The Colton Ransom (7 page)

Dylan needed to hear about her murder from someone who felt the event was more than just an antiseptic occurrence that had nothing to do with his actual life.

Dylan, who some on the staff viewed and referred to as an animal whisperer, was currently working at the rodeo for some extra money. For the most part, though, he worked on the ranch, handling the horses and doing whatever needed being done.

Turning his back on Gabby, Trevor strode out of the living room.

The moment he did, Gabby immediately followed him. Since the area was still crowded with people, she only managed to catch up to him just at the front door.

Trevor spared her a look that would have frosted most people’s toes. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked icily.

He sounds so angry,
she thought. Not that she blamed him, but she still wished he wouldn’t glare at her like that. She hadn’t put Avery in harm’s way on purpose. It was a horrible accident.

“With you,” she answered.

“Oh, no, you’re not,” he cried. “You’re staying here,” he ordered, waving his hand around the foyer, as if a little bit of magic was all that was needed to transform the situation.

Stubbornly, Gabby held her ground, surprising Trevor even though he gave no indication. “You’re going to need help,” she insisted.

Not if it meant taking help from her, he thought.

“No, I am not,” he replied tersely, being just as stubborn as she was.

She threw in her only card. “I’m willing to do anything you need me to.”

He shook his head, a sliver of a smile rising to his lips despite the dire situation haunting him. “Do you have
any
idea what kind of a leading statement you just uttered?”

She could feel heat climbing up her cheeks—God, but she really did hate being so fair.

“I’m talking to you. I figure you’ll take it in the spirit it was said,” she told him. “No matter what you say, you’re a true gentleman.”

Whether she meant that as a terrible future curse or a rare compliment, he didn’t know.

Even though she shackled him with her innocence, he still frowned at her. “I’ve got to find my daughter. I don’t have time to babysit you.”

“Nobody’s asking you to. I can be a help. I
can,
” she insisted when he looked at her unconvinced. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“To the rodeo.”

That didn’t make any sense. Unless... “You have a lead?” she asked, lowering her voice.

“I’m going to see Dylan and tell him his mother’s dead,” he informed her. “That’s not a lead—that’s a death sentence for his soul. You still want to come along?” he asked mockingly. Trevor was rather certain that his self-appointed task would make her back off.

Trevor was too direct and someone needed to soften the blow a little. Gabby figured she was elected. “Yes, I do,” she replied firmly, managing to take the man completely by surprise.

Chapter 6

T
revor looked at the tall, willowy redhead for a long moment, wondering what sort of angle the youngest of the Colton sisters was playing.

But as one moment stretched into another, it began to dawn on him that Gabriella Colton wasn’t playing
any
angle. She really did just want to help. He supposed that it went hand in hand with her do-gooder attitude.

Either that, or she thought that, somehow, coming along with him in order to tell Dylan what had happened to his mother would make her feel less guilty that Avery had been kidnapped.

They both knew it wouldn’t.

“This isn’t something you can just stick a Band-Aid on,” he told her grimly.

The news was going to be hard enough to break—and hard enough to take. He doubted that Dylan was going to want an audience around when he found out about his mother’s murder, even if that audience had a familiar face.

“I wasn’t planning to ‘stick a Band-Aid on it,’” she informed him. For a second, he saw sparks in her green eyes, but then after a moment they faded. If she experienced a flare of temper, she had it sufficiently under control. “I just thought he might want some sympathy, and frankly,” she told him honestly, “I’m not really sure that you’re capable of giving it to him right now.”

Trevor scowled at her, thinking she was making a snide reference to his distant attitude. Where the hell did she get off, passing judgment on him like that? “And why’s that?” he asked.

Did she have to spell it out for him—or was he just trying to rub her nose in it again? How many different ways could she tell him she was sorry? “Because you’re dealing with your own problem right now, with having your daughter kidnapped and trying to get her back.”

“And just what’s in this for you?” Trevor pressed. “Dispense a little sympathy, feel good about yourself? Is that how it works?”

Was this making him feel better? she couldn’t help wondering. Did he get some sort of relief by making her feel even guiltier than she already did? Did he actually
need
to hear her say how sorry she was and how bad she felt again?

Okay, Gabby decided, so be it. “Right now, I feel very responsible for what’s happened to Avery, so no, this isn’t to make me feel good about myself. That’s not going to happen until we get Avery back and probably not even then. But I can certainly show a man who’s just lost his mother some compassion.”

“And I can’t?” he asked darkly.

They had come full circle. Gabby raised her head, refusing to look away. Refusing to show Trevor that he was unnerving her. “No offense, but no, you can’t.”

He’d expected her to crumble under the weight of his anger—and his terror for the little baby he’d barely got to know. Trevor felt renewed respect. “I’m as compassionate as the next guy.”

“Possibly,” Gabby allowed. “If the ‘next guy’ happens to be a robot.” When her assessment of the limitations of his compassion earned her a glare, she told the somber-faced head of security, “Sorry, but that’s how I see it. You’re a lot of things, Trevor Garth, and you have a great many things going for you, but you do
not
ooze compassion, no matter what you think to the contrary. If my being there can help Dylan cope with the news even a little bit better, then I’m going with you—and you really can’t stop me.”

There was no room for argument on this with her. She obviously intended to remain firm.

Trevor shrugged, not about to waste his time or his breath. She was, after all, one of the boss’s daughters. “Suit yourself,” he told her in a voice that couldn’t have sounded more disinterested.

But silently, Trevor had to admit to himself that he really did like her spirit. That’s twice she’d gone up against him and defied his instructions. Twice they’d gone head to head and she hadn’t backed off. A woman like that bore watching—and from where he was standing, that wasn’t exactly a hardship to undertake.

Focusing back on Dylan and the news he was bringing to the man, Trevor quickened his pace to his truck. He wanted to get this over with even as he was dreading the actual interaction.

* * *

The relatively short trip from the ranch to the site of the rodeo was made that much longer by the silence within the hub of the truck. Silence that seemed to somehow elongate the miles and the time spent driving them. But finally, they arrived at the rodeo grounds.

Without a show or any competition going on, the area appeared almost eerily deserted.

“Where is everyone?” Gabby murmured, looking around.

He could feel Gabby tensing up beside him in the 4x4. “Told you not to come,” he said, interpreting her body language. The woman must be having second thoughts. And he couldn’t blame her one bit. He dreaded every bit of this investigation—and what they would find at the end.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she informed him, dismissing his implication. What they were about to do had nothing to do with the way she felt. He had no way of knowing why she was reacting to her surroundings this way.

He didn’t believe her, but out of curiosity to see just how far she was willing to go in order to sustain a lie, he asked, “Then what does?”

Her answer wasn’t what he expected.

“This rodeo.” With no people milling around, the rodeo was stripped down to its lowest level, like an aging, once beautiful prom queen whose makeup had faded and was badly in need of a touch-up. “I really hate rodeos.”

Trevor laughed, thinking she was making some kind of a lame joke. When he realized she was serious, he looked at her skeptically. “That’s almost un-American.”

It was her turn to shrug carelessly.

He took it to mean that she wasn’t bothered by the label he’d temporarily affixed to her.

“Why do you hate rodeos?” he asked.

His tone demanded an answer and did not allow her to ignore the question. So she didn’t. It had happened five years ago, anyway—just before he came to be their head of security. “Because Kyle Buchanan, after stealing my heart, decided to leave me for the rodeo.”

The confession, coming the way it did, caught him by surprise. “Kyle Buchanan,” he repeated, then guessed, “Your boyfriend?”

She studied a black mark on his dashboard before answering. “My first.”

Trevor snorted dismissively at the information. “Thought you’d have better taste than to get involved with some guy who didn’t have a brain.”

It took Gabby a beat to realize just what her father’s head of security was saying to her. That in his own way, Trevor Garth was actually paying her a compliment. Still, she could feel herself growing defensive over his tone.

“You don’t pick who you fall in love with,” she told him.

“Maybe not,” Trevor allowed in an off-handed manner. “But you can either choose
not
to fall in love or to follow through with it.”

Before she could find her tongue to take a stab at a coherent answer, Trevor had got out of the truck and called out to one of the rodeo clowns he spotted leaving the grounds. The man was still in partial makeup.

The clown stopped walking and Trevor crossed over to him.

“You seen Dylan Frick around?” he asked the other man.

Recognition filled the clown’s brown eyes and his expression beneath the crimson makeup softened. “You mean Doc?” he asked.

“Doc?” Trevor repeated, slightly confused. “He’s not a vet,” he told the clown. “The guy I’m looking for works with the animals, horses mostly. Kinda has a way with them,” he added.

Around the ranch, some of the hands referred to Dylan as a horse whisperer, someone who could almost get into a horse’s mind, understand the way the animal thought and somehow manage to get them to do whatever he wanted them to do. For the most part, he assumed that it was a good thing.

The clown nodded. “Yeah, that’s him. We call him Doc ’cause that’s short for Dr. Doolittle. He communicates with the animals,” he explained. Then, to prove his point, the clown told him a story. “He worked with a horse that had gone lame. Rest of us thought it was the glue factory for Wyoming Pride, but not Doc. He worked with that animal day and night, and damn if he didn’t get that stallion to high step proudly again. The rest of us at the rodeo just took to calling him ‘Doc.’ Seemed only fitting.”

Trevor wasn’t interested in stories or explanations; he just wanted to get this part over with.

“Well, do you know where I can find Doc?” he pressed impatiently.

“Not sure,” the clown answered honestly. “But if he’s not working, he’d be in that trailer over there.” The man pointed out one that was parked close to a corral. Some of the horses were being kept there for the next series of events once the rodeo was under way again later that day.

Trevor merely nodded as he strode away.

“Thank you,” Gabby called after the clown before she hurried to follow Trevor to the trailer.

Trevor turned to look at her, raising one quizzical eyebrow. Why had she thanked the clown?
She
hadn’t talked to the man—he had.

Gabby could almost read the thoughts going through his head. “You should have thanked him,” she told Trevor simply.

Now she was telling him what to do? “What are you, the etiquette police?”

She bristled at the sarcasm she perceived in his voice. But she was also beginning to understand that it was his defense mechanism, his way of surviving the ugliness he saw around him. He had to be deeply upset over his daughter’s disappearance.

“I just believe in treating people nicely,” she told him. “You know, follow the Golden Rule, that kind of thing.”

He laughed again, shaking his head. “Yeah, how’s that working out for you?”

“It’s working out,” she said automatically, then, because she was truthful, she added, “Sometimes.”

He laughed shortly under his breath. Half of him, he had to admit, was amused and just a little impressed by her attitude. He couldn’t help wondering what it would take to actually completely daunt this woman.

A part of him hoped that neither one of them would ever find out the answer to that unspoken question.

Glancing toward her again, he saw that he actually had to look over his shoulder. She was struggling to keep up with him. He knew he should keep going. With luck, she’d finally give up and go back to the truck to wait for him.

But even as he entertained the thought, he caught himself slowing down just enough for Gabby to catch up. She was abreast of him just as he reached the trailer door.

He raised a hand to knock on the trailer door. His eyes stole a glance in her direction. “Last chance,” he told her.

Gabby knew the security head was referring to her backing away from the scene that lay ahead.

But this was going to be difficult for him, and she didn’t want to leave him in a lurch. She was beginning to realize that beneath all that bluster and those scowls, there was a decent man who was just as capable of being hurt as she was.

And after all, the man was already dealing with having his daughter abducted. If she could help in any way, even minimally, she wasn’t about to back off just because this was going to make her uncomfortable.

Despite her appearance, it wasn’t as if she were exactly fragile, about to break at the slightest bit of jostling. Dealing with her father as well as the troubled teens she was determined to save, she’d managed to develop if not a really thick skin, at least one that didn’t just dissolve at the first sign of adversity or a confrontation.

“Just knock,” she instructed. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Stubborn,” he muttered under his breath. Trevor told himself that he was glad she wasn’t his headache on a regular basis.

She heard him mutter the word clearly meant for her and smiled to herself. “Yes, I am,” she answered cheerfully.

“You’ve got big ears, too,” he told her as he knocked on the trailer door.

Gabby was unfazed by the assessment. “I hear what I have to.”

If he was about to comment on her reply, Trevor never got a chance to because, just then, the trailer door started to open.

Before it had opened up fully, Dylan was already talking. It was obvious that he was expecting someone else to show up at his door.

“I already told you, you’re going to have to rest that bronco for at least today, maybe tomorrow— Oh.” Dylan grinned at the two people he recognized in front of his door. He took his error in stride. “Sorry, I thought you were one of the cowboys I talked to earlier. Sometimes I think all that bronco busting rattles their brains. Even an eight-second ride is too much for them.

“C’mon in,” Dylan invited, waving them in and stepping back so that they could enter the small, rather messy trailer.

When they did, Dylan looked at the faces of the two people who had just walked into his “home away from home.” It was hard to say whose face looked grimmer. His smile faded away as he appeared to brace himself.

“Why are you both here?” he asked. Not giving them a chance to answer, Dylan followed up his first question with another one. “What’s wrong?”

He turned toward the man who had been raised with him. They weren’t exactly close, and they didn’t really hang out together, but at bottom, because the same woman had been there for both of them, there was a bond between them that couldn’t quite be dissected—or denied.

“Trevor? What’s going on?” Dylan asked, more urgently this time. He could feel a nameless fear forming inside him, threatening to squeeze his insides until he couldn’t breathe at all, much less breathe right.

“It’s your mom,” Trevor began awkwardly.

Dylan looked even more apprehensive than before, if that was possible. “What about Mom? Is she okay?”

All sorts of half-formed scenarios began to flash through his head. Faye Frick wasn’t the type of woman to complain, even if she were in pain or suffering through some family crisis that severely upset her, at least on the inside. The outside always appeared to be cool, controlled, so he never knew how things actually stood with his mother.

To his utmost admiration, his mother always just seemed to forge on. It was her way because people always needed her. She was always in demand. And he had always been proud of her.