling a fantasy or two for her. Shelby kissed him there. On his stomach, too, and felt a wicked ripple of pleasure when his muscles tightened and reacted to her mouth.

“This would be a good time for us to come to our senses,” Seth said. But in the same breath, he stripped off her top and pushed down her bra.