Zack (Armed and Dangerous Book 1) (13 page)

After he’d fed the sheriff what little information they knew right now, Zack reholstered his phone and released his hold on Sky to wrap his arm around her shoulders. “Let’s take you inside the house.”

“No, Zack.” Sky tried to shake him off. “This is my property the son of a bitch destroyed. And I want to know what he’s taken.”

Zack studied her for one long moment with narrowed eyes and his lips drawn tight. “All right,” he finally said, “but we’re going to get you off your feet.”

He guided her toward several bales of alfalfa and she didn’t protest. Her ankle throbbed and the pounding in her head began to match the tempo.

When they reached a hay bale, he grabbed a clean saddle pad out of a large trunk and stretched it out on a bale. She let him help arrange her so that her leg with the injured ankle was resting on the pad covering the bale. Her ankle screamed with pain and her eyes watered. She definitely could use some of the pain reliever the ER doc had prescribed. Too bad she hadn’t had the prescription filled.

The smell of the fresh alfalfa was strong as she stared into Satan’s stall, where thankfully the bull was still tethered. The yearling was too difficult to control and had bashed the stall door open three or four times, so they’d been forced to tether him. The thick nylon rope was long enough for him to be comfortable to sleep, eat, drink, and move around but short enough to keep him from slamming his head into the stall door and maybe even hurting himself.

His eyes flashed like black diamonds in the barn’s low lighting as he stared at her. He bawled, probably ready for his feed. It was right about the time she fed the barn stock. The hands took care of the rest of the ranch.

Sky called Luke on her cell and he was at the barn in no time. The man’s expression was virtually unreadable as she spelled everything out, but he gave off such an intense aura of anger that it almost made her shrink back from him.

Luke got on his cell and called in every ranch hand to be questioned once the sheriff and his deputies arrived.

It wasn’t long before Sheriff Wayland, Gary Woods, and three other deputies made it to the ranch. They wore the traditional county sheriff department’s tan uniforms, tan felt western hats, and boots. Thick belts held their guns along with other things—pepper spray, she supposed, and extra rounds. Batons, handcuffs, cell phones, and radio microphones were clipped to their shoulders.

Sky had been introduced to Clay Wayland, the new sheriff, not too long ago. He had crystalline green eyes, sable hair and mustache, and was built like a quarterback. Broad shoulders and a powerful frame, but lean and athletic.

Of course she knew Gary fairly well. She’d also run into the young and dark-haired Deputy Quinn two or three times. He reminded her of a currently popular country-western star out of Nashville.

The other two men she’d never met. Deputy Blalock was blond, thin, wiry, and sported a goatee. Deputy Garrison blinked a whole lot, like he wore contacts that were bothering him, and had a small paunch that rolled over the top of his uniform pants.

“Why do you need so many deputies for one little break-in, Sheriff?” Sky asked after she’d been introduced to the deputies.

“Call me Clay.” The sheriff dragged his hand over his mustache before he answered. His green eyes turned almost jade in color. “There have been a couple of similar occurrences and we’re working to determine whether or not the rustlings and burglaries are related or separate issues.”

Garrison and Blalock set to fingerprinting the office and searching the scene for other evidence while Quinn took photos.

Gary Woods and Sheriff Wayland interviewed everyone at the ranch to find out if they saw or heard anything, and to find out where everyone was during the time they thought the break-in had occurred.

Sky thought she was going to go out of her mind while she waited for the men to be done in her office so that she could see what was missing.

When her back started to ache and her ankle throbbed, she leaned against the hay bale behind her. The alfalfa at her back pricked her through her T-shirt and a light coat of perspiration from the late-summer heat made her whole body feel sticky. She wanted a shower in the worst way.

Grouchy, hungry, and thirsty, Sky decided she was going to get up despite the blaring pain in her ankle. According to the time on her cell phone, over an hour had passed since the sheriff and his men had arrived.

Just as she started to swing her leg from on top of the bale and onto the ground, Zack took her by complete surprise when he showed up with a thermos of lemonade and a paper sack.

“Figured the guys might be hungry,” he said as he set the jug and sack on the bale. Turned out the sack was filled with more ham sandwiches. He’d also brought out of the house enough plastic cups and plates to go around. “Only took me fifteen minutes to throw this together, so don’t expect anything special.” Zack handed her a filled cup. After she drained her icy cold lemonade she gave a satisfied sigh. “You might be worth keeping around,” she said before she knew what she was saying.

Zack’s dangerous smile had her biting the inside of her cheek. She looked away and looked toward her office.

Damn the man.

After the sheriff and his deputies were finished with their interviews, and had arranged for everyone to go to the station to be printed, they gathered around where Sky was seated.

“Found quite a few prints,” Blalock said. “We’ll need to compare them to yours, Ms. MacKenna, to weed them out from potential suspects.”

“Didn’t see anything else too unusual.” Quinn held up a plastic bag containing a chunk of yellow dirt. “But we’ll check out this clump we picked up near the doorway.”

“Doesn’t match the soil around here,” Zack said as he studied it. “Yellow instead of reddish brown.”

The sheriff launched into a discussion about the intruder in the barn Friday night and how he figured the two had to be related.

The men enthusiastically chowed down on their sandwiches and drank their cups of lemonade. Outside it had turned dark, and a cooler breeze swept in from one end of the barn to another.

It was Sky’s turn to figure out if anything had been stolen. Zack handed the crutches to her before she went into the room.

Her stomach turned at the sight of the wrecked office. At the same time, anger rose up in her so fast her ears burned. Whoever did this was so going to pay. She’d make darn sure they did once they were caught.

Payroll and accounting pages had been tossed on the floor along with other ranch records dating back to her great-grandfather’s time. The old papers had been kept in leather-bound binders and had always meant a lot to her. “I should have put these in a bank safe,” she said as she carefully scooped the papers into a pile.

For some reason she’d been saving looking at her pedigree papers for last—maybe because she already knew what she’d find.

“Yeah, Satan’s are gone.” Her throat ached as she rifled through the file folders and she had the sudden urge to cry. “The papers for my thoroughbred Quarter Horses, too.” God, this was all too much. She looked at Zack. “Why did they take those papers? Are they going to start going after my Quarter Horse breeding stock, too?”

“I don’t know.” Zack gripped the edge of her file cabinet drawer. “The way your ranch’s old records were shredded—that wasn’t just theft or vandalism. That was deliberate.”

Zack slammed his palm on the filing cabinet that gave a hollow ring. “And it was personal.”

Monday, the afternoon following the discovery of the break-in, Sky frowned as she sat behind the ancient desk in the ranch’s office. Her crutches leaned against one of the oak-paneled walls and Blue had taken up vigil next to the office’s open door.

On the desktop, next to an egg salad sandwich, she had a chilled plastic bottle of water sitting on a coaster made from old bottle glass. After finding the office ransacked, she was making sure she had her S&W with her. It was in the small holster at the side of her denim shorts beneath a shirt she’d left untucked.

If it weren’t for her ankle, she’d be off riding on her property in the afternoon sunshine. Whenever she needed to escape, she took off with Empress and Blue after filling the saddlebags with lunch and treats for her and the horse and dog. They’d head out at a gallop. Sky would feel the teasing play of the wind whipping her hair, the power of the Quarter Horse beneath her, the freedom of riding across the range.

But no. Not only did she have to worry about her ankle, she had things to attend to.

Like this whole freaking mess.

Normally the scents of lemon oil and citrus air freshener made the office brighter, cheerier. Today some kind of dark smell seemed to hang over everything. Like the invasion had tainted the room.

The leather chair springs squeaked as she twisted a little to the side—an action she immediately regretted from the renewed throbbing in her ankle. She bit her lip, then sucked in her breath. She had some painkillers in the first-aid kit in the office’s bathroom. Unfortunately that meant getting up and she didn’t feel up to it.

God, she felt so violated from the break-in. It tore at her insides like a garden rake to see so much of the ranch’s past reduced to piles of shredded pages and broken artifacts that included a hundred-year-old kerosene lantern and a collection of Apache arrowheads that had been discovered right on the Flying M Ranch.

She picked up the framed portrait of her mother, Nina MacKenna, taken when Nina had been so vibrant and alive. She’d had a full, round face and rounded curves, and a smile that had always made Sky feel like everything was going to be okay.

Until the end.

Sky brushed the back of one hand over her eyes. The photo was nearly destroyed the way the glass had been smashed.

Zack was right—this had been personal.

Who the hell did I piss off?

“If I knew I’d so kick their asses,” she said in such a sharp tone that Blue raised his head and looked at her.

Did this have anything to do with the rustling?

Sky had never been one for too many tears, but she found herself fighting them back. She smoothed her fingertips over the worn and now-destroyed binding that had held ranch records from the late 1800s. Detailed income and expense reports had been kept in the ledgers. Her great-great-grandfather had handwritten purchases and sales of livestock, equipment, and feed, as well as breeding records and pedigrees.

In the 1990s, Sky had convinced her father to start using computers, and eventually they didn’t keep any handwritten or manually typed records. With her urging, they’d constantly updated the computer software the ranch used as well as their hardware.

The computer monitor drew her attention. Its cracked LCD screen made her want to flinch and clench her hands. She didn’t want to damage the papers she was holding, so she kept her grip relaxed.

With a sigh she twirled the end of her long braid with one finger. She glanced down at the Scotch tape dispenser beside one of her hands, and at the page she’d been attempting to put back together.

“It’s hopeless,” she whispered, then shook her head and released her braid. “No. The pages won’t ever be the same, but I’m not going to simply throw a part of my family’s history into the garbage.”

Sky looked at the monitor again. She’d have to purchase a new one and update their cattle records to show the loss. They wouldn’t know until roundup exactly which cattle were missing.

Her Black Angus herd had been over three hundred strong before this mess started. The ranch hands had a fair idea, though, of several that had been taken. You couldn’t be around cattle for a significant amount of time without recognizing a good portion of them.

Damn, damn, damn!
Every loss was like a punch. Not only was it a violation, but it would affect the ranch’s revenues for the year and would impact every year for some time.

She’d already contacted the USDA inspector along with the American Angus Association. If any of her registered breeding stock showed up or if another rancher tried to register them, she’d be notified at once.

Blue gave a sharp bark that startled Sky into almost knocking over her water. The dog bolted out the office door as he continued barking and her heart started pounding. She wasn’t expecting company, but it wasn’t uncommon for a neighbor to stop by. The thrum of her heart had to be nerves from all that had been happening.

Blue stopped barking at the same time she heard the sound of a powerful truck engine. The dog’s quieting was a good sign it was someone he recognized. Tires crunched the driveway’s pebbled dirt before a vehicle came to a stop and the engine cut off.

Sky wheeled her chair over the polished wood floor, closer to the window, and winced as she bumped her ankle. She peered through the red-and-white-checked gingham curtains.

Zack.

The curtain slipped from her fingers as she sucked in her breath and her heart pounded for a different reason. She moved away from the window, placed her palms flat on the desktop, and released her breath in a slow exhale. She felt that telltale tingling in her belly and the pleasure warming her because Zack was here.

Before he could come in and catch her looking unnerved, she picked up the tape dispenser and stared at the yellowed page she’d been trying to put back together. Only problem was that she was looking at the pieces without seeing them, her senses on fire while she waited for Zack to find her.

It didn’t take him long. Blue apparently led Zack straight to the office.

Sky took another deep breath and looked up when she heard the thump of boots on the office floor. Zack stopped in the doorway, hitched his shoulder against the door frame, and shoved his hands in his front pockets as he looked at her from beneath his black Stetson.

His powerful presence never failed to make her heart pound. The bruise on his cheekbone and his black eye didn’t distract from his rugged features and the steel gray of his eyes. She could never get enough of the way his T-shirt and Wrangler jeans fit his body the same way she wanted to wrap herself around him.