The Ransom

“Lean over.” Crouching beside her, Reece placed a palm against the back of her head and shoved it between her knees. The movement forced the air out of her lungs. Staring at the colorful braided rug, Kathryn pulled in a deep breath, then another.

“More,” Reece said. “In and out.”

She gave a vague nod. There were steel wires around her chest, around her head. Tightening, tightening.

The echo of boot heels coming down the hallway had Kathryn jerking her head up. When the Cross C’s foreman stepped into the room, she nearly sobbed. Johnny Sullivan had put her up on her first horse, he’d taught her to ride, how to use a rifle, to rope a steer. He, along with Willa, had taught her how to love.

Dressed in worn jeans, a plaid shirt and scuffed boots, Johnny gripped his sweat-stained straw hat in one arthritic fist. When he spotted Kathryn, the clear blue eyes in his leathery tan face narrowed. “God Almighty, girl, you look sick as a dog.”

“I’m not sick.” She straightened in the chair. “It’s Matthew. He’s gone. Johnny, they took my baby.”

“Who?” He moved to her, exchanging an uncertain look with Reece when the vet rose to his feet. “Who took our boy?”

Reece scrubbed his palms down his jeaned thighs. “I think she thought I did.”

“I thought they might still be in the house,” Kathryn said, her breath coming in pants. “When I ran into you…” She shook her head. “They left a cell phone in Matthew’s room with a message. They want money. They’ll kill him if…” Kathryn’s entire body trembled. “His medicine. He has to take it every day. He could die if he doesn’t.”

“We’re not gonna let that happen.” Tossing his hat onto the nearby coffee table, the foreman settled a hand on her shoulder, squeezed. “I’d best get Sheriff Boudry over here.”

“No!” Kathryn grabbed his hand, felt the familiar rougher-than-sandpaper calluses. “They’ll kill Matthew if I go to the police.” She dug the cell phone out of the pocket of her sleep shorts, and gripped it tight, the sole lifeline she had to her child. “I have to do what they say, or they’ll kill him.” She paused, her mind reeling in a hundred directions. “Devin. I have to call Devin and tell him. Call the bank.”

Reece’s concerned gaze skimmed over her face. “My advice is bring in a security expert before you do anything.” He stepped around the leather couch and headed to the wet bar. There, he opened the small refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of water and twisted off the cap.

“A security expert,” Kathryn repeated. Watching Reece walk back toward her, she struggled to control her thoughts. “Devin uses a security company in L.A., but I don’t know the name. I’ll find out.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Devin’s in Tibet, making a movie.”

“You don’t want rent-a-cops or bodyguards.” Reece set the bottle on the table next to Kathryn, then settled on the chair beside her. “You need someone who knows how to deal with kidnappers. A negotiator.”

“He’s right,” Johnny said and gave a curt nod. “I can call over to the Double Starr and talk to Clay Turner.”

“Clay?” For a crazed moment, Kathryn stared up at the foreman, wondering if he’d somehow found out about what happened between her and Clay during that long-ago summer. “No, Matthew isn’t… I lost…” She clenched her jaw. Matthew.

Reece leaned in. “Did you hear about Clay’s parents getting kidnapped in Colombia a couple of years ago?”

Kathryn nodded. Right now, she could remember only one detail. “They died. His parents died. Horribly.”

“T’wern’t that negotiator’s fault.” The foreman’s hand tightened around hers. “A lot of things went wrong then. This is now. Clay was on duty in Colombia when his parents got taken and he got shot. The state department sent in some fella who knew how to deal with kidnappers to work with Clay. He can tell you how to reach that man. Say the word, I’ll get Clay on the phone.”

Kathryn picked up the bottle, took a long, slow drink of the cold water. She wasn’t going to fall apart, wouldn’t let herself. Doing so could cost Matthew his life. She would do whatever she had to do. Deal with whomever she had to in order to get her child back. Just get him back.

Setting the bottle aside, she met Johnny’s gaze. “Find out where Clay is,” she said levelly. “I’ll go talk to him myself.”

“TRACTOR THREW A ROD,” Eddie Woodson informed Clay. “Second time this year.” His straw hat shading his eyes from the straight-up-noon sun, the young, muscled ranch hand with corn-colored hair lapping across a sunburned neck used a rag to scrub smears of grease off his stubby fingers.

Clay sent the tractor a disgusted look. “Ever wonder why equipment always breaks down when it’s in the middle of a field instead of near the work shed?”

Eddie shot Clay one of his good-natured grins. “My ma says stuff like that happens to people who have black clouds hanging over their heads.”

Thinking about his past, Clay couldn’t disagree.

Glancing down, he tested the soil with the toe of one boot. Too dry, he thought and made a note to turn on the system that irrigated this section of pasture earlier than programmed. Also on his mental to-do list was assigning a couple of the hands to start rotating cattle from pasture to pasture.

The designation of chores, the buying and selling of cattle and horses had been his province for the past two years as his uncle gradually turned over the day-to-day operation of the Double Starr to Clay. Ironic, he thought, that the work he’d had no real heart for during his youth was now his whole life.

“Guess we can also blame those black clouds on how things break down when we don’t have parts on hand to fix stuff.” Eddie jammed the rag into the back pocket of his worn jeans. “You want me to drive into Layton now and pick up what we need?”

“Yeah.” Clay adjusted the brim of his Stetson lower to shade his eyes. “I want to check Cimarron, so you can drop me at the barn,” he said, referring to a mare near her time who always had difficulty foaling.

“Doc Silver’s planning on being here for the birth, right?”

“Right.” Studying Eddie, Clay slid the fingers of one hand into the back pocket of his jeans. Because he knew all too well how a young man with a circus going on in his pants operated, he inclined his head in the kid’s direction. “I want this tractor running again today. Which means you can drop by the drugstore to rub up against that cute blond checker. What you can’t do is spend a couple of hours there.”

Eddie’s sunburned face turned even redder. “I enjoy talkin’ to Andrea, is all.”

“Nothing wrong with talking when you don’t have a tractor sitting idle.”

The sudden thunder of hooves had both men looking across their shoulder. Clay narrowed his eyes. He didn’t recognize the chestnut galloping flat-out over the rise, but he had no trouble identifying its rider.

He would know her if he’d spotted her five miles away. Kat had always looked more natural on horseback than she did on her own two feet. Still did.

As the chestnut thundered closer Clay noted Kathryn was hatless, her dark hair flying behind her as her boots pumped against the horse’s sides. Its hurtling hooves puffed clouds of dust into the still air.

Since she’d made her feelings for him clear during yesterday’s impromptu encounter, he couldn’t even guess at what had brought her riding his way, hell bent for leather.

“That looks like…” Eddie squinted, then looked at Clay. “Is that Kathryn Conner?”

“Mason. It is.” Clay noted that the kid was ogling Kathryn the same way the customers had in the café.

“Ma’s gonna drop into a dead faint when she hears I met Devin Mason’s ex.”

“Put a lid on it,” Clay ground out. Frowning, he watched Kathryn jerk the reins back so sharply the chestnut nearly skidded into the side of his pickup. Before the horse came to a full halt she slid out of the saddle, a movement as graceful as ballet. Still holding the reins, she turned his way.

And Clay’s gut tightened. Her face was pale. Tense. Lines of stress fanned from the corners of her mouth. Shadowy smudges clung beneath her eyes.

Something was wrong. Bad wrong.

“Ma’am.” Oblivious, Eddie dragged off his straw hat and stared with undisguised curiosity at the woman who’d been the talk of Layton for the past weeks. “Welcome to the Double Starr, Mrs. Mason.”

Giving Eddie a vague nod, Kathryn released her grip on the reins. While the chestnut trotted a few feet away, she kept her gaze locked with Clay’s while she clenched one hand on the cell phone clipped to the waistband of her jeans.

“I need to talk to you.” Her voice shook. “Alone.”

Clay shifted his gaze. “Eddie, go on now and run that errand.”

“Sure.” Cramming his hat back on his head, the young ranch hand walked to the pickup, swung open the door, then paused. “How you gonna get back to the barn, Clay?”

“I’ve got my cell. I’ll call one of the other hands.”

“Okay.” Eddie shot Kathryn another look of interest. “Ma’am.”