Home on the Ranch: Oklahoma: Defending the Rancher's Daughter / The Rancher Bodyguard. Carla Cassidy
he offered, although he was feeling a bit cranky himself. “Neither one of us got a good night’s sleep.”
A knock on the front door interrupted the conversation.
She opened it to Sonny, whose features showed the same worry Jake’s had worn. “I’m ashamed to say I slept through the excitement last night,” he said, a hangdog expression on his face.
Kate placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Sonny. All’s well that ends well. The men from the bunkhouse rose to the alarm and thankfully managed to put out the fire before I got cooked.”
“Hell of a thing,” Sonny said, and shook his head. “The sheriff and Chief Norval spoke to all the men about the fire,” he said. “I just want you to know that I can’t imagine one of my men being responsible for something like that.”
“I know. I don’t want to think that one of our men could be responsible,” Katie replied.
As the two spoke about what needed to be done for the day, Zack watched the old man carefully, knowing that from this moment on every single person in Katie’s life was a potential suspect.
Still, it was difficult to think of Sonny as a viable suspect. The man had worked for Gray for years, had been a trusted right-hand man to Katie’s father. That didn’t let him off the hook entirely, but as far as Zack was concerned, there were others of more interest.
He thought about Jake. It was obvious the man desperately wanted a relationship with Katie. Was it possible the handsome face hid a devious mind?
Was it possible he’d killed Gray to get closer to Katie? Then had set the fire and planned to be the hero? As Zack remembered the night’s events, Jake had been only a step behind him in getting through the front door and into Katie’s bedroom.
Was it possible Brett Cook, who had been fired and rehired by Gray more than once, harbored such a hatred for his boss that killing him hadn’t been enough? His hatred demanded more…the death of Gray’s daughter?
Zack had nothing but speculation and even he recognized that this kind of speculation was wild and that he was reaching for answers. The truth of the matter was, he didn’t have enough information on which to base any speculation.
When Sonny and Katie had concluded their conversation, Sonny left and Zack was once again alone with her. “I want you to lock the front door and don’t let anyone inside. I’ll work on the house and keep an eye on the men. Later this afternoon we’ll figure out where we go from here.”
He left her inside and went out to join the men. Besides the cowboys who had been his bunk mates for part of the night, there were others, as well.
Sonny introduced him to the five men who lived in town but worked the ranch each day. As Zack took stock of each of them he thought how much easier life would be if the homicidal tendencies in some men’s hearts shone visibly from their eyes. Unfortunately, killers rarely wore their mask of evil on the outside.
The work on the house went on through the morning. Zack worked beside the others, not talking but listening to the conversations swirling around him. Later he would make notes of his impressions of each of the men who worked for Katie.
Zack had worked as a professional bodyguard for the family business since the time he was twenty-one years old. He knew through experience that much of the personal protection business wasn’t just about muscle and guns, but rather crawling into the mind of a suspect and keeping logs and notes about those who might be potential suspects.
He welcomed the physical labor that made it difficult to think about Katie in that skimpy nightgown, Katie in his T-shirt, Katie in his arms. His sleep the night before had been almost nonexistent as he lay on the sofa with thoughts of Katie filling his head.
At noon Doc Edward’s lumbering van pulled up. The middle-aged veterinarian greeted all the men like old friends.
“Zack, I heard through the grapevine that you’d taken up ranch work,” he said.
Zack nodded. “Got tired of the family business and all the traveling I was having to do for that job.” He was aware of Jake standing nearby, eavesdropping on the conversation. “I got a hankering for the smell of hay and the feel of a few calluses on my palms.”
Mark Edwards smiled. “Nothing like a little physical labor and ranch life to set a man’s world right.” He looked at the new plywood on the side of the house. “What’s all this?”
“Had a little trouble last night. Seems we’ve got a firebug in the area.”
Edwards frowned. “Kate okay?”
“She’s fine,” he replied.
A small smile curved the vet’s lips. “I’ll bet she’s madder than a wet hen. Kate’s never been one to let somebody step on her toes without stepping back. I know that from the town council meetings.”
Anything else he might have said was cut short by Sonny, who motioned toward him. “Well, I’d better get to work. It will take most of the afternoon to tag the cattle.”
As Zack got back to work with the rest of the men, Mark’s words played and replayed in his head. Obviously the temper he remembered Katie possessing was still there, she just hadn’t displayed it to him yet. But apparently she’d displayed it to others.
Now all he had to figure out was if Gray had died because he had made somebody mad at him or if perhaps he’d died because Katie had made somebody mad as hell at her.
* * *
Kate sat at the kitchen table, listening to the washing machine agitate, her thoughts doing the same thing. She wanted to be outside, watching the cattle being tagged, overseeing the day’s activities and interacting with the men.
But she knew she’d be too stupid to live if she just arbitrarily decided to go about her business as usual knowing that somebody had tried to kill her the night before.
So she had to be content following Zack’s rules, remaining in the house alone while life went on as usual around her.
She spent the morning doing loads of laundry. While the washing machine washed and the dryer dried, she sat at the kitchen table making a list of things she wanted to do when life returned to normal.
Mostly it was a list of chores, things that had needed to be done for the past several years but had never been accomplished. The spare bedroom needed to be repainted, the root cellar on the side of the house needed to be cleaned out and she needed to pack up her father’s clothing and donate it to one of the charities in town.
Her heart ached as she thought of this particular task. It would be the final goodbye to the father she had never really felt had given her the respect she’d hungered for, the unconditional love she’d sought from him all her life.
By noon she had changed out of the clothes she’d borrowed from Zack and into one of the newly washed sundresses that had been hanging in her closet.
As she sipped a glass of iced tea she thought about what Zack had said about Jake. Even though she had feigned ignorance of Jake’s obvious interest in her, she’d been aware of the cowboy’s subtle overtures of romance.
Jake was handsome and nice and most any girl would probably be pleased to catch his eye, but Kate wasn’t any girl. There was no electricity when Jake gazed at her, no tingles of pleasure or excitement when he touched her. There was no breathless anticipation when he came near.
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