“It’s okay now, Bogie.” She stroked his now steaming neck to reassure him.
The big roan slowed as they neared the stable. A few ranch hands working in the corral and between outbuildings stopped to watch.
Bogie jarred to a stop at the stable gate, breathing heavily and sporting a gleam of sweat.
“Are you all right?” Marko asked, leaving the yearling he’d been working with in the training pen and running toward her.
“Call the sheriff! Someone just shot at me.” She dismounted and reached up to pet Bogie’s head. Eyes still wide and nostrils flared, he looked her way and calmed some. “It’s okay, Bogie.”
The groom pulled out his mobile phone and made the call.
Skylar let her forehead fall against the horse’s neck, her own heart beginning to ease its frantic pace. “Thank you, Bogie.” If not for him, she would have been shot and likely killed. If that man was willing to shoot at her, he must have been up to something terrible, something he meant to hide. And if he thought she could expose him, would he keep coming after her? Surely he wouldn’t chase her all the way here and risk being seen. Still, she’d be looking over her shoulder until the man was caught.
Hearing a pickup, she moved back and saw that her brother Cal had just arrived. He had flown out with his new wife, Jaslene, for a family visit—something he had been doing more often now. Jaslene stepped out of the passenger seat, along with someone else from the back of the king cab that Skylar didn’t recognize.
“Working the horses extra today?” Cal quipped as he got out and stepped around the truck. He must have noticed her expression and sobered. “What happened?”
Her heart still slammed in her chest. “Someone shot at me when I went on a fence-check ride.” She gathered Bogie’s reins to hand him over to Marko.
Cal searched around as Jaslene came to stand next him. The stranger stood to his left.
“Shot at you? Why?” Cal demanded as Jaslene said at the same time, “Oh my gosh, are you okay?”
“I saw him digging just on the other side of our fence. There was something rolled up in black plastic on the ground,” she said. “It looked like a body.”
Cal turned to look at the stranger beside him. “I’d say we should search the property, but the gunman is probably long gone by now.”
“If it’s a body, he’ll have to load it back into his car,” Skylar said. “He left it there when he chased me.” He also hadn’t chased her long. “He probably has a ten-minute head start, fifteen by the time we get there in a vehicle.”
“That’s enough time for him to get away,” Cal said.
“The sheriff should be on his way by now,” Skylar said, looking at the groom, who nodded.
The stranger looked at her. Despite what she’d just been through, she couldn’t help but return his studying glance. He was a tall glass of sweet tea, with thick, dark, sandy-blond hair and Caribbean-blue eyes. Fit and muscular, he wore dark slacks with a blue-and-white print dress shirt and a black tie. He was clean-cut and citified, not the type that normally caught her eye. But there was something about him that kept her attention. Maybe it was his direct way of looking back at her. Or his unreadability. Probably both, along with the way he moved, unhurried and with a slight sway of his masculine shoulders.
“Julien LaCroix.” The handsome man held out his hand to her. “Are you all right?”
He almost made everything all right just by looking at him, she thought to herself. “Yes.”
“This is an old friend from my time as a Texas Ranger,” Cal said, nodding at Julien. “He’s a coworker of mine now.”
“And you never told me about him?” Skylar turned to her brother, who worked as a P.I. at Dark Alley Investigations.
Cal had drifted away from the family for a while; she supposed his meeting and marrying Jaslene had had a lot to do with that. Cal had helped her solve her friend’s murder and, during the course of the investigation, they had fallen in love.
The sheriff’s Jeep appeared on the property and came to a stop near them. Skylar felt a wave of relief, just the sight of law enforcement giving her a sense of safety.
“I’ll take care of Bogie,” Marko said.
“He needs extra care after what we just went through,” she said, handing him the reins.
“I love taking care of this one.” The groom petted Bogie’s muscular neck and led him off toward the stable.
The sheriff, a big man with a big girth, took lumbering strides as he walked toward them.
“I’m Sheriff McKenzie. Someone called in a shooting?” he said.
Skylar explained in as much detail as she could what had happened.
“I’ll take a drive out there to see what I can find. Can you tell me where?”
“I can show you,” Skylar said.
“We’ll go with you.” Cal motioned to Julien. “I’ll drive.”
“If we see anything like that gunman still out there, stay back,” the sheriff warned, pulling down his cowboy hat.
Jaslene followed Cal and Julien to the truck. “Don’t even try to get me to stay here.” She got into the front passenger seat and Skylar hopped in beside Julien in the back of the cab.
“Where to?” Cal asked.
Skylar told him and the sheriff followed behind. They rode down the long driveway leading from the ranch buildings to the two-lane highway. After passing the driveway to Skylar’s house—which was also on the ranch property—she told Julien to take a right onto a dirt road that followed the River Rock Ranch fence. A few minutes later, she told Cal to stop when they reached the spot where she’d seen the gunman. But now the car and the rolled black plastic were both gone. That came as no surprise
