The Heiress and the Sheriff

The questions in her head roared to an abrupt halt. A black horse suddenly galloped out of the trees. It wore a saddle, but there was no rider to guide its crazy trek.

Oh, Lord, it was headed straight at her car!

A scream ripped from her throat. She stomped the brake pedal and jerked the steering wheel. Instantly the car spun into a wild skid, and broken images whirled in her vision. The black horse, the green grass and trees, the blue sky all blurred together like an abstract painting.

Frantically she twisted the wheel, any second expecting to hear the sickening thud of metal against animal flesh. Miraculously, the car managed to miss the startled horse. But Gabrielle could see the massive tree coming straight at her, and too late she remembered she’d not buckled her seat belt. The impact came before she had time to brace herself. She felt her whole body being pitched forward, and then something hard slammed against her forehead.

Seconds, or minutes, could have passed before Gabrielle returned to consciousness. Hot dusty carpet was pressed against her face. Her legs were twisted awkwardly beneath the steering wheel. Pain hammered behind her eyes and burned like a torch at the back of her skull.

With great effort she pushed herself upright until she was half sitting, half kneeling in the seat. Lifting a hand to her forehead, she tried to focus on her surroundings, but her vision was so blurry she could hardly make out her own fingers.

She’d hit her head. But how? she wondered. Where was she? The pain in her head was so great she could hardly think.

All at once her fuzzy brain managed to register the sickening smell of gasoline. It was all around her, robbing her breath in the tightly closed car.

It took Gabrielle three attempts to get the door open. Once it finally swung wide, she practically fell into the hot, humid air. Outside, she leaned for long moments against the crumpled fender while everything swam around her like an out-of-control carnival ride.

Even outside the vehicle the smell of gasoline was heavy. She had to get away from the foul stench. She had to find someone—anyone—to help her.

Grass, thick and deep, tangled around her ankles as she stumbled away from the car. With each step, her shaky legs threatened to give way, but she forced herself to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

By the time she reached a narrow dirt road, her vision had cleared somewhat, but the pain in her head was still just as fierce. She touched the pads of her fingers against her forehead and felt something wet and gooey. Blood? Had she been in a car wreck? Oh, God, someone help me, she prayed.

“Are you all right?”

The faint sound of a female voice penetrated Gabrielle’s terror, and she turned toward the sound. A petite, dark-haired woman was running toward her. She was panting heavily, and her dark eyes were glazed with fear.

“Who—are you? What happened to me?”

The woman stepped forward and took Gabrielle by the arm. “I’m Maggie Perez Fortune. Here, let me help you get to some shade. My horse bolted away from me and ran right in front of your car. You swerved to miss him and then your car went out of control.”

“My car?” she repeated vaguely.

Maggie Fortune motioned behind them. Gabrielle glanced over her shoulder just in time to see a car burst into giant flames.

“Oh, no!” she gasped.

“Oh, God!” Maggie cried. “I’ve got to call for help!”

The woman helped Gabrielle to the closest tree, where she sank to the ground and leaned weakly against the trunk. She watched the dark-haired woman punch numbers on a cell phone. Where was this place? Gabrielle wondered. She felt so lost, so totally blank.

Though her vision had cleared somewhat, everything was still blurred at the edges. She was obviously out in the countryside somewhere. The grass was green and long—a meadow. And the air was heavy and hot. Very hot.

She glanced back at the burning car. It was totally engulfed in fire now, the flames licking high enough to scorch the overhanging branches of the tree she’d crashed into.

Where had she been going? Where had she come from?

The questions made her head ache even worse, and she dropped her face in her hands and tried to calm the fear that was threatening to consume her.

Her name was Gabrielle Carter. She knew that much. Surely the rest would come to her when the pounding in her head stopped.

She didn’t know if she dozed or fainted, but some time later, the sound of Maggie’s voice roused her.

“Help should be here very soon.” Kneeling down beside her, the woman pulled a white handkerchief from her jeans pocket and dabbed away the blood on Gabrielle’s forehead.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“I don’t think so. My head hurts so badly I can’t think. Where am I?”

The woman’s lovely features, which looked to be part Mexican, crumpled into a frown. “You mean, you don’t know?”

Gabrielle shook her head. “I’m sorry. I—don’t. I have no idea where I am or where I’ve come from.”

“You’re on the Double Crown Ranch, in Texas. You don’t remember driving out here?”

She didn’t remember anything! The state of Texas meant nothing to her. Her mind was black, and she was terrified.

“No! Oh, God, what am I going to do?”

The woman gently took her hand and squeezed it.

“Please don’t worry. It will all come back to you, I’m sure.”

She had barely spoken the words when the sound of a siren wailed in the distance. Gabrielle watched with hopeless despair as a fire engine pulled to a stop near the burning car. Two firemen quickly spilled out of the cab, and in a matter of seconds they were dousing the flames with a high-pressure hose hooked up to a water tank.

“Here comes the sheriff,” Maggie said, sounding relieved.

Gabrielle looked away from her charred car to see a pickup—sheriff’s emblem emblazoned on the side door—roaring up the road. The vehicle pulled to a jarring stop a few yards from where she and Maggie stood in the shade.

A man wearing blue jeans, a white shirt and a black cowboy hat stepped down from the truck and approached them with long, purposeful strides. He was tall, with long muscular legs that strained against his jeans. His white shirt covered a broad expanse of strong shoulders, and his torso narrowed down to a flat waist and lean hips. Beneath the wide brim of his hat, his features were sharp and angular with high cheekbones and very dark skin. What little Gabrielle could see of his hair was black and cropped close to his head. She thought he looked Native American or Mexican—she wasn’t sure which. But she was certain of one thing. She’d never seen a more striking man. No woman could forget a man who looked like this Texas sheriff.

Without smiling, he nodded briefly at Maggie as though he knew her, then turned his attention immediately to Gabrielle. “I’m Sheriff Wyatt Grayhawk,” he informed her. “Can you tell me what happened?”

She felt, more than saw, his hazel-green eyes shrewdly sizing her up, and for an instant a flash of resentment joined the throbbing in her head. Couldn’t he see she was hurt? Wasn’t her physical well-being more important than the details of the accident?

“No. I didn’t know what had happened until Ms. Fortune came along and told me.”

He looked at the other woman. “You saw the accident?”

“I’m afraid I was the cause of it, Wyatt. I’d been riding down by the creek and had gotten off to rest and water my horse. I didn’t see the snake until it struck at him. He jerked away from me and ran off in a mad gallop across the field, and right in front of Gabrielle’s car. When she swerved to miss it, the car went into a spin and crashed into a tree. By the time I finally made it up here, she’d gotten out of the car and was wandering down the road.”

The sheriff looked back at her, and Gabrielle felt the hair on the back of her neck rise as though a thunderstorm was mixing in the air.

“Your name is Gabrielle?”

His voice was low, rough and timbered with a Texas drawl. She resisted the urge to shiver. “Gabrielle Carter.”

“Where are you from, Gabrielle?”