Chapter 18
It took hours before the crime scene techs finished gathering evidence.
Dillon was emotionally and physically drained, but at the same time, she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Her palms and knees throbbed from the dozens of cuts.
She stood in the doorway and looked at the kitchen.
She was shocked to see that it looked like a war zone.
The window over the sink was mostly gone, and several cabinets had holes in them.
One cabinet door hung by a single hinge, its contents spilling out onto the counter.
“I’ll call the glass company first thing in the morning,” Emmett told her.
Dillon squeezed her eyes closed for a moment. She couldn’t believe that the night had started out like so many, yet had ended with her nearly being killed. How many more chances would she have before her luck ran out, and her life was forfeit?
Cal came up beside her. He’d walked through the first floor of the house half a dozen times, looking at windows and checking to make sure they were locked. “You shouldn’t stay here tonight.”
“It’s my home,” she stated.
Emmett sighed. “He’s right. It isn’t safe.”
“No place is safe for me,” she told them.
Freddy paused in his sweeping of the glass. “You can sleep in the bunkhouse with us.”
“Now that’s an idea,” Emmett said, his face brightening.
She turned her head to the ranch manager. “I’m not leaving my house.”
“My idea was to have someone here with you.” Emmett then looked at Cal.
Cal’s gaze moved from Emmett to her before he shrugged. “I agree that you shouldn’t be alone. Whether you’re at the bunkhouse or here, someone needs to stay with you.”
Dillon wanted to appear unaffected by the night’s events, but she wasn’t. The truth was, she didn’t want to be alone. She was relieved by the idea that Cal would be sleeping in the house. “Okay.”
“Now, Dillon, don’t be—” Emmett halted, confusion on his face. “Did you just agree?”
“I’m not an idiot,” Dillon told them.
Cal walked to Freddy. “We’ll hurry and finish this so you can get some rest.”
The two worked together and did their best to get the glass off the floor and counters. Emmett left, only to return a short time later with a piece of plywood cut to fit the busted window. Once that was in place to keep the mosquitos out and as much of the cool air in, Emmett and Freddy left.
When they were alone, Cal turned to Dillon. “Is there anything you need?”
“You mean besides stopping the lunatic trying to kill me? No, I’m good.”
“We will find who it is.”
She forced a smile. “There are three spare bedrooms upstairs. Take your pick.”
“I’ll sleep on the couch.”
Dillon frowned and looked at the sofa. “While it’s fairly comfortable, I wouldn’t advise it when there are beds.”
“I’m sleeping down here because I want to hear if anyone tries to get into the house.”
“Ah. All right. Let me get you a pillow and a blanket, at least.”
Dillon made her way up the stairs to the linen closet in the hallway. She grabbed what she needed and went back down. Cal was waiting for her. They worked together to get the sofa made into a makeshift bed.
Once it was complete, she straightened and looked at him. “Thank you. For everything.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do. I don’t know what’s going on, or why someone wants to kill me for the ranch. That can be the only reason. There’s no other motive. But as pretty as I think Bar 4 is, I don’t know that it’s enough to kill for.”
Cal’s gray eyes held hers. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this. I promise you that. And we’re going to begin tomorrow.”
“Where do you suggest we start?”
“We have several options. Since I’m tied to all of this, we could start with Isaac Gomez, but I don’t think we should.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Why not?”
“He’s friends with Hank. You mentioned tonight that the sheriff and Hank are friendly, as well. If there’s even a chance the three of them are in on this in any way, they’ll prevent us from discovering the truth.”
Dillon stretched her neck one way and then the other as a stress headache began to build at the base of her neck.
“Hank is connected to everyone in the county. And anyone in seats of power make it their business to call Hank a friend. Money and power seem to go hand in hand. Dolly once said something about the ties between some of those in power going back decades.”
“I don’t trust the sheriff. It may be nothing, but I’d rather not let him know what we’re doing.”
Something about him using the word we made her want to cry. She was capable of handling things on her own, but this problem was bigger than any she had ever tackled before, and she was scared. Knowing she had someone to count on, someone who would share the burden, somehow made it easier to carry.
“I’ve never had dealings with Sheriff Felps before. I thought it was because of tonight, but something about him just didn’t sit well with me,” she confessed. “I got the feeling that Chet felt the same.”
Cal nodded in agreement. “The fact that Chet waited until the sheriff was otherwise occupied to talk to us said a lot.”
“I hope I’m not wrong, but I like Chet Thompson. He seems like a decent man. But my opinion might be colored because he didn’t let Hank’s charm sway him.”
Cal’s lips split into a wide grin, though it didn’t last. “That’s understandable. I admit that I’m not sure about Hank. I’ve known him for a long time, but as Chet pointed out this morning, people change. I’ve not seen or spoken with Hank in over a year. A lot could’ve happened.”
“Or he may have always hidden the man he really is.”
“More often than not, people pretend to be things they aren’t, so that wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Are you pretending?” Dillon was surprised that the words had fallen from her lips, but she was glad that she had voiced them.
Cal’s face was serious. “I’m not. It’s an exhausting way of life that I don’t have any use for. I’m a simple man.”
There was absolutely nothing simple about Cal, but she decided to keep that thought to herself. All Dillon could do was hope that her gut wasn’t wrong about him. She decided to change the subject. “Where do you think we should start tomorrow?”
“Hank wanted the ranch badly enough to offer double what it’s worth. I say we find out what it is about this land that interests him so much.”
“Dolly had an oil company drill in a couple of places to see if there was oil, but they found nothing.”
Cal twisted his lips. “There could be a lot more in the ground that you don’t know about. Did your aunt get mineral rights to her property?”
“Actually, she did. Anything belowground on the Bar 4 is hers—I mean, mine,” Dillon corrected.
“Then we have a place to start.”
Dillon covered her mouth to hide her yawn.
“You should get some rest,” Cal told her. “We’ll figure things out in the morning.”
She nodded, smiling. “Good night.”
“’Night,” he replied.
Dillon turned and walked to the stairs. When she reached them, she looked back into the living room and halted at the sight of Cal removing his shirt.
He had a couple of scars on his back. When he shifted to the side, she saw another long, jagged scar running from beneath his armpit before curving toward his abdomen.
The muscles bunched and moved as he unbuckled his belt.
Her eyes took in the wide shoulders down to his waist. When he sat to remove his boots, she inwardly shook herself.
She had never spied on a man removing his clothes before.
Appalled at her behavior, she silently continued up the stairs to her bedroom.
Once she changed clothes and slipped between the covers, she found herself staring at the ceiling, thinking about Cal shirtless. She wished she had gotten a view of his front. If his back was that corded with muscle, she could only imagine what his chest looked like.
Dillon put an arm on her forehead as her thoughts swirled around Cal. She didn’t want to think how things might have gone the past few days without him. Whatever had brought him to the ranch, she was grateful.
The little bit of happiness those thoughts conjured quickly evaporated as she recalled the sound of the shot and the breaking of the kitchen window.
She was certain that it would’ve hit her dead center had she not shifted as she poured the club soda.
That was enough to scare her as nothing else had before.
She hadn’t let the first attempt on her life stop her from doing normal things, but this changed things.
Cal had saved her the first time. Only a shift in her stance had saved her this time.
Would anything or anyone save her a third time?
She wasn’t so sure she would have such luck.
But she couldn’t live in a bubble, either.
The only way to stop this was to get answers—though she suspected that getting those answers might be just as dangerous.