Читать книгу Rancher's Redemption - Beth Cornelison - Страница 8

Chapter 2

Clay climbed the side of the ravine in three long strides and jerked his Stetson from his head. “What are you doing here, Tamara?”

His ex-wife raised her chin a notch and flashed a stiff smile. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to talk to today, but…I have questions I have to ask. About the crime scene.”

An odd déjà vu washed over him as he stared at her. She looked just as beautiful as the woman he’d married, fought with, made love to, and yet…she’d changed, too. Her cheeks and jaw were thinner, more angular. She’d grown her hair longer, the honey-blond shade sporting fewer highlights from the sun, and a hint of makeup shaded her blue eyes and sculpted cheekbones—a vanity she’d never bothered with when she worked beside him on the ranch.

He stood there, so absorbed by the shock of her presence and her beauty that it took a moment for her comment to sink in.

She had questions about the crime scene. Not questions about how he’d been, about their divorce, about the five years that had passed since they’d last seen each other, sitting at opposite ends of a table like two strangers in her lawyer’s office.

He blinked. Scowled. “You’re here with the CSI team from San Antonio.”

The instant the words left his mouth, Clay kicked himself mentally. Brilliant deduction, Captain Obvious.

Tamara gave him a patient grin, apparently knowing she’d surprised him and cutting him some slack. If she were rattled by their meeting, she didn’t show it. But she’d had time to prepare.

“I’ve been with the department in San Antonio since I finished my forensics training. Jericho—” She paused and lifted a hand. “That is, Sheriff Yates—called us out to sweep the scene. I need to ask you a few things. This a good time?”

Clay drew a deep breath, swiped perspiration from his forehead with his arm and jammed his hat back on his head. “Sure. Shoot.”

Tamara pulled a small notepad from the pocket of her black jeans and wet her lips.

Clay’s gaze gravitated to her mouth and froze on the hint of moisture shimmering in the sunlight. Heat that had nothing to do with the summer day flashed through his blood.

A picture of Tamara from high school flickered in his mind’s eye. Sitting on a corral fence rail at the rodeo where his mother had been riding. Her silky hair tucked behind her ears. Her blue eyes shining at him. Pure joy glowing in her face. He’d captured her cheeks between his hands and leaned in to steal his first kiss from her. She’d been startled at first. But soon after, her smile had widened, and she’d returned his kiss in kind. The first of thousands of sultry kisses they’d shared.

Yet now, gawking at her mouth like a schoolboy, he felt as awkward and uncertain as he had that day at the rodeo. But she wouldn’t welcome a kiss today the way she had back then. He’d lost the right to kiss Tamara years ago.

Warmth flared in her eyes before she averted her gaze and cleared her throat. “When was the last time you were out on this corner of the ranch?”

Clay shook himself from the unproductive nostalgia and focused on her question. “Earlier this week. Maybe Monday. I ride the perimeter to check fences and survey the property every few days. You know that.”

She stopped scribbling on her pad and gave him a penetrating glance. “Assume I know nothing and answer the questions as honestly and completely as you can.”

Gritting his teeth, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Have you disturbed anything on the scene from the way you found it?”

He shifted his weight and cocked his head, studying the pink flush of heat on her cheeks. She never could take much sun on her porcelain skin without burning. “I opened the car’s trunk. One finger on the edge of the hood. I already told Jericho all of this.” He hesitated. “You want to wear my hat until you finish out here? Your face is starting to burn.”

She snapped a startled blue gaze up to meet his. “I—No. I’ll be fine.” She furrowed her brow as she studied her notes, clearly ruffled by his offer. “Um… You didn’t touch the car otherwise?”

“No.”

After several more minutes of her rapid-fire questions, he turned and strolled over to where Crockett waited patiently. Flipping open the saddle pouch across Crockett’s hind quarters, Clay dug out the small tube of sunscreen he carried with him but rarely used.

Tamara followed him over to Crockett and reached up to stroke the gelding’s nose. “Hey, Davy Crockett. How ya doin’, boy?”

Crockett snuffled and bumped Tamara’s hand as if he remembered her.

Still patting his horse, she asked, “Do you have any knowledge of who might have left the car here?”

“No.” Clay uncapped the sunscreen and squeezed a dab on his thumb.

She consulted her notes again. “Do you have any idea where the money came from?”

“No, I don’t.” He stepped closer to Tamara, close enough to smell the delicate herbal scent of her shampoo, and she raised her gaze.

“When did you first find the—”

He reached for her, smearing the dab of sunscreen on her nose.

She caught her breath and stumbled back a step. “What are you doing?”

“Sunscreen. You’re burning.”

She grunted and gave him a perturbed glower. “Clay, I don’t—”

He reached toward her again, and she backed away another step. With a resigned sigh, she rubbed the dab of cream over her nose and cheeks, then wiped her fingers on her jeans. “There! Okay? Now I have a job to do. Will you please just answer the questions?”

He tucked the sunscreen back in his saddle pouch. “Is all this really necessary? I’ve already told Jericho everything I know.”

Her shoulders sagged with impatience and a hint of chagrin. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t necessary.”

She may have been referring to her job duties, but the underlying truth of her statement hit him like a slap in the face. Nothing had changed. Tamara wanted no part of him and his lifestyle.

He braced his hands on his hips and kicked a clod of dirt. “You’ve made that pretty clear.”

Tamara closed her eyes and released a slow breath. “Clay…”

“Forget it. Just ask your questions, Officer Colton.” He glanced at her name badge and another jab stabbed his gut. “Sorry, Officer Brown. You went back to your maiden name, huh?”

“Clay…” She studied her notepad as if it held the secrets of the universe, and the silence between them reverberated with a hundred unspoken words and years of regret.

Finally Clay took his work gloves from his back pocket and slapped them on his leg. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your job.” He turned and stuffed the gloves in his saddle pouch.

Tamara didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

Clay took a sip of water from his canteen. Hesitated. “I’m happy for you, Tamara. Glad to see you’ve accomplished what you wanted.”

When she glanced up at last, suspicious moisture glinted in her eyes. But she quickly schooled her face and sucked in a deep breath.

“I—” She stopped herself. Glanced away. Flipped her notepad closed. “I’d better get back to work.”

As she started back across the dry field toward the abandoned Taurus, Clay watched her long-legged strides, the graceful sway of her hips, the shimmer of sunlight on her golden hair. His chest tightened with an emotion he dared not name. Admitting he’d missed his ex-wife served no purpose, helped no one.

Giving Crockett a pat on the neck, he grabbed the reins and planted a foot in a stirrup. And hesitated.

He angled his gaze toward the scene where Jericho and his deputy stood while Tamara’s team combed the area. Tamara pulled her hair back into a rubber band then tugged on a pair of latex gloves. Curiosity got the better of Clay.

He gave the gelding’s neck another stroke. “Sorry, Crockett. I think I’ll wait a bit before heading back to the stables.”

Shoving his Stetson more firmly in place, Clay headed over to the stand of mesquite trees to watch his ex-wife work.

Tamara took out an evidence bag and tried to steady her breathing. She’d known returning to the Bar None and seeing Clay again would be difficult. But nothing had prepared her for the impact his espresso-brown eyes still had on her.

While working in Clay’s stables early in their marriage, she’d been kicked by a mare that was spooked by a wasp. The powerful jolt of that mare’s hoof had nothing on the punch in the gut when she’d met the seductive lure of Clay’s bedroom eyes today. How could she have forgotten the way his dark gaze made her go weak in the knees?

Nothing about Clay had changed, from his mussed, raven hair that always seemed in need of a trim to the muscular body he’d earned riding horses and doing the hard work ranching required. He still wore the same dusty, white Stetson she’d given him their first Christmas together, and he radiated a strength and confidence that hummed with sex appeal.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, hoping to calm the buzz of bees swarming inside her. When she drew a deep breath for composure, she smelled the sunscreen he’d smeared on her nose, and a fresh ripple of nervous energy sluiced over her. A full day in the sun couldn’t have burned her more than the heat of his touch when he’d dabbed the cream on her. She had far too many memories of his callused hands working their magic on her not to be affected by even such casual contact.

Her heart contracted with longing. No one had ever held such a powerful sway over her senses as Clay had. Not one of the men she’d dated since her divorce from Clay could hold a candle to the fiery attraction she felt for her first love. Her cowboy lover. The man she’d thought she’d grow old with.

Tamara sighed. She had to focus, get a grip. Emotion had no place in crime scene investigation, and she had work to do. She stepped over to where the team photographer was clicking shots of the Taurus’s trunk. “You finished up front, Pete?”

“Yep. All yours. Do your thing.”

Tamara pulled out her notepad and circled to the front of the stolen sedan. She noted a small scrape on the side panel and called it to Pete’s attention.

“Saw it. Got it,” the photographer called back to her.

Tamara moved on. She scoured the ground, the hood, the windshield, the roof and the driver’s side before she opened the car door to case the interior with the same careful scrutiny. Any scratch, stain, dent, hair or foreign object had the potential of being the clue that cracked the case. Nothing was overlooked or dismissed.

As she collected a sample of fibers from the carpet, she heard a familiar bass voice and glanced toward the perimeter of the scene where Jericho Yates and his deputy stood observing.

Clay had joined his friend and was watching her work with a keen, unnerving gaze. Tamara’s pulse scrambled, and she jerked her attention back to the carpet fibers. Sheriff Yates made another quiet comment, and Clay answered, his deep timbre as smooth and rich as dark chocolate. Tamara remembered the sound of Clay’s low voice stroking her as he murmured sexy promises while they made love. Just the silky bass thrum could turn her insides to mush.

Her hand shook as she bagged the fibers and moved on to pluck an auburn hair from the passenger’s seat. She huffed her frustration with herself. She had to regain control, forget Clay was watching her and get back to business. She closed her eyes and steeled her nerves, steadying her hands and forcing thoughts of Clay from her mind.

“What you got?” said Eric Forsyth, her superior in the CSI lab, as he bent at the waist to peer through the open driver’s door.

Tamara bagged the hair and labeled it. “Not much. I’ve never seen such a clean car. It’s odd.”

Eric shrugged. “Not surprising. It’s a rental car. A company typically washes and vacuums the cars after every customer.”

“That’s not what I mean. I’m not finding fingerprints or stray threads. No footprints or tire tracks around the car. Not much of anything.”

Eric scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “What’s more, anything we do find is gonna be hard to pin to whatever happened here. God knows how many people have been in this car in the past month.” He motioned to the bag in her hand. “That hair could belong to a schoolteacher from Dallas who rented the car two weeks ago.”

Tamara sighed. “Exactly why it doesn’t feel right. Even with the rental agency’s regular maintenance, we should be finding at least traces of evidence. I think someone wiped the scene.”

“You’re sure?” Her boss adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses.

“The evidence—or lack of evidence—seems to point that way.” She frowned. “Which tells me something bad happened here. Something someone doesn’t want anyone to know about.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time. Well, keep looking. Maybe whoever wiped the scene missed something.”

Tamara nodded. “Got it.”

Clay tensed as the lanky man with glasses who’d been speaking with Tamara walked up to Jericho and shrugged. “My team isn’t getting much for you to build a case on, Sheriff. In fact, our professional opinion is the scene has been wiped clean.”

Jericho furrowed his brow and stroked his mustache. “Nothing?”

Clay turned his attention back to Tamara as he listened to the exchange between the crime scene investigator and the sheriff.

“Well, we found a partial print on the trunk. A hair on the front seat. A scratch on the front fender—but it looks old. There’s already a little rust formed.”

“No signs of foul play or a struggle?” Jericho asked.

“Not yet. But we’re still looking.”

Clay watched Tamara comb the Taurus with a calm, methodical gaze. She moved like a cat, her movements graceful, strong and certain as she inched through the interior, pausing long enough to bag tiny bits of God-knows-what and securing the evidence. Her professionalism and confidence as she processed the scene was awe-inspiring.

He remembered her awkwardness during her first weeks on the ranch as she learned to use the equipment and handle the horses. Though she soon picked up the finer points of ranching—he didn’t know of much Tamara couldn’t do once she set her mind to it—she’d never had the passion for the daily workings of the Bar None that he’d hoped.

Today, as she scoured the stolen car, her love for her job was obvious. She had been flustered when she questioned him, but seeing her again after five years had thrown him, too. Despite the awkwardness, she’d rallied and fired her questions at him like a pro.

“I did an initial survey of the area and didn’t find much either,” Rawlings said.

“Have you found anything that’d tell us what happened to the driver? Tracks of a second car for a getaway? Footprints leaving the scene? The fact that the money is still here bothers me.” Jericho shook his head. “Who’d leave that much money behind unprotected?”

The crime scene investigator with the wire-rimmed glasses gave Clay a wary look then glanced to Jericho. “Good point. And, no. No footprints or tire tracks.”

“It’s been too dry,” Clay volunteered. “Only rain we’ve had in weeks was a couple nights ago. A squall passed through. Hard and short. Any surface impressions that might have been left in the dust would have been washed away.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” the investigator asked, sending Clay a skeptical frown.

Clay offered his hand, choosing to ignore the man’s churlish tone. “Clay Colton. You’re on my ranch. I found the car. Reported it.”

The man shook his hand. “Eric Forsyth. San Antonio CSI. I believe you already met my assistant, Tamara Brown?”

“Yep. Met, married and divorced.” He gave the man a level stare. “She’s my ex.”

Forsyth arched an eyebrow. “Oh? She failed to mention that.”

Clay quickly squashed the disappointment that plucked him. Apparently she’d cut him cleanly out of her new life. Setting his jaw, he angled his gaze to watch Tamara again. She was giving the driver’s door a thorough go over, her jeans hugging her fanny as she squatted to study the contents of the map pocket. “She had no reason to mention it. It has no bearing on anything related to this case.”

“We’ll see about that.” Forsyth turned to the sheriff, effectively dismissing Clay.

Clay ground his teeth and did his best to ignore the affront.

“Colton is right,” Sheriff Yates said. “About the dry weather and the brief rain on Tuesday night. Whatever slight impressions might have been around before that storm were almost certainly lost to the rain.”

Forsyth crossed his arms over his chest and grunted. “Yeah. There’s a puddle of water in the trunk with the money. If the hood of the trunk was ajar, we can assume it’s rainwater that leaked in.”

“Which helps establish a time frame. If the car sat out here in the rain, we’re looking at events that happened before Tuesday night.” Jericho rubbed his jaw as he thought. “The car was reported missing Wednesday morning when the first shift arrived at the rental place and checked the inventory.”

“I’ll call the rental agency and ask them to send copies of the images from their security cameras for Tuesday. Maybe the theft was caught on tape,” Deputy Rawlings said.

“Good thinking,” Jericho said.

“You oughta talk to my neighbor, Samuel Hawkins, too.” Clay crossed his arms over his chest as he spoke to Rawlings. “He came out here Tuesday evening to investigate a commotion he’d heard and found one of his longhorns tangled in that fence I was working on.”

“Could the commotion have been something besides the steer?” Rawlings asked.

Clay shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him.”

“Why didn’t your neighbor see the car when he was out here?” Forsyth asked.

“It gets mighty dark out here at night.” Clay poked his thumbs in his back pockets and shifted his attention from his ex-wife’s sultry curves and confident investigative technique to Eric Forsyth.

“The moon would have been behind the clouds, making it even blacker. He was on the lower side of that ravine—” Clay hitched his chin toward the steep drop-off a few hundred yards away “—with his hands full, tending an injured and agitated longhorn. Not surprising he didn’t notice anything.”

The crime scene investigator narrowed his eyes on Clay, but before he could reply, Tamara called out.

“Eric! Sheriff! I found something.”

Clay whipped his gaze back to his ex. She lay on her back studying the underside of the driver’s door.

Jericho, Rawlings and Forsyth all trotted closer to the abandoned vehicle. Clay hesitated only a moment before ducking under the crime scene tape and following.

“What do you have?” Forsyth asked, squatting beside Tamara.

“Hand me a swab.” She extended her hand and wiggled her fingers.

Forsyth fished a clean cotton swab from the toolbox-like kit on the ground a few feet away and handed it to Tamara. With meticulous focus on her task, Tamara swiped a spot on the door. After rolling out from under the door and sitting up, she held the swab up to the sunlight and squinted closely at the sample she’d gathered.

“That’s what I thought,” she murmured, then tipped her head back to meet the expectant gazes of the men circled around her. “Our first sign of foul play, gentlemen. This is blood.”