Her Texas Lawman

Alida, the young maid, quietly served each man a mug full of coffee then discreetly left the room. Once she was out of sight, Matt scooted to the edge of the seat and pinned Ripp with an insistent stare.

“All right, Ripp, what’s the real story here? I can see it on your face. Something else was going on with Luci tonight, wasn’t it?”

Ripp’s dark brows slowly inched upward. “What do you mean? Your sister had a wreck. It happens to a lot of people—unfortunately every day of the year.”

“Damn it, man, that’s not what I mean! What did she tell you caused it? My sister isn’t irresponsible. On top of that, she’s a careful driver. She wouldn’t have been speeding just because she wanted to go fast. Luci would be too worried about hurting someone else on the highway to do such a thing. She’s that sort of person.”

Ripp took a sip of the rich, Colombian coffee as he met Matt’s gaze with a frank look. “Your sister said someone was tailgating her—trying to hit her from behind. She said she sped up in an attempt to get away from the other vehicle. After that, a hog ran in front of her and she tried to avoid hitting it. That’s when she lost control of the car.”

As Ripp talked he could see his friend’s expression grow harder and harder. Strange, he thought, that Matt hadn’t responded with disbelief.

“What about the other car?” Matt asked.

Ripp shrugged. “If there was another car it apparently went on down the highway.”

“And didn’t bother to see if anyone had been hurt? Doesn’t that seem a bit strange?”

Actually, Lucita’s Sanchez’s whole rendition of the accident had seemed outlandish to Ripp, but in his line of work he’d seen stranger things happen out on the roads and highways. “Only a little, Matt. Lots of people don’t want to get involved with accidents.”

“Fender benders maybe. But from what you tell me this was a crash! Someone could have been dead!”

Ripp took another sip of coffee as he measured his friend’s strong reaction. He tried to make his next question as casual sounding as he could. “Do you believe someone was actually trying to run your sister off the road?”

“Damn right, I believe it,” Matt snapped. “If she said it, then it happened. Luci doesn’t lie.”

Trying to keep an open mind about the whole thing, Ripp said, “All right, Matt, if you say so, I believe you. So I’m asking as a lawman, is there some reason you believe Lucita was attacked?”

Lucita’s brother stared down into his mug. “Not exactly,” he said quietly.

“That’s funny,” Ripp replied. “I got the impression that you weren’t too surprised to hear about Lucita’s claims. And she tells me she believes someone has been stalking her.”

With a tight grimace, Matt lifted his gaze up to Ripp’s. “Look, Ripp, my sister…” His words trailing away, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one else had entered the room. “She’s had a rough time of things for a few years now. I don’t want to say a lot about it, because frankly, she’s not wild about everyone knowing what went on between her and that bastard of a husband she used to have.”

Used to have. Crazy, how Ripp’s mind had latched onto those three words. “Your sister is divorced?”

Matt nodded. “Yeah. And I thank God she is. He was a loser and—”

“And what?” Ripp prompted, realizing he wanted to know more about the lovely woman who’d fallen briefly into his arms. She’d felt soft and fragile and her hair had smelled like the flowers that had grown in his mother’s garden. He knew his reaction to her was sappy, even foolish, but it was there and he couldn’t stop it.

“Well, nobody knows where he is,” Matt went on. “He disappeared.”

Frowning, Ripp tried to understand what significance that had on Lucita’s car accident. “Hell, Matt, that’s not so unusual. Especially if he had to pay alimony.”

Matt’s expression was suddenly thunderous. “It’s not alimony I’m talking about—they have a son. Marti thinks his father hates him. That’s hell for an eleven-year-old boy.”

Lucita had a son. He figured something like that while they’d been on the porch and she’d mentioned the name Marti. But she was divorced. That snippet of information put everything in a different light. A light that he needed to switch off, he quickly reminded himself.

“Has her ex ever stalked her before?”

Matt shook his head. “No. Not that I know of.”

“What about threats or anything like that?” Ripp persisted. If there was even the slightest chance that Lucita Sanchez was in danger, he wanted to know about it.

More thoughtful now than angry, Matt said, “No, Lucita has never mentioned anything like that. In fact, I’m sure she hasn’t heard from him since he left.”

“Well, this whole thing could have just been an accident, Matt. There’re some pretty foolish drivers out there on the road. They might not have realized just how close they were to your sister. In any case, I wouldn’t worry myself about it.”

He drained the last of his coffee and placed the mug on a nearby end table. “I’d better be going, Matt. I left Lijah dealing with the fence your sister plowed up. He might need help.”

Ripp started toward the foyer and Matt followed. At the door, the rancher slapped a grateful hand on his shoulder.

“Thanks for bringing Lucita home, Ripp. We’ll see that she’s taken care of.”

Nodding, Ripp said, “A tow truck will take her car into Santee’s. After the sheriff’s department finishes its investigation, Lucita’s insurance company can find it there.” He grimaced as he glanced back at his friend. “Sorry, Matt, but I had to give her a citation. Without proof of the other car I couldn’t do anything else.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to do anything else,” Matt said, and then with a worried shake of his head, added, “I just hope nothing else happens and that it really was only some nutty driver on the road.”

“Yeah. Me, too,” Ripp agreed.

Realizing he’d already stayed longer than he should have, Ripp gave Matt a final farewell and left the house. But as he drove away, his gaze drifted one last time to the scattered lights beaming through the windows of the Sanchez home. A part of him wished he could have seen Lucita before he’d left. Just to make sure she was okay.

Forget her, McCleod. You don’t want another woman in your life. Especially a gorgeous heiress with problems as big as her bank account. That sort of trouble you don’t need.

Ripp was agreeing with the little voice in his head and trying to push her pretty face from his mind when Lijah’s voice suddenly came across the radio.

“Hey, number two. You close to your radio?”

Sighing with unexplained weariness, Ripp picked up the mike. “Yeah. I’m here, Lijah. What’s up? You didn’t let those bulls get out, did you?”

“Forget the fence. Done got it patched. I’ve been measuring those skid marks like you told me, but I’ve run into a little problem.”

Ripp frowned. Lijah wasn’t always the smartest deputy on the crew, but Ripp loved him like a brother and tried to be patient with his sometimes-thick head. “What sort of problem?”

“There’re two sets of skid marks here, Ripp.”

Ripp’s mind whirled as he tried to recall the marks he’d inspected from inside his truck as he’d driven up to the scene of the accident. He’d not taken the time to stop and walk the whole distance of the tire tracks. At that time it had been more important to make sure the occupants of the car were okay. Apparently Lijah had found something to corroborate Lucita’s story. “Two? Take a closer look, Lijah. You got your glasses on?”

“Dang it, Ripp, you know I don’t come to work without my glasses! I see two sets of skid marks. They’re almost on top of each other. You’d better come look for yourself.”

A cold, sinking feeling dropped to the pit of Ripp’s stomach. This was evidence that another car had been following Lucita closely. But did it mean that someone had been trying to harm her? He couldn’t answer that with one hundred percent certainty until he investigated more. And that was something he thoroughly intended to do.

“Lay out some barriers, Lijah. I don’t want another car to drive over that section of highway before I get a good look. I’ll be right there.”

Chapter Three

Long before daylight the next morning, Ripp was sitting at his kitchen table wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and sipping his first cup of coffee. Outside, down the dirt road that ran past his property, a rooster was crowing and somewhere nearby he could hear Chester, his black Labrador, barking, probably at an armadillo that was determined to dig up the last of the potatoes in the vegetable garden.

Ripp had moved into the small, shotgun-style house five years ago, after his father, Owen McCleod, had lost a long battle with lung disease. The family farm, where Ripp and his older brother, Mac, had once helped their father raise corn and cotton, had held too many painful memories for both men. They’d sold the place and used most of the money to settle up the enormous medical bills that had piled up while their father fought to stay alive. As for their mother, Frankie, she’d left the family farm long ago, when her sons had been mere children of eight and ten years old. Neither Ripp nor his brother ever heard from the woman and both of them preferred it that way. She’d chosen another man over her husband and sons and neither of them had any use for her.