Читать книгу The Heiress and the Sheriff - Stella Bagwell - Страница 11

Gabrielle Carter gripped the steering wheel, certain the next bend in the road would bring her in view of the Double Crown Ranch. But the curve only opened up to more gentle rolling pastures shaded with huge oaks and dotted with fat, sleek cattle.

She’d never been to Texas. The massive size of the state had surprised her—along with the heat. When she’d stopped earlier in San Antonio for gas, the humidity had been oppressive. Her blouse was still glued to her back, and she didn’t have to look in a mirror to know her hair was hanging in limp strands on her shoulders.

She probably should have stayed in San Antonio long enough to rent a room and freshen up before she presented herself at the Fortune family ranch. But she’d already been traveling for nearly four days. Now that her destination was so close she was determined to drive on.

Sweat slicked her palms and her mouth was so dry she could hardly swallow, but Gabrielle knew neither condition was caused by the heat outside the closed windows of her car. She was nervous. Desperately nervous. And as the rental car traveled deeper into the countryside, her mother’s words of warning continued to roll through her mind.

I forbid you to go there, Gabrielle! Those people—that family—they’re not what you think. They’re nothing to you! You’re only going to get yourself into a lot of trouble. And when you do, don’t expect me to come after you!

Gabrielle’s sigh was drowned out by the twangs of country music on the radio. Maybe the Fortunes were nothing to her, she mused. After all, she was a total stranger who lived more than a thousand miles away. Showing up on their doorstep unannounced was probably going to look strange.

Peculiar-looking or not, though, she had to take that chance. Gabrielle tried to swallow the growing lump in her throat.

The road made another slight bend around a group of ancient oaks, and her heart suddenly raced with anticipation. In the far distance she could see a group of buildings. It had to be the Double Crown Ranch. At last! Eagerly she leaned forward and pressed harder on the accelerator. Who was she finally going to meet? What would she say—?

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?”

She swallowed as another wave of helpless fear swamped her. “I don’t know.”

His eyes, which seemed unusually light for such dark skin, narrowed with suspicion. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Surely you know where you live?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated.

Maggie Fortune said, “Wyatt, I think Gabrielle has hurt her head.”

He stepped closer, and Gabrielle had to force herself to stand her ground and endure a closer scrutiny of his unnerving gaze.

“Yes, that’s quite a cut you’ve got there. Let me grab my first aid kit.” He sprinted back to his truck and came back with the kit. “I’m no doctor, but I do know a little something about cuts and scrapes. Here’s some gauze with some antiseptic. It’ll do for now, but I definitely think you’ll have to go to the hospital.”

Maggie was grateful for his help, more grateful for the distraction from his rapid-fire questions. How come he kept looking at her like he didn’t believe she truly couldn’t remember anything? Why would she lie?

“So, Gabrielle, do you have any identification on you?”

Identification! She glanced down at her somewhat faded jeans, then quickly jammed her hands in all the pockets, searching for any scrap of paper. There was nothing. No coins or tissues or lipstick. Nothing.

She lifted shocked eyes back to his face. “No. I suppose my purse was in the car. Oh, and now it’s burnt!”

The young woman appeared to be genuinely distraught, Wyatt thought. But anyone would be after the jolt she must have taken when her car slammed into the oak. She was not a Texan. At first glance her appearance had told him that much; her voice had proved it. There was no wedding band, no rings of any sort on her fingers. In fact, the only jewelry she was wearing were slender gold hoops in her ears.

“Maggie, were the Fortunes expecting any visitors from out of state?” he asked.

The other woman shook her head at his question. “Not that I’m aware of. But then, people are always dropping in unannounced. You know that, Wyatt.”

He looked back at Gabrielle Carter. He’d been friends with the Fortune family for years, and he’d never heard the name Carter mentioned. And if he’d ever seen Gabrielle, he would have remembered. She was not a woman any man would likely forget. He was struck by her beauty, even in this disheveled state.

Her long brown hair was naturally streaked with gold from the sun. The silky strands waved about her shoulders and framed an oval face that was dominated by huge hazel-green eyes fringed with thick dark lashes. Full pink lips quivered as she glanced from him to the smoldering car. Her skin—and he could see plenty of it with the skimpy top she was wearing—was smooth and tanned to a deep golden brown. He tried not to think about the luscious curves beneath the jeans and ribbed knit blouse.

“Well, I think right now, Miss Carter, you’d better let me drive you to the hospital. We’ll deal with your identity later.”

Gabrielle stared wildly at him, then turned a helpless look on the Fortune woman. “I’m not sure I want to go to the hospital with him! I don’t know where I am! I don’t have any money—”

Wyatt held up a hand to halt her protest, while beside her the woman said gently, “Please let him take you. In my panic, I didn’t even think to call an ambulance. And don’t worry about the hospital bill, Gabrielle. The ranch’s insurance will certainly cover it. Especially with me being the cause of the accident. I really feel just awful.”

“You don’t have any choice in the matter, Miss Carter,” Wyatt Grayhawk informed her none too gently. “As sheriff, I’m required to see you get medical attention. It’s the law.”

Her heart pounded as she searched his dark, stern face. Something told her there was very little, if any, compassion behind his roughly hewn features. This man didn’t care if she was lost or terrified. In fact, the skeptical expression on his face said he’d doubted her story from the start.

“I guess there’s little else I can do then, is there?” she said quietly.

“Nothing else,” he agreed, then reached for her arm.

Gabrielle wanted to jerk away from him. But she didn’t have the strength. And he was the sheriff, she reminded herself. It wouldn’t help her cause to have him riled at her.

“Everything will be all right, Gabrielle,” the woman assured her as the three of them walked to Wyatt’s pickup.

“Wyatt will take good care of you.”

Gabrielle didn’t want to think about being under the sheriff’s care. He was harder to deal with than the pain in her head.

“Do you need a lift back to the ranch?” Wyatt asked the woman.

“No. I’m going to walk back,” she told him. “Maybe I’ll find my horse on the way. You will let us know about Gabrielle?”

“I’ll call the ranch and let you know something as soon as I can. In the meantime, you might let your father-in-law, Ryan, know what’s happened.”

“I will.” The woman waved and headed down the road in the opposite direction from the charred car.

Gabrielle suddenly felt even more lost and alone without her rescuer. At least with the Fortune woman, she’d felt she had someone on her side. With Sheriff Grayhawk she felt anything but safe.

He opened the door of the vehicle and helped Gabrielle up on the bench seat, then skirted around the hood and slid behind the wheel.

“Buckle up,” he ordered as he started the engine.

She pulled the straps of the seat belt across her lap, but her fingers were shaking so badly that she couldn’t make the two ends catch.

Suddenly two dark-brown hands were pushing her fumbling fingers aside. “Here, let me do it, or we’ll never get where we’re going,” he said gruffly.

She bit down on her lip and turned her face toward the window, but his closeness couldn’t be ignored. She could smell the faint scent of his cologne and feel the brush of his warm hands as he latched the seat belt against her.

He was a forceful man in looks and presence. And though her past was a blank, she had a feeling she’d never encountered anyone like him before.

“Thank you,” she murmured, once he’d straightened away from her and set the pickup in motion.

He didn’t acknowledge her words. Instead, he turned the pickup around and headed back toward what was left of her burned car. The flames and smoke had finally been doused, and the firemen were rolling up their hoses.

Wyatt stopped the pickup. “I’m going to talk to the firemen. I’ll be right back,” he said without glancing her way.

Through a blur of pain Gabrielle watched the tall, dark sheriff walk over to the two firemen. After a brief moment of conversation he returned to the truck.

“Is there anything left inside the car?” she asked hopefully.

“The metal is still too hot to search through the thing. I’ll come back later and see what I can find. Unless you want to tell me what all this is about right now?”

At the question, she snapped her head around, causing even more pain to crush the middle of her forehead. She frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

His brows arched and then he rubbed a hand over his face. “So, you’re still determined to play innocent with me. I thought once we got away from Maggie you might decide to come clean.”

Gabrielle realized she was in a partial state of shock from the accident, but try as she might she couldn’t unravel the strange things this man was saying to her.

“Come clean? I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned slightly toward him, her expression desperate. “Do you know who I am? If you do, why don’t you tell me?”

Her voice was rising as though she were very near to hysteria. If she was faking this whole thing she was doing a damn good job, Wyatt thought. But hell, most women were good actresses. Lying to a man came as naturally to them as breathing.

“Calm down, lady. If you’ve got a concussion, it won’t do you any good to get all excited.”

Gabrielle’s lips parted as she stared at him in stunned fascination. “Excited! How would you feel if your head was cracking and you didn’t know who you were or where you were? Oh, I’m sure a big strong man like you would take it all in stride,” she sneered. “It would probably be just another day in the life of a Texas sheriff.”

His nostrils flared as his eyes left the highway long enough to glance at her. “That ache in your head doesn’t seem to be affecting your tongue.”

She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I don’t like being accused. And you were trying to accuse me of something!”

Except for a faint lift of his brows, his features became deceptively passive. “If you don’t know who you are, how can you be certain you aren’t guilty?”

She opened her mouth to defend herself, but then a slow, sickening realization struck her. She might be a criminal. She might be anything. She just didn’t know!

“You’re right. I can’t be certain of anything,” she said wretchedly, then dropped her head in her hands.

Behind the wheel, Wyatt tried not to let the despair on her face soften him. She was a hell of a looker, but she could very well be up to no good. In his work he had to be suspicious of everyone. Personally, as a man, there was no woman he trusted. And he was doubly on his guard because of all the trouble the Fortunes had encountered lately.

“You have no idea what you were doing on the road to the Double Crown Ranch?”

Gabrielle strained to remember, but all that came to her mind was waking up with the floorboard of the car pressed against her face and the smell of gasoline choking her.

“No. The name means nothing to me.”

“Does the name Fortune register with you?”

She looked at him hopelessly. “If I’ve ever heard of it, I don’t know it now. Who are these people? Could I have been going there to do a job?”

His lips thinned to a grim line. “That’s what I’m wondering.”

The sarcasm in his voice stung her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he said bluntly. “We’ll talk about it later. After you’ve seen a doctor.”

That was fine with her. She was more than a little tired of his innuendos. The pain in her head was making her nauseated, and thinking more than ten minutes into the future was terrifying. She simply wanted to close her eyes and forget the laconic sheriff beside her. She didn’t want to be reminded of the fact that she knew nothing about Gabrielle Carter.

A few moments later, his deep voice jerked her out of her jumbled thoughts. “I wouldn’t go to sleep if I were you.”

She opened her eyes, but didn’t bother to lift her head from the back of the seat. “Why?”

“If you’ve got a concussion you shouldn’t sleep.”

“I thought you said you were no doctor.”

“I’m not. I’m just a lawman.”

Her gaze lingered on his rigid profile. “Grayhawk,” she repeated. “Is that a Native American name?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Finally he said, “My father was Cherokee.”

“And your mother?”

“White. Like you.”

Even through the haze of her pain, Gabrielle picked up a sharp bitterness in his words. She wondered why, then just as quickly told herself it didn’t matter to her if he hated white people, or women, or even her. He was just one man in a big world. Once her memory returned, Sheriff Wyatt Grayhawk would be well and truly out of her life.